On being a partner, not a wife

Having been with my partner for almost 12 years now, I can honestly say intimate relationships are great. They are not without their ups and downs, of course, and certainly not without considerable effort from both parties, but, ultimately we have the same rights as married couples (having lived together for 3 years) and we, to a large extent, live the same sort of life as a married couple (whatever that might involve..). So it’s all pretty sweet really, as one half of a hetero, de facto couple. Except for dealing with society’s reactions to our relationship status. And by society I mean family, friends, colleagues and anyone else who thinks it’s their business. So, in this blog post, I make the issue of de facto relationships your business, because the one thing I’ve found increasingly irritating over the last nearly-12 years is society’s perceptions of people in de facto relationships and I do feel the need to discuss this topic. I will briefly outline what has irked me and why it’s irked me. Yes, this is not teaching-related, but it’s the holidays, so indulge me.

But every little girl wants to be a princess!

Right from the point where my partner and I realised we wanted to stay together, we decided we didn’t want to get married (for many, many reasons, but that’s a whole other blog post/10,000 word essay). So, the first annoying comments I remember were in response to me politely saying we wouldn’t ever get married. “Oh you’ll change your mind when you’re older”, “but everyone wants to get married!” and “are you scared of commitment?” were commonly directed at us (me in particular, being the female half of the couple, and obviously some sort of freak). Well, no I haven’t, and no I didn’t, and no I’m not. We’d made a decision to stay together but not to get married; this decision undoubtedly involved some/a lot of thought, discussion and commitment, so surely it shouldn’t be met with disbelieving or condescending comments. I mean, how rude and stupid would it be if someone announced their engagement and I was all, “Oh, you’ll change your mind in the next 6 months”..? Fortunately, most of my harassers have given up on this tack, which is just as well because I couldn’t handle a lifetime of it.

Won’t somebody please think of the children!

The second annoyance is possibly the most offensive:

“But what about when you have children?!”

Er, yeah…what about it? Firstly, that’s a massive assumption in itself, but how would not being married actually affect the children? That’s my response question. Very few people answer. The few answers have gone something like this: “But how will you choose whose surname they get?” and/or “They might get bullied at school”. On reflection, these are responses are rather amusing, if offensive. Choosing a surname for a child is not going to be the biggest challenge of parenting. I mean, they can have one, or the other, or both. And if they don’t like one, or the other, or both, they can change it when they reach 18. And whilst bullying in itself is definitely a concern, I doubt that ‘unmarried parents’ is a pressing social issue in East Christchurch that leads to bullying in the school playgrounds. I live in a street surrounded by decile 1 and 2 schools; my future children (assuming I have any) are not going to be bullied because their parents aren’t married. And let it be noted that I’m not even convinced that children are bullied for such pathetically upper-middle class reasons, but if they are, and if I lived in a more affluent area, I wouldn’t ever send my children to such a school – any school that couldn’t deal with such things would no doubt be both elitist and negligent. Also, bullying of any sort is unacceptable, not just bullying because of parental relationship status.

And now for the more minor quibbles I have with people’s assumptions and attitudes about defacto relationships. These tend to be more semantic, but still have a veneer of sexism/hierarchy…

It’s hard to explain this one without revealing names, so I’ll use pseudonyms instead. The de facto couple (my partner and I) are named Mr Stripey Tiger and Ms Spotty Leopard, respectively. As Ms S. Leopard, I receive at least one phone call a week (often from telemarketers, although recently had one from EQC...just as well I was in a forgiving mood or I might never see any work done to my house) that goes like this:

Caller: “Hi, is that Mrs Tiger?”

Me: “No sorry, there is no Mrs Tiger at this house.”

Caller: “Oh, um…what about a Mr Leopard?”

Me: “No sorry, there is no Mr Leopard either.”

…and then…

Me (if I’m in a forgiving mood): “But there IS a Ms Leopard or a Mr Tiger here.”

Why on earth would anyone make the assumption that I’ve taken my partner’s name? We are not married and this is very clear in everything we do as individuals, and in all documentation, including the white pages! And even if we were married (which we never will be, but just to illustrate my point), who’s to say I’d take his name?! It’s not the freaking law that the woman has to take the man’s name. It’s not the 1950s any more; women are allowed to keep their original identities once they’ve been married (albeit that our surnames often come from our fathers, blergh). Ultimately, there never has been a ‘Mrs Tiger’, and there never will be!

“But ‘partner’ doesn’t sound very romantic.” OK, well, I like it, and isn’t that the main thing? To me, it implies a long-term, permanent relationship (unlike ‘girlfriend’ and ‘boyfriend’ which seems more temporary to me – I know some long-term partners who do use these terms though and that’s cool), it implies equality, and it doesn’t have the historical connotations that the words ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ have. I do suspect that some people (ie. homophobes) don’t like the word because they associate it with gay couples, although I doubt anyone I’m even vaguely close to would actually come out and say this to me. Most people know that prejudice is up there with war, the term ‘PC’, and Tony Blair, on my list of ‘things I hate’.

So other than the above (and most likely a few other social annoyances I can’t think of right now as I write this…), de facto partnerships are pretty sweet. So come on society, show us a little respect!

It was to be a post-election, post-marking dissection, but I'm way too tired and munted to not write a post....

So the election results were predictably horrid; why on earth anyone living in a household earning under $100,000 a year would vote for National is beyond me... But I know that electorates and countries swing back and forth between the left and the right, and that turnout was low, and I know that an ‘attractive’ personality is pretty important to many people, and that national disasters and World Cups can have interesting effects on the general populace’s voting behaviour, so I can accept the results, as vomitous as they might be. But I must admit, I didn’t anticipate the recent announcement that the government is keen to give charter schools a go; I have been anticipating National Standards at years 9 and 10, as well as pay disputes, resourcing cuts etc. etc….but oh how generous I was with my expectations of the Nat/Banks/Dunne government; they are obviously much meaner than I could ever have imagined.

I was planning to wait until I’d finished my marking before I made another blog post, but I’m there’s some scary stuff being proposed by the government. So, instead of dissecting the bollocks that was the election results and the horrors of marking hundreds of papers in a short space of time, I’m simply going to make a quick post centered around why charter schools are not a good idea. In fact, I’m not even going to discuss much, as my two cents is really more like 0.002 cents because so much has been said by teachers, principals and the general public over the last 24 hours or so. I guess I’m more spreading the word in this post, than creating it.

