Class sizes: show National you care

23 comments on “Class sizes: show National you care ”

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1. Dr Terry 1

   5 June 2012 at 1:50 pm

   Hekia might have brains, but that does not imply good sense. One has encountered ever so many stupid brainy people! For a start, does she know a thing about education? I very much doubt, given her history, that she ever sat in a class of this size! Brains are no guarantee against memory loss either!
   • North 1.1

     5 June 2012 at 11:27 pm

     There are brains and brains……..some people have brains less directed to a broad common good than to (1) self-promotion, and (2) belief in personal superiority, and (3) disingenuous expressions of care for those perceived as worker bees, and (4) saying whatever “needs” to be said to advance (1)-(3) above, and (5) fashioning a sense of oneself as a little bit of a princess in the court of King John.

     Going by the repute she seems to have earned (suffers) amongst many Maori in the North she’s a very bright lady in respect of (1) to (5) above but does not enjoy alot of trust or respect.

     The appellation “Heki Pirau” Parata (“rotten egg”), quietly voiced with mischievous giggles, seems to confirm that.
     • CnrJoe 1.1.1

       6 June 2012 at 5:49 am

       Heckled Pariah out here on the East Coast.
   • Morrissey 1.2

     6 June 2012 at 10:55 am

     Hekia might have brains…

     What evidence do you have to back up that statement? Everything in her career so far points to the opposite.
2. Dr Terry 2

   5 June 2012 at 1:52 pm

   I meant to add, I did email Foss and you should have seen the reply – I deleted it promptly!
   • Dv 2.1

     5 June 2012 at 1:56 pm

     Thats a shame. It would have been good to see what he had to say.
3. freedom 3

   5 June 2012 at 2:56 pm

   some motivation/amusement
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGvo7TPN67A
   if it has not already been posted
4. ianmac 4

   5 June 2012 at 3:41 pm

   As a reprint of data pinched from posts on the Standard my letter to the Marlborough Express was printed today. (Thanks Fabregas4 and DV)

   Please remember that the impact on the raising class sizes is not limited to Intermediates.
   Here is an example of the reality for one 5 teacher Primary School:

   Now 5 teachers
   Year 1: 18 children (recommended 15) 18
   Year 2: 22 children

   Year 3: 22 children(Beginning Teacher)

   Year 4/5: 26 children

   Year 6: 28 children.

   Will have 123 children by the end of the year.

   Will get the next teacher (6th) when we reach 126.

   But the New teacher/pupil ratio will do this:
   After changes we will be funded for teacher 4 at 97.5 – the 5th at 125 – the 6th at 153.5.’

   So if we hit 123 children at years end we still would not qualify to be fully funded for teacher 5, meaning classes like this:

   Year 1: 18 children

   Year 2: 24 (can’t in all conscience go higher for 6 year olds)

   Year 3: 40 children
   Year 4/5: 41 children.

   Example 2 showing the effect of the new staffing formula: Decile 1 School 88% Maori
   At year end there are 120 children.
   Year 1: 15 children
   Year 2: 24 children
   Remaining two classes 40 children each.

   A fair Go?
5. Vicky32 5

   5 June 2012 at 3:49 pm

   In heard Mathew Hooten today on RNZ, banging on about how after his mother’s death, he had done some ‘original research’ on his school photos he found amongst her effects. He went to ‘Kings Prep’, the poshest and most elite primary school in the world, he said, and counting heads in the school photos showed they had class sizes of 30! So, if the elite of the elite have class sizes of 30…
   Hilarious.
   If ancient (he didn’t say when from) school photos really do reflect class size*, then he might have a point, maybe, but what was it exactly? He didn’t actually say.. 
    
   * They may well not – I remember my little sister’s primary school photo, 60 children photographed with the sun in their eyes, up against an evergreen hedge in 1966. That doesn’t mean there were 60 children in her primary class, but that several classes were photographed together!
   • ianmac 5.1

     5 June 2012 at 4:09 pm

     That was my thought too Vicky. An elite school would rank all the kids together who were in say, Std 2, so that when our little Matthew was ranked 1st in Std 2, it was from two classes of say 18 kids. Parata did the same thing in misrepresenting class sizes though what would it prove anyway?
6. joe90 6

   5 June 2012 at 4:13 pm

   My primary class, 1961.

   http://images.oldfriends.co.nz//oldfriends/institution/3/fullsize/41453.jpg

   1964

   http://images.oldfriends.co.nz//oldfriends/institution/8/fullsize/63198.jpg
   • Logie97 6.1

     5 June 2012 at 9:05 pm

     Don’t suppose you have the figures to tell us how long the “tail” was in day joe.
     Nah, you just remember them as the golden days …
   • joe90 6.2

     5 June 2012 at 10:42 pm

     Don’t suppose you have the figures to tell us how long the “tail” was in day joe.
     Nah, you just remember them as the golden days …

     Primary actually was a golden time during the sixties where in the first photo there’s actually two primer classes and standards two and three in the second. About 15-20 in a class. Intermediate was a breeze too.

