Forum Comment - General Education

INTRODUCTION

The National Education Monitoring Project (NEMP) is part of Government strategy to provide quality information about the achievements of New Zealand’s children. The information provided by NEMP makes a valuable contribution to the evaluation and improvement of teaching and learning.

NEMP monitors student achievement at two key levels, year 4 and year 8, in all of the essential learning areas. Its reports aim to reflect the richness, scope and comprehensiveness of curriculum by giving a detailed, task by task picture of what students know and can do.

The fourth four-year cycle of national monitoring started in 2007. Results from this fourth cycle allow comparisons with performances in the previous cycle of assessments.

Each year, the reports are considered by a national forum of teachers, subject specialists, representatives of national organizations and government agencies. Their comments highlight what students are generally doing well, and those areas where improvements are desirable. In turn, individual schools and teachers benefit from examining the NEMP results and considering the forum's comments as they apply the findings to their own students.

Each year, from 1999 to 2005, at year 8 level only, a special sample of children leaning in Mäori immersion schools or classes was selected. Their achievement was then compared with the achievement of Mäori students in the main year 8 sample, predominantly in English. These comparisons are covered in a seperate report each of those years, "Achievement of Mäori Students" and were considered by an invited forum of Mäori educators who had been associated with the Project. Their reponses are reported in "He Whakaputanga Whakaaro" and can be accessed via the Forum Index link, above right.

In presenting the reports we emphasise the following points:

• The function of national monitoring
is to find out and report on the achievements of a representative sample of New Zealand school students. This project provides a national picture and does not report
on the performances of individual students, teachers or schools.

• The purpose of national monitoring reports is to describe what New Zealand students know and can do.

The Focus then gives an overview of what we learned and what panels of leading New Zealand educators think the implications are. It is the role of schools, communities and others with an interest in students’ educational achievements to further debate the implications.

• National monitoring reports aim to reflect the richness, scope and comprehensiveness of the curriculum. The detailed description of student performance on a task by task basis is consistent with this aim. The reports do not present a summary mark for each learning area because that would give a very inadequate picture of student achievement.

The help of principals, teachers and Boards of Trustees in making NEMP reports and the resulting Focus widely known is encouraged and appreciated

Suggestions for principals and curriculum leaders
Inform staff, board members and your school community of the arrival of the reports and encourage them to ‘have a look.’	Consider the relevance of the forum’s comments to your own school’s priorities, practices and programmes.
Suggest to the board chair that some trustees might like to preview the reports and lead discussions at a board meeting.	Read the summaries at the beginning of each report to get a quick introduction to key findings.
Arrange individual staff members to preview the reports and tell others at a staff meeting about some of the results.	Encourage teachers to try some of the tasks with their classes and consider the performance of their children in relation to the national sample.
Use the survey questionnaires to find out more about your students’ curricular interests and involvements.

Access Tasks
Each year, since 2001, the NEMP reports identify a number of tasks which are made available to schools from December of the research year. Click the Access Task icon, to the left, for further information.