Charter schools are, to summarise, private schools that are state-funded yet have the freedom to teach their own curriculum and hire and pay teachers based on their own standards. They can be started by any community group, including businesses, and they’re allowed to raise funds however they want. There’s been a lot of good discussion amongst my friends, and their friends, on Facebook about how they work and how (in)effective they are, so I’m reluctant to explain things when someone else can do it so much better. So, check out these links:

Action:

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/92973/national-act-agree-to-adopt-controversial-us-school-model

Reaction and analysis:

http://gordoncampbell.scoop.co.nz/2011/12/06/gordon-campbell-on-charter-schools/

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/6096775/Unease-at-charter-school-trial-in-city

It can be argued that integrated schools in NZ are not entirely dissimilar to charter schools in terms of the amount of freedom they have to do whatever they want. But as far as I can tell, charter schools are yet another step along that path to a teacher-hating, student-mind-numbing path of ‘education’. And as a resident of East Christchurch, where Banks and Key want to ‘trial’ these schools, I’d have to say, the whole thing is scary and crazy, but not unpredictable in hindsight.

You don’t have to be a genius (whatever that might involve; I’m thinking it might involve being taking lots of IQ tests) to figure out that charter schools are not going to ‘fix’ low-performing schools in low socio-economic areas. You don’t have to be a genius to see how they could become severely corrupt institutions. But obviously, Trevor McIntyre, principal of Christchurch Boys’ High School and Thomas Proctor, principal of Christchurch Rudolph Steiner School believe that for-profit companies can provide a better education for people than the state can. I, as well as thousands of other education professionals up and down the country, seriously doubt that belief because there’s no real evidence to suggest it’s true: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10771435

So it’s a big BOOOOOOO to those two principals from me..

Anyway, I’m looking forward to my next PPTA meeting. I trust my union to fight this rubbish and I urge everyone to be ready for a fight (although the whole thing seems so ridiculous, I know…). I encourage any new and/or non-member teachers to join the union. Interesting times are ahead.

Also, I strongly recommend at this point watching episode 19, season 6 of The Simpsons (‘Lisa’s Wedding’), again, for light relief. There’s a Simpsons line for every occasion and a Simpsons line always lightens the mood. I fear I may be watching that episode (amongst numerous other scenes set in Springfield Elementary School) over and over again for at least the next three years… No change there then…

Election ‘11

 

I’ve wanted to write a blog post for a while, but I’ve ummmed and ahhhed (sp?) over what to make a post about. Election years are always really interesting and crazy. An election year after various natural (and in some cases, ‘human-made’) disasters, and a home-country Rugby World Cup win are even crazier. But, the various things that have concerned me this past month have, on the whole, not been about teaching, nor earthquakes, and certainly not about rugby. What has concerned me most is jobs, or lack thereof (paid ones I mean; unpaid work is a whole other issue). The rebuild of Christchurch is also very high up there (particularly east Christchurch), but this blog post will be about jobs.

At my school this year, a CAPNA was narrowly avoided. Nonetheless, the financial squeeze will be felt in my school next year, as there will be both bigger classes and less classes to teach. This, of course, affects non-permanent staff, both teaching and non-teaching. Some of my colleagues are now furiously looking for work. I have family also looking for work right now – in fact, they’ve been looking furiously for three months. I also have numerous friends and acquaintances furiously looking for work right now. I have friends who will be finishing their study soon, and will furiously begin looking for work within the next few months. I feel like I’m surrounded by people looking for work (furiously, I might add). This is the first time in a long time that I have known finding work to be so difficult for so many people.

Times are tough; people want to work, they want to be able to provide for themselves and their families, but there just aren’t enough jobs. Aotearoa/New Zealand hasn’t had such a high rate of unemployment for such a long time, and unemployment has been well over 6% all year. So what is the National government doing to help the jobless? Not a lot, as far as I can tell. And what saddens me, is that there’s been an awful lot of ‘kick-‘em-while-they’re-down’-beneficiary bashing rhetoric being bandied around by the Nats, by the media and by the general public. Not that I’m surprised, per se - the Nats hate the poor. But the scary thing is that this nasty rhetoric will most likely turn into policy under National after this election.

So, I guess when I’m voting this election, jobs is one of the things on the top of my mind. I want my friends and family and colleagues and acquaintances who are looking for work to find paid jobs, soon – they desperately need the income (not that every job necessarily pays a decent amount, but lets assume that it should/hope that it does) and they need to feel wanted and worthy (again, not that a paying job necessarily does this, but let’s make the assumption that it should/hope that it does). Not having a job when you really want a job is a horrible situation to be in. I never want to be in that situation again. I guess, though, at some point in my life, it’s very possible that I will be. But for now, I work on in my job. I do not take my good fortune for granted.

And whilst Anne Tolley is a horrid Minister of Education, she’s not actually as horrid as those who are in charge of social welfare, or of the country’s finances. I mean, she IS just as horrid as them, but the effects of her actions are much less punitive on teachers and students, as opposed to say, the actions of Paula Bennet and Bill English on people who are unemployed, or on very low wages (I realise I may regret saying this if National Standards are introduced to secondary schools…).

So, this election I won’t be voting National (duh, heh) because I want a government that has empathy for everyone, not just rich businessman. I want my family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances to find work soon, and I don't want them, or anyone for that matter, to be vilified whilst they are looking for work. And I really don't want three more years of a National government.

My two cents on class sizes

Class sizes are a hot topic right now. Kate Gainsford, PPTA President and teacher, wants class sizes to become at election issue. In contrast, Education Minister Ann Tolley, who has no real experience or understanding of education, just spouts off whatever John Hattie tells her, and unfortunately he has told her that class sizes aren’t a priority. This blog post will briefly explore why class size does matter and why governments should reduce class sizes for teachers. 

I know that John Hattie’s work has shown that reducing class sizes has minimal effect on the achievement outcomes of students. I do understand his research; it’s really interesting research, and I can actually relate on a personal level to his findings about class sizes because the two most challenging, stressful classes I ever taught had less than 20 students in each of them. But when Hattie looks at student achievement he doesn’t actually look at teacher welfare in relation to student achievement, and I do believe that taking teacher welfare into consideration is a fundamental aspect of a good education system.