     But then I attended the zoo that was a boys high school where being a skinny withdrawn uncoordinated kid was a target that in no particular order drew the attention of the bullies, thugs and sadistic teachers.

     By the fourth form I’d graduated to the bottom stream with the other forty or so kids who weren’t doing so well and I spent my fifth form year in the same stream too and left school before I turned 16.

     So nah, I don’t know how big the tail was sport but I was part of it and I’d have at a guess it was the majority of the bottom stream.

     But thanks for asking….
7. bbfloyd 7

   5 June 2012 at 4:16 pm

   I remember fondly the time i spent in primary school in east tamaki(tucked in behind otara)…. the class sizes there, and the large proportion of polynesian students with little, or no english speaking/reading skills meant that i was able to get away with having no exercise books for the first two terms of my last year at the school(dad got a state house in remuera, yes i know, how lucky can one get)….

   i suspect my teacher knew i had no books, but as i was already miles ahead of the rest of the class, it was overlooked until a review was done, and the school produced the requisite books for me… this was convenient at the time as, there being no dpb at the time, my mother was feeding, and clothing us from part time work, and charities…. so money for books just wasn’t there….

   I credit my time at primary/intermediate/secondary schools in remuera/eastern suburbs with my getting a decent level of education… and being able to to enjoy the experience rather than just “getting through” in one piece….

   I do wonder just how many “bright” children’s lives went unfulfilled as a result of being left to sink, or swim just because the teachers they had were at full stretch just keeping order in classrooms packed like sardine tins full of children….And how many potential movers and shakers ended up in jail instead of being the innovators and creators of the next generation of homegrown business successes…

   It beggars belief that we have a government that wants to go back to what amounted to an appalling waste of human resources for no better reason than to cover the cost of paying off it’s support base….. For shame johnny sparkles….. the glitter seems to be falling off …
8. Pascal's bookie 8

   5 June 2012 at 5:55 pm

   Colmar Brunton polled on it, results said to be “as one sided as a Blues match”

   https://twitter.com/Michael_Parkin/status/209885556883210240
9. felix 9

   5 June 2012 at 6:27 pm

   Hoots was spinning like a top on Nine to Noon today. Reckons he went to posh private schools as a kid and the classes were bigger than what National proposes so everything’s sweet.

   Sadly there was no-one from the left to point out that the class sizes in state schools in those days were even bigger.

   Oh well.

   http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/ntn/ntn-20120605-1111-politics_with_matthew_hooton_and_josie_pagani-048.mp3
   • North 9.1

     5 June 2012 at 11:34 pm

     Which means that “Hoots” was actually lying. Odious slug.
10. Mel 10

    5 June 2012 at 7:56 pm

    I have downloaded the petition and will gather signatures. 
     
    National has gutted public education (loss of  up to 2 teachers per school and possibly many more after 3  years), but there is no subsequent cut to private school funding nor teacher ratios.
    There were $57 million dollars of tax payer money given to private schools in the last year. 
    Cuts to public school funding are meant to save $43 million? But after having to quickly back track – the figure is now more like $23 million.
     
    To add insult to injury – the government is trying to ‘sell’ these cuts to public education as part of a ‘raising achievement’ package.
     
    http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/about-massey/news/article.cfm?mnarticle_uuid=8B21828D-B8EB-7759-AF1B-5D21D93B49FF

     
     
11. Anne 11

    5 June 2012 at 8:15 pm

    On this occasion I think Josie Pagani stood up to Hooten quite well. She didn’t allow him to get away with much, and she did make the observation re-class sizes… what a shame you didn’t have smaller classes Matthew. Think how much better you would have done. He had no answer to that.

    Oops:reply to felix
    • felix 11.1

      5 June 2012 at 9:04 pm

      Yeah but that answer didn’t address his obvious fallacy at all. She might as well have blown a rasberry.
      • Anne 11.1.1

        5 June 2012 at 9:41 pm

        There’s some truth there. It’s as if she’s scared he may start shouting at her. When she gets older she’ll discover the wise old meme… who cares!!
        • felix 11.1.1.1

          5 June 2012 at 9:52 pm

          I find it annoying, I think, because she seems very smart – smart enough that she ought to be able to refute anything he comes up with.
12. Frankie and Benjy 12

    5 June 2012 at 10:10 pm

    Found a pdf here that may be of interest (and illuminating as to the messages given to treasury).
    http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/media-speeches/guestlectures/pdfs/tgls-hattie.pdf

    I find it annoying that slide 19 is headed up “Let’s have them..” (rank 49 up to 40) as if the previous effects on “achievement” can be dismissed.

    It shows me (amongst many things) that educationalists have tried (and tested) many strategies to improve “achievement” and most have some positive effect.
    There seems to be a search to find the “golden bullet” and ignore the rest.

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