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In 2008, the Forum Comment,
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He Whakaputanga Whakaaro –
Introduction for Mäori Medium forums

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Forums for Mäori Medium
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Science
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Music
Aspects of Technology
Reading & Speaking
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Information Skills
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Health & Phys. Ed.
Writing
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National Education Monitoring
ISSN 1174 - 247X
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Contact details:
Email : earu@otago.ac.nz  
Freephone 0800 808 561
Fax 64 3 479 8561

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Last updated October 2008
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CLICK on reports above to go directly to comments

FORUM
PARTICIPANTS


Irene Absalom
Sandra Aikin
Raewyn Allen
Susan Apáthy
Robyn Baker
Lynne Bell
Lynne Bowyer
Raiha Boyes
Kerry Brady
Roger Buckton
Alison Caldwell
Megan Chambers
Merryn Dunmill
Liz Eley
Yolande Franke
Naomi George
Alison Gilmore
Sonia Gogofski
Ray Griffiths
Julie Hepburn
Mary Hill
Alister Jones
Diane Leggett
Libby Limbrick
Linda Locke
Aleisha Mahoney
Mary Mason
Tracey McLellan
Frances Neill
Liz Patara
Tracy Rohan
Helen Rolinson
Bronwyn Rotheram
Juliet Small
Robyn Trinick

 

The third four-year cycle of national monitoring started in 2003. Results from this third cycle will allow comparisons with performances in the previous cycle of assessments.

The three reports on the 2004 assessment results were considered by a national forum of teachers, subject specialists, representatives of national organizations and government agencies, in June 2004. Their comments highlight what students are generally doing well, and those areas where improvements are desirable.

The help of principals, teachers and Boards of Trustees in making NEMP reports and this Forum Comment widely known is encouraged and appreciated.

. Click the Access Task icon for more information about the tasks which will be available to schools from December 2005.
MUSIC 2004
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.CLICK for full report
GOOD NEWS 

• Achievement in music was similar for Mäori, Pasifika and Pakeha students across all tasks.

• The majority of year 4 and year 8 students enjoy learning music at school.

• Year 8 students achieved substantially better than year 4 students in tasks involving understanding and performing music.

• Given the challenging nature of the testing situation, it is pleasing that most students have achieved at least moderate success in most areas.

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CONCERNS

• Results from singing tasks continue to cause concern, with evidence of difficulty in choosing a song to sing, singing a familiar song tunefully, and learning and singing an unfamiliar song.

• Students had moderate success in listening tasks but many had difficulty communicating their ideas about music.

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• It is clear from the playing tasks and the NEMP survey that while students are enthusiastic about instrumental playing, they have limited opportunities to do this.

• There was a decline between 2000 and 2004 in the number of students achieving strongly in creative tasks.

• Skills in reading rhythmic and melodic notation generally seem weak.


LOOKING AHEAD –
SUGGESTIONS FOR PROGRESS


• While it is pleasing that children are enjoying listening to music in and out of school, the results suggest that both age groups of students would benefit from more focused, purposeful listening experiences. This would help them to develop confidence in talking about music as well as supporting aspects of music making and creativity.

• Overall, it is clear that children will benefit from more opportunities to sing, play instruments, create music and to receive useful, informed feedback about their work.

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READING 2004
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.CLICK for full report
GOOD NEWS 

• More than 80 percent of year 4 and year 8 students were positive about their own competence in reading, reading at school, having their teacher read a story out loud, and going to a library.

• There have been improvements from 2000 to 2004 in oral reading of fiction and non-fiction for year 4 and year 8 students. There were fewer year 4 students than in 2000 at the lower levels of achievement.

• Although there is a moderate difference favouring girls at year 4, there is little difference between girls and boys at year 8 in both oral reading and comprehension.

• There was a substantial reduction in disparity between year 4 Pakeha and Mäori students in reading in English, between 2000 and 2004.

• The improvement of year 4 students’ comprehension observed between 1996 and 2000 was maintained in 2004.

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CONCERNS

.• Most year 8 students can decode effectively, but a small minority of students continue to find this difficult.

• Summarising, scanning text for information and selecting main ideas pose problems for many students.