Below are three major reasons why, in my opinion, class size does matter, and why classes in both primary and secondary schools should be capped at 25 students:

1)      Marking. A teacher who has 35 students compared to a teacher who has 25 students in their English class has a lot more marking to do. Marking takes time, so the larger the class, the more marking there is to do in each assessment. This means that teachers are less inclined to run assessments, such as formatives, and they are also more likely to spend their non-contacts and planning time (and evenings and weekends) marking, as opposed to planning. Ah assessment, you always seem to pop up in my blog posts, grrr.

2)      Feedback. Right at the top of Hattie’s effect sizes table is feedback; feedback is the most important factor in improving student achievement. But how good a quality feedback can a teacher actually give each student when they have five classes of 30-35 students? In a secondary school, period times are 50 minutes to an hour long. That’s not enough time to give students daily, individualised, verbal feedback. Similarly, there are only 24 hours in a day, and that’s not enough for the teachers of those classes to give high quality, written feedback for every student, every day because teachers have to eat and sleep and organise finances and families, just like everyone else. Having taught classes of both 35 and 20 (and everything in between), I can honestly say that I’m much more likely to be inclined to give quality feedback on a regular basis for a smaller-sized class.

3)      Last, but definitely not least: Teacher workload. Teachers are over-worked, so why do governments wish to make teacher workloads even bigger with even more students to educate and assess in each class? Do we actually want teachers to have mental breakdowns?! Do we really want to drive out people from the profession who are passionate about educating young people?!? Because when governments under-fund schools to the point where a school has 35 Year 13 students sitting in an English class, those amazing teachers who for so long have struggled so stay on top of their workload will go elsewhere for a job - possibly to a richer, more well-resourced (possibly private) school, where class sizes are smaller - or they will leave the profession, because there’s only so much stress a human body can actually take.

I know there are numerous other reasons why class sizes are important (for example, guaranteeing authenticity of students’ work for one – I realised this yesterday, whilst discussing plagiarism with lovely teacher friends; how likely are you to pick up on a student who has plagiarised their Level 3 research report when there are 35 students in your class? Less likely that if you have 20 students in the class… Also, which schools actually have classrooms with space for 35 desks? I bet there isn’t one school in the entire country with 35 computers in a computer lab…) and I could go on and on and on, but I won’t because super-lengthy blog posts are quite annoying and I believe in the art of being concise (heh).

So, there’s just a few reasons why class size counts. Obviously, Tolley has no empathy nor respect for teachers; Hattie possibly does but his research doesn't really show it, and Gainsford is working hard in the fight for both teachers and students.

I know who I won’t be voting for this election.

The Goss on NATional Standards

So, a little birdie told me that you-know-who is eager to introduce National Standards to Years 9 and 10. And by ‘a little birdie’ I mean a widely respected and renowned NZ educator who is only two degrees of separation away from she-who-must-not-be-named. When I heard this, I was gobsmacked and felt the scar on my forehead burn (actually, it was hot and had been in a 3-hour PD session in a small meeting room so I had a slight headache and the scar on my forehead didn’t actually hurt because the accident happened when I was 7…). And then I thought about it some more, and I thought, yeah, that sounds like Ann Tolley (shhhhh!!!), and I felt kinda head-achy.

In this blog-post, I’m going to explore the issue of National Standards, which were introduced to primary schools in 2010. I’m not going to explain how National Standards work, because it’s pretty straight-forward and you can find information here. Instead I will discuss whether or not National Standards would be useful and how they might function (dysfunction) in secondary schools.

As an ideal, National Standards are useful in the sense that they identify where a student is at and where they need to go next – and that’s what assessment is about, the ‘what next’ and the ‘how’. Having said that, e-asTTle does this very well already and is utilised by most primary schools and by an increasing number of secondary schools.

But the problems with National Standards are many and they are very complex. One problem is when children are compared to each other. For example, many children begin school being able to write their name, the alphabet, count and identify colours. Some children, however, do not (and there are a variety of reasons why this might happen). So no child enters on a level playing field and automatically students are labelled: ‘bright’, ‘gifted’, ‘talented’, or alternatively, ‘low-ability’, ‘challenged’, or ‘thick’ (yes, teachers still use that word). So, immediately, students and their parents are made to feel like crap. Awesome. Oh, and then these stats are used to create league tables, which ultimately means that schools will be compared against each other (not, funnily enough, against a ‘National Standard’.) And league tables suck, obviously.

Another major problem with National Standards is that they are assessment, not teaching and learning. And pouring money and resources into assessment doesn’t actually make better teachers, because assessing is not teaching, and although good assessment does provide teachers and students with good data on where to go next, it doesn’t mean that we all know how to get there. There’s nothing more irritating as a teacher than going to Professional Development on assessment (which, unfortunately, I seem to do an awful lot).

So, in a secondary school context, I shudder to think how National Standards might play out. Here are my predictions:

Firstly, it would cost a lot. All that money that could be spent on improving teaching and reducing class sizes would be spent on preparing teachers to do more assessment. And I think that’s a really stink way to spend money that’s allocated to improving teaching and learning.

Secondly, it would take up a lot of time. Every time there is a change in assessment practices e.g. Standards re-alignment ,we have to spend hours and hours attending PD to get us up to speed.  Fun? No. Useful? Only vaguely. Time-wasting? Yes. Obviously teachers are over-worked already.

Thirdly - how the hell would it actually work?!? Secondary schools students are taught in subject classes, with some exceptions in integrated classes and in alternative education (and I know there are lots of dumb assumptions about students in the way that secondary schools function, but I haven’t heard from a little birdie that Tolley’s going to overhaul the system completely). So, who’d be responsible for the literacy? I shudder to think. I know that all teachers are literacy teachers (because unless you don’t teach and assess student via the use of language, you are a literacy teacher) but I bet Anne Tolley doesn’t. Just the thought of adding more assessment to an English teacher’s workload makes me feel a little ill.

Fourthly, the beautiful thing about teaching Year 9 and 10 is the lack of formal assessment; it’s so great that we don’t have to hand back students their work with a big Achieved or Not Achieved on it (unfortunately, my school does do this and it sucks majorly and I am forever complaining about it to various members of middle and senior management, heh) – instead we assess them against the curriculum. We can actually treat them as individuals and plan lessons to cater for their needs, as opposed to planning programmes that they complete because they have to gain 18 credits in the subject or they won’t get NCEA level blah (I know we are not supposed to do this but let’s be honest about the role of assessment in secondary schools, eh – it’s really dominating).

Secondary schools don’t need more assessment imposed on them from above. So, I hope like hell that this rumour is simply a rumour and not going to eventuate in anything. I just wish we had the power to vanquish the Dark Lord that is Tolley; oh wait, we do - it’s called voting in the election...

