Standards rushed, say principals | Rotorua News | Local News in Rotorua

Rotorua principals seem to have mixed views over National Standards - but they agree the policy has been a bit rushed.

New Zealand education sector union NZEI Te Riu Roa has carried out a survey of more than 700 primary and intermediate school principals to find out how schools were responding to the Government's National Standards policy and how prepared they were to implement it.

The National Standards came into effect this year and schools had to assess students against the standards and report in plain language to parents about their child's progress and achievement.

Schools will begin submitting data to the Ministry of Education in 2012. However, principals all over New Zealand - including Rotorua - said the standards were being introduced too soon.

According to the survey, 94 per cent of principals said they had concerns about National Standards and their implementation and only 10.1 per cent believed it would make a positive difference to student learning.

When asked how confident they were that they'd had enough time and professional learning to implement the policy, only 2.5 per cent felt very confident while 75 per cent said they were not very confident or severely lacking in confidence.

Rotorua Principals' Association president and Westbrook Primary School principal Colin Watkins was surprised the results only showed three quarters were not confident.

"My feelings concur exactly with what the results would indicate," Mr Watkins said.

He said this time last year schools were on track for revising the New Zealand curriculum because the Ministry of Education had labelled that a priority.

"Then out of the blue came National Standards. The curriculum was shoved on to the back shelf. Suddenly we had to fast-track National Standards," Mr Watkins said.

He said schools were "so under-prepared it's not funny".

"We've only had two opportunities to go to any performance development where someone with the knowledge about National Standards will talk to us but when you go there the messages are different again," he said.

Despite the confusion around the policy, Mr Watkins said there were positives to the National Standards - the expectation that teachers and schools will look at a variety of assessment techniques before determining where a child sits and it forms a relationship between the home and the school.

However, he would have liked a trial of the standards first.

Otonga Rd Primary School principal Linda Woon was a big supporter of National Standards because it showed how well children were doing in schools.

She said it also meant students and parents had a clear picture of a child's progress.

However, although she supported the standards, she said more time to implement them and allow schools to get a good grasp of them would have been better.

"I feel extremely tired and it has been extremely stressful, they were put in too soon."