• Many students reported that they do not get specific feedback on what they are good at in reading and what they need to improve.

• The increase in oral reading achievement between 2000 and 2004 was not matched by corresponding increases in comprehension. This is particularly so for year 8 students reading longer passages.

LOOKING AHEAD –
SUGGESTIONS FOR PROGRESS


• Students would benefit from a stronger focus on comprehension through developing their conscious use of reading strategies that involve making connections and inferences. Comprehension can be enhanced through varied use of rich texts across a range of curriculum contexts.

• Students would benefit from more specific feedback and negotiated guidance.

• Vocabulary knowledge is essential to comprehension. Students would benefit from opportunities to develop and expand vocabulary in meaningful contexts.

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SPEAKING 2004
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.CLICK for full report

GOOD NEWS 

• Progress from year 4 to year 8 is clear. This is particularly evident in the skills of giving a complex set of instructions and in expressing an opinion.

• From 2000 to 2004, there has been substantial improvement for Year 8 students and a small improvement for Year 4 students’ performances in telling an imaginative story. Students’ use of skills in oral descriptions and oral presentations have been maintained since 2000.

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CONCERNS

.• There is continuing disparity between the performances of different subgroups of students. Students in low decile schools continue to perform at a significantly lower level than students from high decile schools. There are also substantial differences between the performances of Pakeha, Mäori and Pasifika students, with Pakeha students performing better, particularly in tasks where they had to express an opinion and persuade an adult.

• Many students had difficulty introducing themselves to an adult. Year 8 students did not show confidence in oral presentations that required spontaneous, expressive qualities and year 4 students did not perform well in tasks that required detailed oral descriptions of available information.

• Concerns raised in 2000 about speaking still remain in this report.

LOOKING AHEAD –
SUGGESTIONS FOR PROGRESS


• Good oral communication includes elements of presentation. Students need opportunities to develop the skills of confident, expressive communication. They also need opportunities to enjoy taking part in activities such as story telling, presenting poetry and participating in a play. While opportunities for developing confidence and skills in speaking can be given in all areas of the curriculum, the Arts curriculum offers particular scope.

• Students’ abilities to elicit deeper information through explorative questioning requires them to attend carefully to available information. To achieve this, the development of speaking skills need to be integrated with skills of listening, observation and thoughtful interpretation.

• Students need opportunities across a variety of contexts to develop the skills and confidence needed for voicing and justifying an opinion. They need to learn how to question and consider the opinions of others in appropriate ways.



ASPECT OF TECHNOLOGY 2004
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.CLICK for full report

GOOD NEWS 

• Year 4 and 8 students continue to enjoy technology, with 81% of year 4 and 93% of year 8 students rating it positively. Year 8 students ranked it their second favourite subject, with most saying they learn ‘heaps’ or ‘quite a lot’ from technology. Nearly half of year 4 and year 8 students would like to do more. And they are confident: 72% of year 4 students and 83% of year 8 students rate their technology learning positively.

• Students consider that they are exposed to a variety of different aspects of technology. For example, changing things to improve them, and designing and making things. However they perceive themselves less likely to have opportunities to find out what people want, need or like. Gender does not appear to impact upon technological achievement or attitude.

.• The NEMP tasks present opportunities for some creative technological thinking across both year levels. There is evidence of general technological progress between year 4 and year 8. This is particularly notable in detail given in explanations, increased level of technological product knowledge and knowledge of devices . Year 8 students also tend to be able to identify and combine a greater number of variables in technology activities, and the representation of their technological ideas has become more sophisticated since year 4.

• Year 4 students show improvement as a group, performing slightly better this time than they did in 2000, while year 8 students have maintaind their ground. Year 8 students show a reasonable grasp of the nature of technology, with close competition between those who view it in terms of ‘high technology’ (computers and so forth) and those who see a link with designing and making things.

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CONCERNS 

• Perhaps understandably, while year 4 students can recognise a variety of technological activities that they have undertaken in the classroom, they seem to have difficulty in being able to say what technology learning is about. Nearly half were unable to give an explanation and the rest mainly view it in terms of ‘high technology’ (computers, etc).

