National Children's Director

Wow, here is a very important development and a very influential job, do you know anyone who could fill this position and be a passionate advocate for children? Read the detail below to find out all about the job and how you can apply!

   

National Children's Director Ministry of Social Development   Wellington, Full time Closing Date: 28/04/2013  5:00pm
Children's Action Plan Working together, sharing the responsibility Significant leadership opportunity This is your opportunity to lead the most significant advancement in child protection in New Zealand's history. We require a National Children's Director to lead the successful delivery of the Children's Action Plan. The Children's Action Plan is the framework for the programme of change that will shine a light on abuse, neglect and harm by identifying our most vulnerable children and targeting services to them to ensure they get the protection and support they need. The National Children's Director requires a level of personal influence and leadership to drive this very significant programme of work in a complex and high profile environment. The National Children's Director will be accountable to the Vulnerable Children's Board, and have responsibility for: leading the provision of advice to the Vulnerable Children's Board in relation to the White Paper reforms and Children's Action Plan providing strategic planning and management expertise to the Board in relation to the implementation of the early service response system providing national senior leadership to Regional Children's Directors and local Children's Teams to deliver a coordinated and consistent approach nationwide fostering and leading a joined up approach to the Children's Action Plan across social sector agencies leading the Children's Action Plan and ensuring delivery across multiple work streams You will be a passionate leader with substantial senior leadership experience in managing stakeholders, resources and risks at a national level. You will have gained superior political nous through significant experience in a senior management position in the public sector or a community organisation. To apply, click the Apply Now button and upload your resume, covering letter and complete the online application form.   Enquiries only can be directed to Matt Brown on 04 916 3436 or email matt.brown067@msd.govt.nz Applications close Sunday 28 April 2013 at 5:00pm
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Growth mindset at work!

Its the end of the ‘harvest’ season- or so I thought! We have processed peaches, plums berries vegetables. Made jam and preserves.Wine is festering away in the hallway! Dehydrated boxes of fruit fill the  the pantry which is bulging at the seams.
The freezer is jammed to the top, and I look into it with satisfaction. The memories of hours of washing, cutting, and processing are starting to fade.

It is about this time of year that I start to think the end is in sight and I am quite thankful. I have once again coped with tripping over buckets of fruit, wiping down benches and trying not to get annoyed with the way that honey seems to spread from one end of the house to another. It is nearly over, as the leaves start to turn and most of the trees are empty of fruit, a sense of calm prevails.

Yes we are still processing apples- but now that is an ‘outside’ job. Pressing juice has thankfully progressed from taking over the house to being a reasonably ‘mess free; process outdoors. I say that with a little afterthought- as I drove to the city yesterday my windscreen seemed a bit blurry- I realised that small chunks of apple had obviously fired out of the home made apple 'chopper-upper' and coated my windscreen. A small price to pay for the juice, wine and cider that we will joyfully consume over winter months. Apples are the last of the major processing operations. My house will be tidy, non sticky and I might get some evenings free to do other things!

I should have learnt by now to ‘Never say never!’ I arrived home last night to find all the benches in the kitchen filled! My husband had been checking out the trees and found that all the chestnuts we have planted as small seedlings have fruited. Something has to be done with them- but what? My kitchen now represents a kind of laboratory. There are bowls of things drying, trays of half scraped chest-nuts, bags waiting for something to happen and so on.

My heart sinks and yet why should it- isn’t this about a growth mindset- about taking on a challenge and trying something new! So now we are frantically learning about chestnuts- they are gluten free, high in protein etc etc. The possibilities are endless. As I step up to help with the processing I try to ignore Brian’s remark about the fact that the olives will soon be ready and he quite likes the idea of making his own olive press…… watch this space. I am as we speak shifting my mindset to be encouraging and enthusiastic!

Peter Hughes: Criticisms of maths skills don't add up

I have no doubt that many of you have been following the ‘maths’ stories inside the Herald over the last few weeks. Peter Hughes raises some interesting issues to contemplate. If you are interested in exploring some of these ideas an interesting read is ‘Catching Up or Leading the way: American Education in the Age of Globalisation’ by Professor Yong Zhao. This is a most interesting read. Yong Zhao was born and raised in China and is now a distinguished professor in America. He has a focus on the future and how we might best prepare children to be global citizens…..

While poor in some areas, NZ kids' results rank highly in international report evaluating real-world relevance.

