Davis Kelvin: Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Davis Kelvin: Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:651;Page:579] 
KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) 
: 
 Tena tatou katoa e te Whare. As I said the other day in my maiden speech I come here after a 20-year career in education. Eight years ago I was appointed the principal of Kaitaia Intermediate School which is a low-decile school in the far north of New Zealand with 80 percent Maori students. At the time our assessment showed that 4 percent of our students were meeting the benchmark in writing. Over the course of the next 7 years—and I resigned at the end of last year—we were able to demonstrate that over 80 percent of our students were meeting the benchmark. As I said in my maiden speech gains for students can happen in a very short length of time. Obviously I am really excited to be part of anything and to be able to speak to anything that is based around education and achievement because as I said the other day it is my passion. 
However I am severely disappointed in a number of aspects of this bill—in particular the lack of consultation and the inability for the sector to have input into it. If there had been an opportunity for the sector to have had input into the bill through the select committee process we would have gained greater support from the sector but unfortunately that is a bell that cannot be unrung. 
There is a massive gap in this bill and the biggest part I saw is that it does not focus on the fact that what makes kids learn is not systems zones vouchers tests and all those other things; it is teachers. Every student in every class in every school across the country is entitled to an excellent teacher so there is a massive gap there. Whenever I stand to talk about education in the House I will always be pushing the point that it is excellent teachers that make kids learn. I remember a conversation I had with the member from Tamaki—I think it was last year or the year before—when he said that in his capacity as principal of Rangitoto College he would fly to England in order to recruit great teachers. I think it is commendable that principals would go to such lengths to recruit excellent teachers. If we are going to make a difference at all and raise achievement we need excellent teachers in front of our kids. 
So what does an excellent teacher look like? In my opinion there are three broad skills that an excellent teacher must have. The first skill is that they must engage in and use research-based best-practice teaching. We have heard examples today about that. Te Kotahitanga is one example. Another example is Professor John Hattie’s work with formative assessment. For those people who are not aware of what formative assessment is I tell them that it is simply that teachers first of all need to know their subjects. They need to be able to tell their students exactly where they are achieving and they need to be able to articulate to each child just the very next small step that child needs in order to progress. If that happens every day then over the course of a year there will be huge gains in achievement. Excellent teachers who engage in research-based best practice will raise achievement. I think that the Government needs to focus on teachers. 
The second point that I make is that— 
Hon Member 
: Standards! 
KELVIN DAVIS 
: A standard does not teach a child; a teacher does. This is what I was talking about with Te Kotahitanga. That has proved that a teacher who has excellent relationships not just with the student but with the student’s whanau will increase achievement. 
The third point is that the curriculum needs to be relevant to students. There is no point having a boring curriculum or a curriculum that is focused on just trying to meet a narrow standard and the teacher teaching just to an assessment or a test. That narrow curriculum will not engage students; it will just turn them off. Although standards are superficially attractive they do not teach kids. The thing that I have spoken about in relation to the education sector is that with the achievement objectives already in the curriculum we have standards already. If members are not aware of the achievement objectives in the curriculum I tell them that when a child enters school at year 0 or 1 that child should be working at level 1. By the time the pupil leaves—in an ideal world—in year 13 that pupil should be working at level 8. Each of those levels has a range of achievement objectives that are already spelt out for students to achieve. 
The point is that there is nothing new in this bill that is not already available for teachers to use. Because there is nothing new in this bill I cannot understand or get my head around why we have to rush this through in urgency. I do not understand what will be any different for kids on 5 February 2009 when they turn up to school because nothing will change. There is nothing new in it whatsoever. 
I have spoken about formative assessment which is really really important; it is the key. In fact Professor Hattie says that dollops of feedback are what is most important and that feedback is the factor that has the greatest effect in raising achievement. Feedback to kids is basically telling them where they are. The next step is feed-forward where as I have said they tell kids the next thing they need to learn. We have to focus on the skill of a teacher—that is what is most important in terms of raising achievement. Just setting up standards and assessment for the sake of assessment will not do anything. I said there is nothing that has not been done before. 
I took the liberty of getting Kaitaia Intermediate School to email me the format of the school report we have had for the last 5 years because we talk in plain English and tell parents exactly where their kids are achieving. In the report I have here the school makes the statement that year 7 pupils should be reading at curriculum level 3 or 4. That is the standard based against the New Zealand curriculum so the school is telling parents exactly where their child should be achieving. The second thing that is said here is: “She”—I will not use the child’s name—“is reading in curriculum level 4P”. That is telling the parents where the child is achieving against the standard where the child should be. The third thing it says is that this is above the New Zealand expectation. The parent knows that their child is achieving above what is expected of New Zealand kids. The fourth thing in this report is that the school tells the parent what the child has learnt. The fifth thing is that the report tells the parent what needs to happen next and spells out the things that the child needs to learn next. It says that in order to improve “this child and I”—meaning the teacher—“will concentrate on the following learning outcomes:”. This is a mid-year report but in the end-of-year reports the sixth thing it says is that: “This is the progress the child has made in the 6 months since the last report.” 
So we are telling parents what the standard is where the child is achieving whether the child is above or below the New Zealand expectation what the child has learnt what needs to happen next and the progress made since the last report. This has been going on at Kaitaia Intermediate School for the last 5 years so I cannot understand why all of a sudden it is a new buzz to be telling parents that they need to hear these things. It is stuff that is already happening and that is why I cannot understand this bill. To me it is just a rehash the same old same old. Because it is not happening in every school all that needs to happen is for resources to go into organisations such as advisory services which have experts going to schools to make sure this sort of thing happens.