Guess how long I took to teach Othello to my Year 13s this year? "Have a guess! Go on, have a guess! Just guess!!"/Derived grades can't fix this baby.

Whew! After my last blog post where I laid out my case for a new national holiday for New Zealanders (preferably somewhere in the area of term three), I must admit that the three snow days we had here in Christchurch were really not a good thing. It was quite good timing in one respect; I had family staying with me and it meant I could spend some quality time with them. In terms of teaching and learning, though, it was just another blow to an already beaten-up, lying-on-the-floor-whimpering year. Consequently, I’ve had to teach Othello in four and a half weeks; specifically, I’ve had to teach Othello in 16-and-a-half hours, now that we are down to five 45 minute periods a week for Year 13s. Funnily enough, I don’t think I taught it very well (although the discovery of an unabridged radio version with exciting, over-the-top sound effects was a real life-saver) and I am vaguely confident my class will be able to answer one of the essay questions in the practice exam next week.

Preparing students for national assessments is stressful at the best of times, but these practice exams are more important than any other practice exams have ever been for Christchurch students. This is because the students’ results are going to be used to produce ‘derived grades’, which is NZQA’s solution to the ‘earthquake affected schools’ issue. So, my students now have to do well in the practice exams AND in the final exams (as opposed to bumming around before the practice exams and then pulling finger just before the finals…). Well, actually, they just have to have a good bash at every paper in both exams to qualify – to get the credits for their papers they have to pass them in at least one of the exams. Then, the best grade for each paper out of the two exams will be used as their final grade (just FYI, my Year 12s and 13s have to complete four papers in three hours, which is a mission even when you have had an uninterrupted year of school). So, this is how it works: if a student gains a Merit in the practice exam for their Othello essay, but only Achieves in the final exam, then ‘Merit’ is their official NCEA mark. Alternatively, if they do not Achieve their essay in the practice exam but then Achieve in the final exam, then ‘Achieved’ is their official NCEA mark.

Initially, the kids were all, “SWEET!!!” and us teachers were all, “well, at least NZQA have given us all something to work with.” But then we all realised that actually, it’s not that sweet because the students now have really meaningful exams in less than five weeks and they are just a tad (*ahem*, just a tad = woefully) under-prepared. It also occurred to us that if there is (yet another) massive quake during the final exams then the students’ practice exam results will count as their final grades. Hmmmm…yeah...

So, it’s been freaking mental these past five weeks. All I can do now is cross my fingers and hope like hell that my students both study and attempt all the papers…and that there isn’t some brain-munting shake at 3:30am the night before the English exams…

The Dreaded Term Three

Term three is the crunch term in New Zealand secondary schools. It’s where the bulk of senior courses are more or less ‘wrapped up’ and then the students have to sit mock-exams. It’s always a long term; a 10-week ordeal with no public holidays whatsoever that begins in the depths of winter. It’s really hard slog. I’m two days in to the term and I have a tiredness headache already. And when I think about everything I have to get through this term – ugh! So daunting (so I thought I’d procrastinate by writing a blog post, heh). No need to mention how much I did in the ‘holidays’ either, eh…

So, I’d like to take this opportunity to comment on how few public holidays New Zealanders actually get. We have 11 this year – New Years Day, the day after New Years Day, Waitangi Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Anzac Day, Queen’s Birthday, Labour Day, Christmas Day and Boxing Day - plus each province gets its Anniversary holiday. Oh, and often, one or two fall on weekends so we don’t really get ‘em. That seems to happen an awful lot… Did you know that China gets 16 public holidays every year? And I’m damn sure that both England and Argentina have more than we do, having lived in both of these countries at some point in my life.

I would like to see the introduction of a new public holiday for New Zealanders later in the year, preferably in the region of term three. Why? Because all working New Zealander deserve an added day’s break between Queen’s Birthday, in early June, and Labour Day, in late October. That’s a reeeeeaaaaaaally long time with no public holiday. And I can’t deny that it would suit me perfectly too, as a teacher.

I propose that we celebrate the birth of Sir Edmund Hillary on the 20^th July. The 20^th July usually falls in term three (except for this year, due to the Grrrrrugby World Cup). Sir Edmund Hillary is a kiwi that everyone loves, and it’s always nice to celebrate something that we love; see how people enjoy Christmas more than Waitangi Day? Yeah. As an atheist grinch who actually believes that Te Tiriti is a valuable document, despite the fundamental flaws in translation, I find this a little weird. Don’t get me wrong – I love the day off, but I dislike all the mindless obligation and consumerism that comes with it. Yeah, bah humbug. Anyway, to re-iterate, I vote for Sir Edmund Hillary’s birthday as our new day of public rest. He is a well-respected New Zealander (because climbing a huge mountain is, well…I can’t deny that isn’t a great feat – a test of the human spirit, fitness, endurance etc., but is it actually, er, useful? Nonetheless) and we all work so bloody hard that I think we could do with one more. I’m confident that most New Zealanders would agree with me on that one. After all, statistics show we work long hours, for low wages (and that’s a whole other blog post that I will no doubt write at some point).

Having said all this, I am open to suggestions. If someone proposed making Matariki an official public holiday I would welcome it with open arms, even though it falls in term two, I think. The day of Muldoon’s death? Go for it! The 5^th August is perfect! I wouldn’t even mind if we had to make it something that we all pretended to respect (for example, Anzac Day with the old, “Lest we forget”; it’s all very well remembering how shitty and deadly war was but New Zealand governments - both National and Labour - keep sending troops into war zones…) because in the end, we all just need another holiday.

NZQA - making life even worse for Christchurch students since 2011

Even though I am a teacher, I do not believe in following rules simply because they exist. Conversely, even though I am not a ‘rules-person’, I do understand why we (that is, schools and society in general) have rules. However, I think it’s important to question the fairness of the rules and laws that exist, because not all rules and laws are fair, depending on whom they protect and whom they benefit. I am as eager as the next person for things to be fair. But when it comes to fairness, equality is not the same as equity. And I think this is something that is often not taken into consideration when rules are made. This concept is something that I think NZQA has no understanding of. This blog post will discuss the unfairness of NZQA’s recent decision to not make allowances for students sitting NCEA Levels 1-3 in Christchurch in 2011 by declining teacher requests to allow re-assessments for individual students in internal assessments. Sarcastic voice: Because, you know, a few massive earthquakes really isn’t that big a deal, doesn’t disadvantage Christchurch students in any way and therefore doesn’t warrant any exceptions…

NZQA is the body that sets and assesses all external assessments (exams) in New Zealand. They also manage the moderation of all internal assessments and set the rules around how internal assessments should be carried out in schools. Internal assessments are hardly run perfectly in schools (see my blog, two posts ago) and when a massive, destructive, deadly earthquake hits four weeks into term one of the school year, nothing is going to run perfectly. After losing three weeks of classes in February/April this year, secondary school teachers had to re-design courses and cut down the number of credits we offered our senior students, as teaching and learning time was lost and we simply could not cover the topics and assessments that we included in the original courses in the remaining time we had left.

