Finding a start point
There have been so many changes to the structure of schools and to the typical school report that it can be a mission just working out what level your child is at. The new National Standards hope to help with this, but for those of us who went to school when standards were what followed primers, there's still a fair bit to suss out.
For starters the school years are now ordered numerically from Year 0 (formerly Primer 1 or J1) through to Year 13 (once Form 7). In theory it's a simpler scheme as a student's year level now matches how long they've been there, so a child in Year 4 is in their fourth year of school. Years 0 - 6 are primary school, 7 and 8 are the intermediate years and 9 - 13 are college/high school. It can be a bit messy at the beginning as New Zealand is one of the few countries where kids start school on their birthday. If your child starts school in the second half of the year, and is aged between five and six, they will be classed as Year 0. If they start school in the first half of the year, they will be classed as Year 1. Note too that our system is a year out from the Australians, as they don't start school until age 6.
The other most important levels are the curriculum achievement levels. The New Zealand Curriculum has several compulsory subjects (English, Art, Health & PE, Languages, Maths & Stats, Science, Social Science & Technology) and within each of these you can work at a different level. These levels range from 1 to 8 with the knowledge and understanding needed for each level getting progressively harder. To sum it up roughly: the junior primary kids work at level 1, the upper primary kids at levels 2 & 3, intermediate age students at levels 3 & 4 and college students from 4 - 8. If you want to have a look at a more detailed diagram showing how the curriculum levels match the Year levels and what they need to know for each level, have a look through the curriculum below:
For starters the school years are now ordered numerically from Year 0 (formerly Primer 1 or J1) through to Year 13 (once Form 7). In theory it's a simpler scheme as a student's year level now matches how long they've been there, so a child in Year 4 is in their fourth year of school. Years 0 - 6 are primary school, 7 and 8 are the intermediate years and 9 - 13 are college/high school. It can be a bit messy at the beginning as New Zealand is one of the few countries where kids start school on their birthday. If your child starts school in the second half of the year, and is aged between five and six, they will be classed as Year 0. If they start school in the first half of the year, they will be classed as Year 1. Note too that our system is a year out from the Australians, as they don't start school until age 6.
The other most important levels are the curriculum achievement levels. The New Zealand Curriculum has several compulsory subjects (English, Art, Health & PE, Languages, Maths & Stats, Science, Social Science & Technology) and within each of these you can work at a different level. These levels range from 1 to 8 with the knowledge and understanding needed for each level getting progressively harder. To sum it up roughly: the junior primary kids work at level 1, the upper primary kids at levels 2 & 3, intermediate age students at levels 3 & 4 and college students from 4 - 8. If you want to have a look at a more detailed diagram showing how the curriculum levels match the Year levels and what they need to know for each level, have a look through the curriculum below:
So where do the new National Standards fit into all this?
Unfortunately curriculum achievement levels can be tricky to follow because there are 13 years of school and 8 achievement levels so they don't match nicely. Schools also sometimes don't clearly report to parents about what curriculum level their child is working at and if they do, the levels are not familiar to many parents - it’s not much help knowing your child is working at level 2 if you don't know whether that is below where they should be for their age. As a teacher I recall meeting parents who were shocked to discover at the end of year 9 (previously the third form) that their daughter had been in a C band (low ability) class because her reports showed that she was doing well at Level 4 - her parents didn’t realise that the majority of her peers were working at Level 5.
National Standards simplifies things by focussing in on Maths and English and setting a standard for each Year level for the first eight years of your child's education. Your child's school must clearly tell you where your child is in relation to that standard. You must be told whether they are above it, on it or below it and you must be told this in plain language at least twice a year.
National Standards simplifies things by focussing in on Maths and English and setting a standard for each Year level for the first eight years of your child's education. Your child's school must clearly tell you where your child is in relation to that standard. You must be told whether they are above it, on it or below it and you must be told this in plain language at least twice a year.
How do teachers work out where my child is in relation to the National Standard?
There is no single English or Maths exam that all New Zealand primary school students will sit to work out where they each sit in relation to the National Standard. Instead each child’s classroom teacher will be asked to make an overall teacher judgement. Teachers must use a range of assessment methods to make this judgement –everything from simple day to day classroom observations through to norm referenced (results can be compared to a large nationwide sample of their Year group) tests like the painful PATs some of us will remember from our day!
Why not have an end of year exam for primary school students?
While some sort of end of year exam for primary school students may seem the fairest way of comparing one child to another, trusting teachers to make the call using all the information they have on a child is the better option. An exam would put undue stress on young children and pressure schools (and perhaps parents) into narrowing their focus to teaching to the exam. I can tell you from my own experience at college level that there is a difference between teaching for understanding and teaching to pass a particular type of test paper. I know I’d rather see my kids getting the former for as long as possible.
The only disadvantage of trusting the teacher to make the call is that teachers are only human and each will interpret ‘reaching the standard’ slightly differently. While there will be training and checks (moderation) in place to try and make sure the judgements are consistent between teachers and between schools, there is room for a bit of error. However, I don’t see this as a big problem – as parents we are not after an exact percentage - we only need to be told if they are about average, below or above for their age with Reading, Writing and Maths.
When you are told how your child is performing in relation to the National Standard for their Year level, you should feel free to ask your child’s teacher exactly what range of assessment tools they used to make this decision and what the results were for each assessment. Always make the effort to get along to parent teacher interviews as the teacher can offer all sorts of valuable insights – for example, “Jack’s Maths PAT test shows him in the bottom 15% of his Year group, but this was the first time he’d done a formal test and I noticed he struggled with using a test paper and an answer book and he wasn’t familiar with the multi-choice style of question. From what I’ve seen in class, I’d estimate he is actually hovering around the average to just below average mark.”
The only disadvantage of trusting the teacher to make the call is that teachers are only human and each will interpret ‘reaching the standard’ slightly differently. While there will be training and checks (moderation) in place to try and make sure the judgements are consistent between teachers and between schools, there is room for a bit of error. However, I don’t see this as a big problem – as parents we are not after an exact percentage - we only need to be told if they are about average, below or above for their age with Reading, Writing and Maths.
When you are told how your child is performing in relation to the National Standard for their Year level, you should feel free to ask your child’s teacher exactly what range of assessment tools they used to make this decision and what the results were for each assessment. Always make the effort to get along to parent teacher interviews as the teacher can offer all sorts of valuable insights – for example, “Jack’s Maths PAT test shows him in the bottom 15% of his Year group, but this was the first time he’d done a formal test and I noticed he struggled with using a test paper and an answer book and he wasn’t familiar with the multi-choice style of question. From what I’ve seen in class, I’d estimate he is actually hovering around the average to just below average mark.”
What are some of the common assessments used?
Popular tests used in New Zealand schools include the PAT test, STAR test, AsTTle and several others - view the page on assessments for some more information about what sorts of things are in these tests.
