Standards ‘unfair’ for ESOL students
NATIONAL Standards discriminates against students who speak English as a second language (ESOL) and make it impossible for schools to be compared, the principal of an Auckland school says.
More than 60 per cent of students at Willowbank School, in the new relatively affluent eastern suburb of Dannemora, come to school with English as a second language. Some speak rudimentary English; others have no English at all.
Principal Deidre Alderson said that, despite this, the students were being compared with the rest of the country in reading, writing and maths in their first year of learning – before they had even been given the chance to catch up. ‘‘They may not have mastered English yet and they are being measured against standards,’’ she said.
‘‘It’s misleading to our community and unfair to our kids.’’
Parents of these students, who were mostly of Asian descent, would then become unnecessarily worried when they saw the word ‘‘below’’ on their child’s report and send them to ‘‘cram schools’’ for after-school tutoring.
Willowbank is a decile nine school in an area with a high percentage of Asian immigrants.
Alderson said she had implored Education Minister Hekia Parata to change the rules so that ESOL students were not measured against the standards until they had been at school for two years.
Parata had said a change was unlikely to happen, the principal said.
Within the school, the standards helped teachers with funding and resource planning, and organising how children should be grouped in classes.
But they were useless for comparative purposes, Alderson said.
‘‘Because they are summative, they are just giving you end data if you like.
‘‘But whether you can call them National Standards – we don’t think so. The needs of children at our school are very different to a school in, say, Invercargill. ‘‘We have huge concerns.’’ As a parent, it was more important to ask questions about how the needs and wellbeing of the individual child were being looked after, rather than judging based on a set of numbers, Alderson said.
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