Peter Hughes is a lecturer in maths education at the University of Auckland. He is co-author of 51 maths textbooks published in New Zealand, the US, Australia, and the UK.

Recent debates about learning the basic facts and the ability of our Year 9s in basic subtraction was kicked off in the media by New Zealand's results in Timss (Trends in Mathematics and Science Study) that showed we were doing poorly in maths.

In fact very different interpretations are possible if data from Pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment) 2009 is used.

The 2010/11 government report on Pirls (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) and Timss show that in reading our Year 5s come 23rd out of 45 countries. In science Timss places our Year 9s at 31st out of 49. For mathematics the media reported that Timss places our Year 9 students 34th out of 53. In fact this is the Year 5 result. The correct figure for Year 9 is 16th out of 42. This misreporting has had an important negative effect on the debate about mathematics learning. It has opened the door to a flood of criticism in the press and talkback radio about learning the tables and doing standard pen and paper calculations. Yet the Timss report for Year 9 does not mention these things: "New Zealand's Year 9 tended to be very strong in data and chance (ie statistics and probability) and to a lesser extent number compared to their overall performance.

Practice, practice, practice is an invitation to extinguish creative and lateral thinking. Photo / Getty Images

 They were very weak in algebra and to a lesser extent geometry." It points to alarming weaknesses in algebra and geometry; we urgently need to work on these areas rather than number.

All these results are very depressing. Yet are they correct? Pisa suggests they may not be: according to Pisa our 15-year-olds are near the top of the world in all three subjects. Out of 65 countries, New Zealand ranks seventh in reading, 13th in maths, and seventh in science.

The countries that are ahead of us in Pisa when reading, maths, and science position are combined are China (Shanghai) first, Hong Kong second, Finland and Singapore third equal, Korea fifth, Japan sixth, and Canada seventh. And we come in at eighth in the world. This data will be used later. So how can Timss and Pisa produce such wildly contradictory results for New Zealand?

The student assessments are constructed from quite different perspectives. In essence, Timss starts with the curriculum and assesses how well the students are achieving, whereas Pisa starts from the opposite end and asks how well students can utilise their mathematics in the real world. While it would be unfair to say which of the two we should prefer - and there is a lot of research on this that highlights the major difficulties in making such judgments - we might well choose Pisa because of its links to real world problems.

George Lim in his opinion piece on March 20 explains why children in the highly ranked Asian countries do so well in school maths - quite simply they do lots of practice. Does this suggest a way forward for New Zealand in the teaching of maths? Evidence from the United States is useful in answering this question.

In both Timss and Pisa the US always rates poorly, and every time a new report comes along their politicians react hysterically. Voucher schemes, merit pay for teachers, and charter schools are among the tired old non-solutions they resurrect to solve the problem. Yet, as an American colleague has repeatedly pointed out, if the US education system is so bad, how do they dominate the world in such things as university rankings and number of Nobel Prizes awarded?

Comparing the US with the five Asian countries above on these two criteria we get some interesting results. Of the top 40 universities in the world 25 are in America, China has none, Japan one, Hong Kong one, Korea none, and Singapore one. Looking at Nobel Prize winners since 2000, the US has 64 (or 84 if the 21 born outside the US are counted), China has four, Japan 11, Hong Kong one, Korea one, and Singapore none. Readers can draw their own conclusions from this data, but I for one cannot infer that New Zealand should imitate the Asian countries' relentless emphasis on practice in learning maths. Until there is any evidence to the contrary the best assumption is that "practice, practice, practice", as George Lim puts it, is an invitation to extinguish creative and lateral thinking in maths, things which our best students currently are rather good at.

Early childhood education campaign begins

This item has just been listed by NZ Newswire. Judith Nowotarski is the new President of the NZEI. She is the first President to have a background in early childhood education!

Judith Nowotarski - National President NZEI Te Riu Roa

One of New Zealand's biggest education unions is launching a five-year campaign aimed at improving early childhood education (ECE) in the country.

Cuts to funding are eroding the quality of ECE services and the union wants the government to commit more money to ECE in the next budget, NZEI national president Judith Nowotarski says.

"It is a great cause for concern that earlier gains such as a goal of having 100 per cent qualified teachers in ECE centres have been dropped and centre sizes have been allowed to balloon out to 150 children," she said.

"Quality ECE is crucial for all children but is particularly important for those children who come from low socio-economic backgrounds."

The government cuts were short-sighted because for every dollar invested in ECE $17 was saved in welfare and justice system costs in later life, she said.