Do I need to mention that early on in term two there was another couple of large earthquakes, and that we lost another week of teaching and learning time? In total, that’s a whole month of class time lost. And then there’s the destroyed schools and the site-sharing (I’ve also blogged about this previously). Site-sharing also means lost learning time, as periods have been shortened to accommodate two high schools using the premises that usually only one uses.

But the impact on students is much worse than that even. Many students lost more than just their school premises and resources and class time; they lost their home, their routines, their stability, their confidence, and in some cases, they lost people they knew and loved too. A significant number of the students that are attending site-sharing schools have been living in sub-standard conditions since February (no sewerage, minimal running water, constant power outages, roads like war-zones, spending over an hour travel time to get to school, leaving school in the dark etc). Some families moved away from Christchurch either temporarily or permanently - to Nelson, or Wellington, or Hamilton, or Auckland, or Dunedin. And you can’t blame them. It’s not pleasant living in a city that constantly shakes, a city with no CBD, and a city with schools sharing sites. Most families haven’t moved away though and their children continue to receive an education at the schools in Christchurch.

So, when secondary school teachers asked NZQA if they can relax the rules around internal re-assessments, I actually expected NZQA to say yes. The rule is that if a school (and usually, more specifically, a department) wishes to re-assess students in a Standard then all students must be offered the opportunity to sit the re-assessment. For example, the English department at School A teaches creative writing to Year 12 students in term one and then assesses them using Achievement Standard 2.1. For some reason many students under-perform, and so the school decides to offer a re-assessment opportunity for the entire cohort again in term three. This is because there were obvious gaps in the students’ writing skills and therefore they were unable to reach the Standard, and so the teachers go back and revise their teaching and fill in those gaps so the students are able to Achieve the Standard and consequently obtain University Entrance (which you get from NCEA Level 2 English). The idea, I guess, is that it’s not fair to offer some students a re-assessment opportunity but not others. I’m definitely not convinced by this reasoning, because it goes against the nature of standards-based assessment where you assess students when they are ready to be assessed (I’ve also examined this in a blog post…yikes, I discuss assessment a lot). Nonetheless, that’s just the way it is; but stupid rules are stupid rules and people are therefore going to question them.

To state the obvious, we are in a very different situation now to what we were in a year ago. Some students in Christchurch have been, relatively speaking, only minorly (why does this word not exist? ‘Majorly’ does, grrr) affected by the quakes – their houses are OK, they are OK, their families are OK, and apart from sharing school resources with another 1,500 students and putting up with the constant shakes, their lives have been fairly normal. Many of these students have continued to work hard on their studies and have Achieved credits from numerous internal assessments, despite the constant disruption. On the other hand, others have experienced some really distressing stuff that has undoubtedly had a huge impact on their ability to learn and to perform under pressure. (Teachers are in the same boat in that respect.) So, why, in a shortened year, in which student learning and achievement has been so severely affected in Christchurch, would we impose a re-assessment on an entire group of students? Why would we do that to them? And why would we do that to ourselves, as teachers? It would be cruel and stressful. Oh, and it’s just not actually possible in a site-sharing school that’s already had to cut learning and assessment time.

So, the question posed to NZQA (and it’s a damn good question) is: Why can’t we simply re-assess those students who need to be re-assessed?

NZQA denied requests by schools to allow re-assessment opportunities for individual students. And it makes my blood boil.

If you think about who will need to be re-assessed, it is most likely to be students who are on the cusp of passing NCEA Level 1, 2 or 3. It’s also quite likely to be students who suffered after the February and June quakes. It could well be a student who Not Achieved that 2.1 assessment, when it fact they should have easily Achieved, had things not gone awry via tectonic plate movement. Those students still need University Entrance. An even more specific example of a student like this might be: Student A – their family moved out of their house soon after 22 February because living in a house with no water and no sewerage was just not doable. They spent five weeks in Auckland before their family could find new accommodation in Christchurch. Another example might be: Student B lost a family member in the February quake and has had counselling three times a week for the last 6 months to help them through the trauma, thus further affecting their learning time and their assessment results.

And the same goes for students who wish to leave school. I know Anne Tolley expects all students to stay until the end of Year 12 and gain Level 2 NCEA but the system just doesn’t work for everyone and some students really struggle through Level 1 NCEA in Year 11. They then leave school and complete a practical course – like carpentry, or hairdressing - in a tertiary institution. Why should Student C, who is not particularly academically inclined and really just wants and needs to be out doing something meaningful to them, be denied the right to gain NCEA Level 1 when they have worked hard all year, despite the constant disruptions, and they are sitting on 77 credits – that’s only 3 credits away from attaining Level 1? How would letting Student C re-sit an assessment actually disadvantage Student D, who gained Level 1 with a total of 95 credits?

What is so unfair about supporting students to obtain the qualifications that they need, in a year that has proven to be most challenging?

Some people will argue that school is not everything – that, in fact, it doesn’t matter how well you did at school, that it’s not that important and it doesn’t define your life. I would say that that is true, to a certain extent. I was a pretty average student at high school, and my rather average grades have not held me back from what I’ve wanted to do. But a student who misses out on gaining NCEA Level 2 because of a natural disaster should not be held back and made to repeat a Level 2 course when they should be working through Level 3 in preparation for the numbers-restricted Creative Writing course they want to do the following year at University. Likewise, why would we want to keep students like Student C even longer in school than we have to, when they could re-sit an assessment they Not Achieved earlier in the year, Achieve the Standard, gain NCEA Level 1 and then go out into the big wide world? Do we want students to gain qualifications or not?!? You’d think not, from NZQA’s actions.