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• Generally, type and size of school has little impact upon technological performance, however, there is a marked, comparative drop in performance among students from low-decile schools, first identified in the technology assessments of 1996, and still very evident. Also bearing out previous trends, Pakeha students are performing moderately better than Mäori students and substantially better than Pasifika students. These differences seem less pronounced when undertaking tasks which deal with technological capability in terms of analysing, designing and making solutions.

LOOKING AHEAD –
SUGGESTIONS FOR PROGRESS


• Our students seem excited by technology, and they would like to learn more. We can take our cue from them by involving them regularly in a range of technological experiences that are meaningful and captivating, and that help them to broaden their understanding. We can help them to enrich understanding further by discussing the nature of technology in general, including the use of specific examples.

• When undertaking technology, students sometimes respond in terms of the obvious or surface aspects of an issue, artifact or process. We could assist them to develop an eye for detail (such as when analysing products or systems) and an appreciation for the broad picture (such as when evaluating the wider effects that technology can have within and beyond their community/environment).

.• Student learning could be assisted by placing greater emphasis on technological knowledge, particularly in terms of device and system knowledge, and by placing greater emphasis on the nature of technology. Students need our help to think beyond the immediate in finding solutions to problems.

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READING AND SPEAKING

GOOD NEWS
• The trend from 2000 to 2004 shows positive gains for year 4 Mäori students in reading in English.

• There was a substantial reduction in disparity for year 4 Mäori students between 2000 and 2004. The advantage of Pakeha students over Mäori students decreased by one third between 2000 and 2004.

• Mäori outperformed Pakeha on all reading tasks using Mäori texts.

• Like the general population in 2000 and 2004, year 8 Mäori students showed deeper understanding of tasks overall compared to year 4 Mäori students.

• The 2000 results show moderate differences in favour of Pakeha at year 4 and year 8 in speaking tasks. The trend from 2000 to 2004 shows a slight reduction in disparity for year 4 students, but not for year 8 students.

.• When Mäori students are exposed to reading in context the results are most favourable. Mäori students performed well in decoding of words.



• Compared to Pakeha students, Mäori students at both year levels reported more guidance from the teachers to help them improve their reading.

CONCERNS
• The aspect of reading that continues to present challenges for Mäori, as it does for all students, is the ability to read with understanding on a variety of topics whether fiction, non-fiction, or non-book materials.

.• The tasks that showed large differences in favour of Pakeha were those requiring analysis and word definition. To sustain the considerable gains made, it is crucial to continue emphasising analysis skills and vocabulary building from year 4 through to year 8.

• Success for Mäori students in speaking tasks is more evident when tasks use familiar contexts. Discussing unfamiliar contexts presents students with significant challenge.

LOOKING AHEAD –
• Comprehension needs to be constantly emphasised at word, sentence and paragraph levels. This is necessary for children to master the foundation skills of recall, interpretation and inference.

• A challenge for teachers of Mäori students between year 5 and year 8 is to maintain and increase Mäori students’ interest and enthusiasm for a variety of reading material, including personal and recreational texts.

• Mäori students need experiences that help them to develop the language and confidence to participate in more depth and breadth during oral discussions.

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MUSIC

GOOD NEWS
• Overall, Mäori and Pakeha students performed comparably at both year levels.

• Mäori outperformed Pakeha students on tasks involving rhythm and harmony, and demonstrated a wider knowledge of musical genre compared to Pakeha students. Conversely, Pakeha outperformed Mäori students on tasks involving the ability to read and interpret music notation.

• Compared to Pakeha students, Mäori students reported more involvement in singing and listening to music in school, and in a variety of music activities outside of school. They were more positive about continuing to learn and do music as they got older, and year 8 Mäori students were more positive about singing in and outside of school.

LOOKING AHEAD
Like all students, Mäori students need opportunities to:

• play an instrument;
• create and compose music;
• practise representing musical ideas using a range of visual symbols.

TECHNOLOGY

GOOD NEWS
• Mäori students performed well in applying skills to solve technological problems.

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LOOKING AHEAD
• Like other students, Mäori need more opportunities and encouragement to generate, investigate and evaluate design.

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Contact Details:   Email : earu@otago.ac.nz   |   Freephone 0800 808 561   |   Fax 64 3 479 8561   |   October 2008