National Standards Implications on Support Staff

James Cook High School - 8 Support Staff - 3 In Class T/A's, 2 Literacy T/A's, I BLENNZ T/A, 1 Science Technician, 1 Admin.

The idea of a narrowed curriculum while in years 1 - 8 seriously distressed the group.  Daily the T/A's see how narrow a view of the world the students already have.  With the possibility of even less they saw the following issues could arise:

• School would be harder to deal with for students struggling.
• Students 'disengaging' earlier from school as they need more than just academic subjects.
• Behaviours could worsen as students feel the need to succeed.
  
• Pacific Island students can already be behind the eight ball and need support, NOT to be moulded into a one size fits all system.
• What about our large ESOL roll?  They will be disadvantaged as well.
  

Huge progress is made by a number of students, sometimes a much greater leap than our bright students, but as they are not meeting the 'norm' it is not seen as sufficient.  Each student learns at their own pace.

With the need to ensure all students are achieving there were seen as two possibilities:

• Support Staff loose jobs in favour of part time teachers who are already trained in the area of need.
• More Support Staff are hired, but with no extra money it will but an even tighter hold on the ops grant and then on negotiations.
  
• Can turn it into a "US and them" situation in schools with SS and Teachers - who do we employ?

Extra points made:

• Why do the Government not have a standard Report Format that needs to be included into normal reports - we already test students and these results need to go to parents.  One person is a parent in a good school but she had to ask where her child was at with reading.  If it was part of the report it would make it easier.
• How can this be a National Standard if there will be a separate standard for students in Kura?
• We already use Asttle in our schools - this is an across curriculum test that tells us where our students are nationally.
  

Why can we not put more into supporting our struggling students than spending money on reinventing the wheel?