So, that’s a big BOOOOOOOOO to NZQA from me (and from many other teachers in Christchurch, I suspect). ‘Equality’ in the eyes of NZQA is not going to result in fair or equitable outcomes for the secondary students of this city. Our students have been, and will continue to be, disadvantaged by the situation here. And NZQA needs to get off it’s rule-making bottom, acquire some empathy and support the students and teachers of Christchurch.

Navel-gazing? Maybe. Productive? You bet :D

I wrote this post about 2 weeks ago and never posted it because I wasn’t sure if it was good enough….Anyway, there’s no way I’m going to be able to write anything as coherent now so I’m just gonna post it….

OK, so I attended some PD (Professional Development) last week (NB – ‘twas at least 2 weeks ago now), and a discussion arose about the Registered Teacher Criteria - this is the new criteria that semi-spurred me into creating this blog. To clarify, one of the criterion is that teachers are expected to demonstrate that they are actively reflecting on their own teaching practice. So I thought a blog would be a fun way to both reflect and prove that I’m doing so. Also, I’d wanted to start a blog for ages but couldn’t think what the hell to blog about - experts reckon you should blog about what you are passionate about - so the logical choice for me was to blog about teaching. Seemed pretty straight-forward to me. Anyway, one of the facilitators taking the PD commented that reflection needs to be productive and not simply “navel-gazing.”

Of course, I was insulted by this comment. And then I thought about it a bit more and realised that the facilitator was right. Kind of. I do need to act on (or react to) my reflections. It’s the whole inquiry cycle thing (see the NZ Curriculum). But when I teach a poor lesson, I reflect straight away. I don’t actually need to sit down and follow a template and/or write about it. I can see if the work I set my students was too hard immediately by the students’ behaviour; if the work is not achievable they will simply switch off…and begin talking…and texting…and being generally off-task … so I make sure that I am actually pitching the lesson at the right level(s) in my next class, as I don’t want a repeat of that rather unproductive, vaguely stressful lesson. Similarly, when students are bored, I can tell straight away - they don’t bother contributing, they have that glazed expression on their face, they slump over (and I have to tell them to “sit up”), or they might say (rather loudly, in my experience), “this is boring. I’m bored.” So it’s really not brain surgery, reflecting on the day to day teaching of your classes. No teacher wants a repeat of the lesson-from-hell, so we all do our best to avoid just that.

I must admit, I don’t really use this blog to reflect on the units I’ve taught – I know what’s worked well, based on student engagement and results. But I realise that reflection on taught units is something I need to document more carefully, and I will try to do this for the remainder of the year.

Interestingly, a significant proportion of my blog posts so far have been reflections on two aspects of my job; the systems (in particular, assessment) and the workload. So I have to wonder - why? Why do I blog about these issues so often? Well, because these are the two most challenging and stressful aspects of my job; managing the horrendously never-ending workload whilst trying to stay sane, and actually dealing with all the systems and procedures that come with teaching in a school and assessing senior students. And if it’s simply “navel-gazing” to critique the issues and faults in these areas of the job, then I’m all for navel-gazing…

I think it’s really important to reflect openly in public about these issues. True, I might not be able to act on them as quickly or efficiently as I would like to. (That’s not to say I don’t try though…I do almost pity some of my workmates who listen to me go on about the changes we need to make to things in preparation for next year…). Personally, I would like to see more democratic assessment procedures in my school for NCEA assessments in my subject. I would also like to see accurate terminology linked to the curriculum used when reporting to parents (verbally, as well as in written reports). I would like teachers to be able to leave their prejudices behind when they enter the classroom, in particular, when it comes to teaching the not-so-high-achieving students. I would like to see teacher’s salaries come into line with the importance of education in society. I would like to see pastoral care contact-time, such as form time, acknowledged in our pay. But I can’t actually change the system on my own, in one week. Or one month. Or one year. I can do my best to make those changes happen through the systems that we have in place and by building positive relationships with colleagues. I can work together with teachers to implement changes over time that make things fairer and better for both students and teachers. And I can reflect and discuss and work through the injustices I see in schools in writing on my blog, and then with my colleagues. In my opinion, reflection on schools’ systems are just as important as individual teacher reflections on their practice.

…that is all. EB is back and I have to write reports (somehow) so I possibly won’t post for a while. Unless something pops up that really irks me, heh.

What really pisses me off about NCEA

It’s only 2 weeks into the term and I am exhausted. Parent-teacher interviews in the middle of the week didn’t help and I’ve got more to go next week, plus an open night mid-term and then reports towards the end of term. But it’s not the workload or the tiredness that plunged me into (minor) depression today. No...it was assessment that did that.

NCEA is a pig. Don’t get me wrong - School C, 6^th Form Certificate and Bursary were pigs too. School C and Bursary were classist pigs that benefited the academic students from higher socio-economic backgrounds and 6^th form Certificate was a pig that benefited no-one, as far as I can tell…well, it possibly benefited students at schools who got ridiculously high School C marks the year before (again, most likely to be the students from more well-off families and/or schools), but I wouldn’t know as I didn’t go to such a school, and I’ve never assessed students using that ridiculous system, thankfully. NB: I usually defend NCEA as it’s definitely more democratic that the old system and I think it has the potential to actually be useful. But that potential is yet to be fulfilled, and I’m becoming more and more cynical in my views; I’m worried that we are never going to use NCEA like we should. Yes, there are many reasons to dislike NCEA – the workload for both students and teachers, and the rather vague marking schedules in my subject area, English, are just two very obvious examples. But instead, I’d like to evaluate our use of NCEA in relation to its purpose.

The purpose of standards-based assessment like NCEA is that the students are assessed when they are ready to be assessed in whatever areas of whatever subjects they are taking. Once they meet the Standard, this means that they have proven that they have certain skills at a certain level in that subject, and then they continue to build on these skills and work towards the next Standard. However long it takes them to do this is fine, because we all learn in different ways and at different speeds. So, standards-based assessment means that we can (could) actually have more freedom in creating teaching and assessment programmes to suit students’ needs, learning styles, abilities and interests.

But instead, we (and by ‘we’ I mean teachers, management and schools) lump a whole bunch of kids who are all roughly the same age into generic courses and make them all sit the same assessment at the same time. A fifteen and a half year old student who is reading and writing at curriculum level 6 sits the exact same NCEA Level 1 assessments as the fifteen and a half year old student who is reading and writing at curriculum level 4-5. Another example is: a seventeen and a half year old student who moved to New Zealand from a non-English speaking country four years ago and has good, but not excellent, English language skills sits the same NCEA Level 3 assessment as a seventeen and a half year old student who has lived their whole life in New Zealand and has an excellent command of the English language (I am well aware that many New Zealand students do not have an excellence command of the English language, but this is an example for the sake of my argument, and it’s a real one).