The union believed the increasing cost of ECE on families was responsible for growth in enrolments slowing, Ms Nowotarski said.

NZEI is launching its Every Child Deserves the Best Start campaign a the Carter Observatory in Wellington on Sunday, which is Children's Day, with a free planetarium show, sausage sizzle and activities for kids.

Bathing the baby

We were recently at a retreat with all, just about, the facilitator from ELP coming together.  While there Jo shared this amazing youtube video with us.  I think this is something everyone would be interested in seeing.

click to link to the video

The gentleness, the calmness, the amazing intuitiveness of the practitioner are amazing and of course the babies are delightful.  Under 2's care is so specialised and foundation building - the more we as teachers slow down to the pace of the child the more delight and joy for everyone involved.  Imagine if nappy change times were this calm, responsive and caring as depicted in the video.  Those using key teaching strategies will understand the importance of those wonderful care moments that are unhurried.
Enough words from me the video is waiting.....

THE RACE TO NOWHERE

I was fortunate to attend the ICOT13 conference in Wellington recently.  This was a fascinating 5 day conference to expand global thinking around the themes of ‘future survival‘, ‘personal futures‘ and ‘future society‘. During the conference I attended a workshop presented by Ron Ritchhart on 'Enlisting Parents as Allies: Working Together to Develop Powerful Thinkers and Learners.'  As many of the teams I work with find it challenging to engage and enlist parents, this workshop seemed like an excellent choice and I wasn't disappointed.  


Ron spoke of creating  'Culture's of Thinking, creating place where thinking is valued, visible and actively promoted.'  With parents focus often being on their child 'being school ready', how do we as teachers broaden their view so that they think about "what do we want children to be like as adults?"  We need them to know that this is about thinking about all children not their specific child, all children in our community. He said that when he has asked parents this they tend to come up with a huge list of dispositions, not skills and knowledge.  

He also shared how parents often worry that when you focus on dispositions that something is missing out, left behind, but we need to share that we are not leaving anything behind, we are lifting the bar!  We need to find ways for parents to understand that dispositions can't be directly taught, they are learnt over time, children grow into the intellectual life around them, so they need to ask themselves "what life are we surrounding children with?"

How do we talk to parents?  How do you structure the talk to them?  Ron suggested that we make links to a research base, as it gives parents ideas of where these ideas come from enabling them to investigate it further if they want to.  That we need to provide a rational for change from the status quo.  We also need to help connect parents to familiar experiences or context to get parents to see where education is going, share that we are lifting the bar!  Unpack the core practices with rich examples and get parents to engage in conversations, don't talk too long before you engage them in discussion!  Finally he suggested that we need to provide specific things parents can do and actions they can take at home.  Talk with parents about working TOGETHER.  How together, we can develop powerful thinkers and learners.  It's taking it further than just saying “this is what we do here”, it also saying “here is what you too can do at home.”

I'll leave you with four shifts on the way we educate to actively promote thinking that Ron shared...

1, Shifting instruction from the delivery of content to engagement.
2, Shifting the focus of curriculum from skills and knowledge to develop understanding.
3, Shifting the approach to curriculum from superficial coverage to depth of exploration.
4, Shifting the process of learning from memorisation to thinking.
These are the shifts for parents to look out for as a setting is on this journey, when all are happening then their setting as managed the change!

Watch the video clip from the link below about the Race to Nowhere, it's a good clip to share with parents to get THEM thinking! 

http://www.racetonowhere.com/thanks#prettyPhoto/0/

Arohanui 
Gillian

NEW... ELP LEADERSHIP RESEARCH GROUP

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From left to right: Karen Ramsey, Carol Hartley, Marianne McPherson, Margaret Carr, Fran Paniora, Julie Killick, Wendy Lee & Naomi Dick

Recently we established a new project which consists of  an ELP Leadership Research Group. 

The project aims to develop knowledge and research capacity within the early childhood community. The Research Group will be part of our building more sustainable communities as well as strengthening the research leadership within the early childhood community. Sadly, we have only limited funds for this project so are only able to invite six settings to be a part of this project at this stage.

The key research group will have three full days to work with Professor Margaret Carr and Wendy Lee. The project is affiliated to the University of Waikato Early Years Research Centre. We want to provide and enhance opportunities for teachers to build their research capacity, through not only engaging in research but also having the opportunity to work with other researchers with a variety of levels of experience.  We are of course particularly excited that Margaret is able to fully participate in this project.