Downstream effects
Gone soft. Gone to the dogs. And my personal favourite, PC gone mad. Some of the predictable reactions to North Harbour Rugby’s move to scrap junior rep team programmes in favour of ‘‘rugby development experiences for all kids’’.
Harbour’s evidence-based plan, which has won the backing of former All Blacks (Bring Back) Buck Shelford and Jeff Wilson, has a clear objective: ‘‘The more kids that play, the more they have fun, the longer they will stay in the game.’’ Seems sensible when the sport’s numbers are dwindling and All Black world supremacy is looking a little shaky.
The gutsy move got me thinking about streaming in schools, and whether grading kids so early helps or hinders them in the classroom, and in life. Whether the kids who are elevated into top streams (and rep teams), are subjected to undue pressure and fear of failure, and if students in the lower streams are forever consigned to feeling like secondor 22nd-class citizens. Too bad if you’re a late bloomer and stuck in the V stream.
The millennial princess in our house has firm views on the subject. Our local high school doesn’t stream – hasn’t done so for decades – and for that she is grateful. Her issue with the practice goes further back – to primary school when she was among a group of kids plucked out of class for a problemsolving extension programme that also had a competitive element. She was chuffed at the time, but being pigeonholed at 9 or 10, she says, did her no favours. ‘‘Imagine how you cope with failure after that?’’
I’d never thought about it in that way. Streaming is one of those tangibles we parents love the idea of – along with strict uniform codes, punitive discipline policies (unless it’s our own kids in the dogbox, of course), homework and exam results. But does it work?
Professor John Hattie, who leads the Melbourne Education Research Institute, doesn’t think so. For years now, the former University of Auckland academic has been saying that it is teaching excellence that matters and not the likes of streaming (or tracking or ability-grouping). In 2014, he told Britain’s BBC Radio 4 that streaming ‘‘doesn’t make a difference’’. (More recently he’s gone further, saying it can be counterproductive for kids in lower streams, who don’t get the benefit of more challenging lessons.)
Hattie also told the BBC that the best predictor of health, wealth and happiness in adult life was not achievement in school, rather the numbers of years of schooling. ‘‘So we have to make our schools inviting places, for kids to want to come and learn…’’
Which sounds an awful lot like what North Harbour Rugby is trying to do. By ditching rep teams for the young, the union is attempting to keep kids engaged in their sport, their clubs and in physical activity. It’s a goal worth pursuing.