Email to Simon Birmingham Minister of
Education
(Sent on 30/01/2017)
Minister I feel it important to establish my
bona fides to say what I feel I need to:
I am a retired school principal of a K-12
school and concluded my career with 12 years as a Superintendent of Schools.
My career with the Eduction Department of WA and beyond covered some 40
years. I have taught both at primary and secondary school levels. I am a
Fellow of the Australian Council of Educational Leaders.
This compulsory testing idea will never
work. Effective teachers already take the little ones in and in two to
three weeks by normal diagnostic processes work out the level of each child in
basic mathematical and word knowledge. From there in classes grouped
heterogeneously by general ability you will find the teachers teaching to three
groups for word knowledge and reading and often applying this also to
mathematics. Let me call the group with the least word knowledge the
Leopards, the middle group the Jaguars and the group with the most knowledge
the Panthers. These effective teachers recognise that each child is at a
stage of intellectual and social development based on all the factors that have
affected there daily lives so far. In a school district that I
administered there were many low socio economic areas and the schools servicing
these knew that the year 1 students were likely to lack a lot of word knowledge
compared to students from higher socio economic areas. There were a lot of
Leopards in the schools servicing the low socio economic areas. These
Leopards should never be treated as if they are behind and need to catch up.
They need to be taught at least in the english language and mathematics
areas based on the principle of mastering the knowledge and processes needed
for the new learning to come, the next step as it were. Many Leopards will take
longer to move through the english language and mathematics syllabuses moving at
a pace based on the mastery I have described. As they move through the junior
primary years some of the work they will be doing in english language skills
and mathematics will be at a year level below what their age grade suggests in
relation to the year levels of the Australian National Curriculum. They
are not behind and should never be regarded as such. Every piece of
successful mastery is to be hailed as a giant step forward. This is the
reality on the ground. Some Leopards may respond quickly and soon be at
the required curriculum year level for their grade. It’s not about
students catching up. It is about basing new learning on the mastered building
blocks needed for that new learning to have any chance of succeeding.
The problem for this mastery principle is
that teachers naturally feel a pressure to have as many of their charges at the
curriculum year levels normal for their grade. NAPLAN requirements
haven’t helped although I must say that as a Principal I would have been okay
with NAPLAN. Over the years Leopards have been moved on to new learning
without the mastering the basic building blocks for the new learning to come.
We thus see secondary school students with poor literacy and numeracy
skills.
To make the mastery principle work, strong
and innovative school Principals are needed to bring the parents and the
politicians along with this process. Such Principals will arrange
in-service sessions for their teachers whereby the teachers are given time to
discuss the prescribed syllabus outcomes for english language skills and
mathematics and come to some agreement about what would indicate mastery of
this or that learning outcome. It appears to be a laborious process but
it isn’t. I’ve done it with teachers and in two days of intensive application
they have worked their way through the prescribed syllabus learning outcomes
for english language and mathematics agreeing on the meaning of each outcome
and what would signify mastery of it. When they go off to their
classrooms they are on the same page. To make this work in a large primary
school all the teachers of say the three year 4 classes group together for the
discussion. In smaller schools the groupings are the teachers of the
junior primary years, of the middle primary years and of the senior primary
years. In general this could be deemed a standards setting in-service.
Another plus is that in such group discussions teachers learn a lot from
one another about the learning experiences that work for students.
I plead with you to withdraw from the
compulsory testing decision and let the Principals and their teachers do what
they are trained to do. If the process is right the results will take
care of themselves as every good sporting coach knows. Australia will
move speedily up the international rankings if that is what you want.
I add this rider. For a time phonics, which is the basis of word knowledge and spelling, fell into disrepute, but my
reading suggests it is back and well. Teachers are using it along with
whole word recognition procedures. Phonics will bite throughout the
schools and Australia’s world rankings in english language skills will lift.
I do worry a little that contemporary young teachers who have grown up
with the sound bites of modern communication may be a bit weak in sentence and
paragraph construction. If this is true this is easily remedied through
more effective teacher training in our universities. Rigour needs to be
the catchword as the trainee teachers present their papers and assignments. I
have proven on the ground that you can teach secondary students a simple
process on how to write a good essay.
Minister, the compulsory testing idea will
not achieve what you desire. I know you are acting with the best of
intentions to ensure our children can read, write and calculate but compulsory
testing of the little ones is not the way. I say with the greatest of
respect that your decision could also be interpreted by hard working effective
teachers and Principals as an insult to their professionalism.
There is lot more I could say especially
about the pivotal role of the Principal and the movement to make government
schools ‘independent’.
I will be disappointed Minister if your
minders don’t let you actually read this email.
Bruce Lyons (BEd, BA, MEd: FACEL)