Now, imagine teaching a class of 25 students with a wide cross-section of students in terms of English language proficiency, ability and motivation. Imagine marking their NCEA assessment work. And now imagine handing it back to them. You can’t? Well, this is what it’s like for me: I must admit, I do really enjoy reading my students’ assessment work – they have cool ideas and often amusing and/or heartening opinions and it’s great to see what they’ve learned. But I hate marking their work. I hate having to grade it. NOT ACHIEVED, ACHIEVED, MERIT or EXCELLENCE. It seems so clinical, so harsh and, ultimately, so unhelpful. However, the bit I dread the most is the handing-it-back-to-the-students bit. I don’t want my students to feel bad. I don’t want to shatter their confidence. I don’t want to send them the message that, “it’s not good enough”, because I know that they tried their very best and what they did was indeed good enough for them. But I feel like this is what I do, no matter how carefully and respectfully I try to return their assessments to them. NCEA makes me a cruel, confidence-shattering, deliverer-of-bad-news. And that is super depressing.

I guess some might argue that at least all the students are on an “even-playing field” or something (disregarding social and economic inequality, of course). But wait… there’s more; did you know that there are huge variations between schools in the ways they run NCEA assessments? For example, once school in Auckland may give students four periods in which to draft, craft and edit a piece of creative writing in English. Then the students are allowed to take the work home and type it up on their computer and bring it back with their draft (to ensure authenticity). Sounds OK? Yup (it sounds horrid, I know, but it could be worse…wait for it…). In comparison, a school in Wellington might give students five periods in which to draft, craft, edit and publish a piece of work, but without the use of a computer. These students then get a ‘resub’ period in which they can fix up any errors that they can find in their work. Finally, a school in Christchurch gives students three periods in which to draft, craft, edit and publish a piece of work without a computer with no ‘resub’ period. Yes, some schools are undoubtedly eviler (heh) when it comes to assessment conditions for students, just like some teachers are much meaner to their students than others. Personally, I’d rather be a student in that Auckland school, or even the Wellington school, than the Christchurch one. So, assessment procedures and conditions are ultimately set by the school, which allows some flexibility (although it obviously means no consistency across the country).

I believe that New Zealand schools are essentially setting some kids up for failure via NCEA. And each school gets to do that in whichever way they like – through the courses they offer, through the assessment conditions they allow, or through a nasty combination of the two.

Some of my suggested solutions are:

• Schools need to create more courses within subjects to cater for the wide variety of abilities and interests amongst students. Differentiation is the key, not just in terms of teaching but also with regard to assessing.
• Students should be allowed to take more than one year to gain any Level of NCEA if that is what they need.
• We need to stop using NCEA like it is School C or Bursary. Those days are gone, and we should be thankful for that. (I still don’t know why the hell I only got 10/20 on my Close Reading answers in Bursary English, grrr.)

I’m sure I’ll think of more ways to fix this problem (for example, we could ditch all summative assessment completely and simply do formative assessment - after all, assessment should be about helping students to improve and grow, not collect grades and credits...I'd love that but I know 99% of teachers and parents wouldn't agree). But for now, in summary, I’ll just say: let’s use NCEA like it should be used!

It might actually be easier to create a website than a poster, these days...

Term two, back to school...and despite the impending doom I always feel those few days before, I must say that I LOVE MY CLASSES!! They are such a delight to teach. I don't know if this is just beginner's luck in my first year at this school in not getting any super-ropey students (I do have two bottom-stream/band classes though..), or if students at my new school are just particularly fantastic...but whatever it is, it just makes me LOVE TEACHING SO MUCH!!! :D

Okay, enough capitalisation for effect. My reflection this week is on the new Achievement Standard 1.7 - Create a visual text. 

There is so much potential for awesomeness with new new Standard (despite it being an assessment and assessment generally being not-so-awesome). Traditionally, students have created posters, i.e. 'Static Images', for this Standard. But the Standard has changed and now we have the potential to create lots of crazy and cool new things - websites, graphic novels (well, a chapter of one), dramatic presentations...having said that, this year the students at my school will create a Static Image. And this is where things get more difficult. The Standard has become harder to Achieve, now that it has become aligned with the Curriculum. (Why on earth didn't you align them in the first place, NZQA?! Why?!? Why?!?) In order to Achieve this year, students need to show 'developed ideas', as opposed to just 'straightfoward ideas' as in previous years in their Static Image. In order to Achieve, they have to do what Year 11 students had to do last year for Merit. And this means that there's a heck of a lot of teaching and learning and 'pushing up' of students that needs to be done for those kids who would usually simply Achieve the Standard (many of whom, incidentally, are not working at curriculum level 6...).

So, the way I'm planning this is that...First: I need to define what developed ideas are for the themes we looked at in our studied texts in my year 11 class, in relation to the Explanatory Notes in the Achievement Standard. This is the easiest place for me to start. (Why am I writing in future and/or present tense? I've done this already...)

Next: I will discuss with my co-Assitant HOD about how we go about scaffolding this task for the students. My suggestion will be...well, I'm thinking some sort of awesome template for the planning process that is easy to use for students. This template will start with the students identifying a straighforward idea in their chosen text. The template will then support the students in developing this idea. And then, finally, the template will help students translate this developed idea into a coherent visual image that utilises verbal and visual language features. This template is what I'm working on now (well, when I have time).

Yeah, so, that's all I have to say right now. Progress to be updated, I guess. It's really good to be able to write about actual teaching (albeit assessment) other than some stupid land tremor that almost destroyed me... :-)

Mush

Finally, the end of term has come! Wahooooooooo!!! I was sooo exhausted this week - taught a couple of really crap lessons as a result of not thinking hard enough when planning and also not really planning enough. I had at least one of those moments when I was all, "This'll do,"...and then twenty minutes into the lesson I noticed that my students eyes were rather glazed over and then I had to tell one of them to lift their head up, and some were having a convo about the weekend, and others were scrawling stuff in their diaries that was completely unrelated to English... Never mind - it won't kill their education (I hope). And it's reminded me, yet again, that IT'S ALL IN THE PLANNING.

