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Kate Gainsford: Secondary Principals Council Chair on NCEA result improvements · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We've got some good news on the education front. For once,
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: the amount of kids passing NCA co requisite tests is
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: slowly improving. Now, these are the exam students must pass
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: in order to pass the year level move on up.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Fifty seven percent of students achieve maths up from forty
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: five percent. Sixty one percent pass reading up from fifty
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: eight percent, so just three percent there. Meanwhile, writing stayed
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: unchanged at fifty five percent. So Kate Gainsford is the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: secretary principal's council chair. She's also a principal. She's the
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: principal at a college. And she joins her. Now, good
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: morning to you.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Kate, good morning, how are you today?
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Very well, so fifty morning, it is a Tuesday morning.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, principal, and don't give me detention.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: So a fifty seven percent pass rate for maths is
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: not great, but it is up, so I guess you'll
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: take that. Well.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's really happening to see that after all of
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: the effort that has gone on into it. So what
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: we need to see, of course, is that effort continuing.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: You know, there's been some things that have come together
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: very nicely around this. There's been cross party agreement on
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: the need to focus on these things, and we haven't
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: seen that for some time, so that has lent some
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: continuity to things. That's great. We've seen we've seen the
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: government and other agencies really listening to teachers and schools
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: and they feedback about some earlier poor performance of the
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: digital platform and even some of the assessments themselves, and
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: that's seen some improvements. And of course we've seen a
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: little bit of extra resource in some schools to pay
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: for some additional tutoring and support, but we've got a
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: way to go yet to improve that.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: So the funny thing you say, cross party supports you know,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: everybody's supporting this, but reading, writing, and arithmetic was always
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: the very basis of our education. Why do we let
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: it slip?
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Well, it hasn't been resourced in this way, certainly in
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: the primary schools with a common practice model and then
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: the structured literacy and their approach to maths. It hasn't
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: been resourced in anything like this way before with the
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: all of the rest of the professional development that seaches
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: have received. So it certainly has been a significant investment
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: of money and that does make a difference. If you
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: put more into a system you get more out of it.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: So is it the resourcing or is it the government's
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: new curriculum?
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Well it is as I said, this government and the
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: previous government had reached agreement on some approaches to literacy
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: that I think are proving to be fruitful. So the
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: curriculum focus is useful. What we have to make sure
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: we don't do is make sure that we neglect other
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: parts of the curriculum. We have too much of a
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: focus on its narrow so that we because the focus
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: has not been spread across other areas like science and
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: technology and languages and so forth, and those are also important.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Of course access to those is helped if you had
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: illiterate and numerate. So looking at the basics as useful.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Well, well done to the teachers because all the past
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: all the rates are over the fifty percent pass rate.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: But we can do better and we still get a
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: long way to go, and that is Kate Gainsford's Secretary,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Principal's Council Chair and principal at our Tear College. For
• 3:30
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• 3:33
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