Government failing vulnerable students

new-zealand-national-party

Mon Mar 26 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

Government failing vulnerable students

Monday, 26 March 2007, 8:10 am
Press Release: New Zealand National Party

The Government has failed some of New Zealand’s most vulnerable students by putting them into a failing school that seems to have little idea of what is acceptable teaching practice, says National’s Education spokeswoman Katherine Rich.

She is commenting on an ERO report into Felix Donnelly College, for students with serious emotional and behavioural problems, which notes some teachers rewarded good behaviour by giving students cigarettes, and lists concerns about safety, the state of buildings and the quality of education provided.

“This report, from October last year, makes grim reading. The pace of improvement at the college has been unforgivably slow.

“Teachers who rewarded good behaviour by giving students cigarettes should be ashamed of themselves. What next – a beer for doing your homework?

“This college has all the hallmarks of being dysfunctional itself – low morale, lack of a good curriculum, high staff turnover and poor teacher training, little or no student assessment, large periods of time devoted to valueless activities, and staff and students feeling unsafe.

“Any failing school is tragic, but it’s particularly tragic in this case because these kids need the best teaching and learning opportunities to get their education back on track.

“Many of them are overseen by Child, Youth and Family, and they will be some of the most challenging to teach.

“The whole reason CYF and the Ministry of Education has intervened in their lives is to attempt to get them back on the rails and into some kind of normality, but what the Government has done is pluck them out of disadvantage and put them into a failing school that seems oblivious to what is acceptable practice.

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“Scarce opportunities to help and rehabilitate these young people have been lost because of sub-standard schooling and a skewed idea of what is normal behaviour.

“This was an opportunity to really make a difference to students’ learning with the lowest teacher/student ratios in the country, but that opportunity has been wasted

“As for taking the kids 10-pin bowling during school time and the other ‘large periods of time devoted to activities of unexamined value’ – ERO code for abject waste of time – I just shake my head.

“Most of these kids will be way behind their peers academically. These students need to make the most of the few learning opportunities they’ll get, and this Government has failed them.”

Ends

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