What a term, eh. I began the year in a rather different environment, having started at a new school...all was going swimmingly then BANG massive earthquake hits and chaotic life ensues. And then school begins again, but with a significantly different structure. And the next thing I know it's week 11 (stupid, stupid, stupid Rugby World Cup) and I'm barely able to drag myself out of bed in the morning because I'm so bloody tired. In some ways, it felt like two terms and was two terms. Non-identical twi-terms. I shall name them Before and After. Before was a honeymoon; After was hard slog, although definitely satisfying in some ways.

Anyway, the holidays are here :-D which should give me just enough time to relax and then begin planning again for the next 11 week term...

I think I've now neglected posting on my blog for the longest period of time since I first started it. Funnily enough, this neglect has coincided with the last few weeks of an 11 week term and a rather huge pile of things to do before it finally ends.

I'd just like to take this opportunity to express my disgust that the school year for 2011 was re-jigged for reasons surrounding the Rugby World Cup. I have ranted about it many times, and heard many many teachers rant about it , but now I'm teaching week 11 and I'm all, whoa this is really stupid. I can't even be bothered explaining why it's so stupid as it all seems so obvious, plus I'm bloody exhausted.

And a final thought - the government sucks. Like, sooooooooooooooooooooo much. They are poor-people hating, state-school-hating, teacher-hating, self-serving businessmen.

Age does not necessarily mean resilience

I've spent the last six weeks - I'm excluding the three 'earthquake weeks' - teaching my year 12 class the novel The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. 

Normally, I like to teach To Kill a Mockingbird (TKAM)  to Year 12s, but my new school has TKAM set as a Year 11 text, and since I have the top-stream Year 12 class many of them studied TKAM last year. So, whilst I was wondering what to teach, one of my colleagues said she'd like to teach The Kite Runner and I thought, yeah, that'd be cool (I'd read in the NCEA Assessment Reports for A.S.2.3 that it's a text that is written about very well in the exam). So my school ordered a class set of The Kite Runner. This in itself blew me away, because I've never requested a text before and then actually had it show up a week later, all shiny and new and ready for my class to use. How luxurious. How awesome.

Anyway, we have just finished studying it. And despite it's brutality in parts, and also the fact that the pace slows considerably in the middle, my students loved it. I felt kinda weird about it after we got back from the 'earthquake-break' - it's a very traumatic novel. So I told my students my concerns - that I wished I had chosen something a little less depressing. They insisted that it was a good choice. The themes of prejudice, discrimination and betrayal did not put them off. O, to be 16 years old again...

Anyway, they just handed in their essays...and they have completely blown me away. This is a very very smart class indeed - I've known that since the first week I taught them. But most of the essays are excellent, and some are absolutely fantastic. Like, truly amazing. And better than anything I could write, or even think of writing (I am crap at spotting biblical allusions, for a start...). So, I have come to the conclusion that I made the right choice about teaching The Kite Runner, which is nice.

The downside to teaching this novel is that some of the girls in my class recommended I read A Thousand Splendid Suns by the same author. I love it when students recommend me books. So I read about two-thirds of it....and then I got to a horrifically violent scene, had a panic attack and keeled over on the bathroom floor, munting my leg in the process. Incidentally, none of the students in my class use colloquial and over-used words such as 'munting'. They are so much more eloquent than me. Anyway, I have learned from this experience that it's best not to read traumatic novels at a time when life is also a bit traumatic, even if it's OK to study them with a class of teenagers...

Sharing is Caring

First week back at school after the quake, and the new morning timetable has been implemented. It’s going well, even though it’s rather tiring for both us host-school teachers and students getting up so early. New routines are always a bit weird at first, I guess. I am a bit reluctant to say, however, that it’s going well because I don’t want this situation to set a precedent. That is, the combining schools solution is not something that we want to aspire to. I think I said this in my last post and now I’m going to explain in more detail why.

1)      We are combining schools because it is an emergency situation. There are a number of combined schools functioning across Christchurch right now. If we don’t combine, then a large number of students will not have a school to attend. So, we are doing it because it is the only solution.

2)      By combining schools we are ultimately limiting resources for each individual student. Here’s how:

a)      Firstly, because the number of students has doubled on the premises, there is less contact time for students in classes  - classes are now 45 minutes instead of an hour. This means significantly less individual time with teachers for each and every student (not that there was lots of time for one-on-one anyway). So, we need to issue more homework to students. But homework, despite what some people think, is not nearly as valuable as being actively supervised by a trained professional. John Hattie, amongst many others, has done a lot of work around what has the most impact on learning. Being in and engaged in the classroom with a good teacher is vital. Homework…not so much.

b)      So, possibly/probably not as much learning will take place for students this year. This will affect their assessment results. And I’m not super concerned about this because I think that the focus on NCEA assessment results is rather over-zealous and at times superficial (I’m more of a “use assessment to guide learning” believer than a “lets get as many credits/qualifications as possible” believer). But still, many teachers, students and parents are/will be concerned about this impact this new structure will have on assessment.

c)      Because the two schools are running in morning and afternoon shifts, this limits the resources that each school can use for extra-curricular activities. And whilst I don’t think that extra-curricular activities are as important as the learning that takes place within class time, they are still very important. For many students it is what motivates them to come to school and participate. For many teachers it is too. And it’s where you build positive relationships with students “outside of the classroom.” I’ve definitely found in the past that being involved in extra-curricular activities has improved my relationships with certain challenging students.

3)      Teenagers’ brains aren’t at their best at 8am. Or 5pm. I mean, really, whose are? There will be variation between individuals as to what their optimal work time is, no doubt, but by beginning classes at 8am I don’t think we are getting the best from our teenage students’ brains. I can’t actually imagine teaching kids at 4 or 5pm in the afternoon, but that’s what teachers from the other school are doing. I’m definitely better at 8am than 5pm. Lucky me. Anyway, my point is that middle-of-the-day school (a.k.a. ‘normal school’) is definitely the best option.

4)      If we can afford to find middle-of-the-day school then we should. And we can. We are a developed, Western country and our government collects a fair amount in taxes. If need be, the government could collect more (from, say, the rich! Or rich businesses! Good idea methinks, ‘cos that’s who can afford it…even if the rich don’t agree). My biggest fear is that the MOE will think that it’s actually quite effective and potentially cheap to run this combined-school thingy. The current NZ government does not need to be any meaner to teachers and students that it already has been.

So, (I can’t not write a conclusion, even if it is brief and obvious and probably unnecessary) while the combined school situation appears to be working OK, so far, I would hate for anyone to think that it’s actually a good thing. ‘Cos it’s not.