Teachers want more study on combined classes

High-school teachers have asked for more research on what they say is a “dangerous experiment” of putting several classes together in multiteacher “modern learning environments”.

The Post Primary Teachers’ Association resolved at their annual conference in Wellington yesterday to “challenge the Ministry of Educa- tion on the need to research the effectiveness of flexible learning spaces in terms of their impact on student achievement, student wellbeing, teaching and learning and teacher satisfaction.”

“We need to do this research to be sure that this is not just a dangerous experiment on the most vulnerable in our society,” said Birkenhead College teacher Austen Pageau.

The new multi-teacher spaces are becoming common in primary schools and the teachers said the ministry was now pushing secondary schools to adopt them.

Pageau said he visited the new Haeata Community Campus, a Year 1 to 13 school for 950 students in Christchurch, and asked the principal about the effect of the large spaces on pupils with attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who were easily distracted.

“He said there was one student who had more trouble at his previous school and did better at Haeata,” Pageau said.

“I challenged him and he said, ‘I will have to agree with you that this is not the school for those specific learning needs, we can’t cope with them’.”

Pageau said research showed that children with ADHD needed to sit in front of a class surrounded by quieter students and with close supervision by a teacher.

Some teachers disagreed. Paul Stevens, who teaches in modern learning environments at a new senior high school in Auckland, said they all had breakout spaces which worked well for students with ADHD.

“Generally it works well,” he said. “We have a strong support structure for those students so that it does work for them.”