Families and communities

Does National Standards written reporting fully inform parents of their child’s achievements and thus better place them to support their child’s learning? Using the reporting of progress and achievement in writing, and the perceptions of eight parents, the current study pays particular attention to the nature, scope, and complexity of the information communicated to parents in written reports, and their understandings of this information. Questions are raised regarding whether and how National Standards reporting is meeting the remit of establishing a learning-focused relationship between home and school. Suggestions are made about how schools can evoke parental support of school learning by using a broader range of information, communicated in language that is accessible to parents.

It is not unusual to enter a school in New Zealand or internationally and discover that student portfolios are part of the work programme. Research indicates that the value of student portfolios varies considerably. Too often the purpose of a portfolio programme and the roles expected of different school community members, such as school leaders, teachers, support staff, students, and family members, are neither clearly established nor shared. This article provides examples from practice to advance understanding about the issues involved. It concludes with recommendations to help schools ensure that, if portfolios are to be part of their work programme, they are developed collaboratively and with a clear purpose in mind.

In this edition of Assessment News education advisor Cathie Johnson encourages schools to consider how they can reflect and report on dimensions of engagement and learning that cannot be captured by academic achievement data. She poses a number of questions for readers to ponder and outlines some of the research findings that underpin the New Zealand Council for Educational Research’s student engagement survey, Me and My School. Cathie has supported a wide range of schools to utilise the tool and now shares some of the teaching and learning journeys that have unfolded across New Zealand as a result.

This article considers home learning for students whose schools have moved to digital learning environments. In this study we sought to gather perspectives about what sorts of home-learning activities might support school learning given that students have individual digital devices and access to the internet and class websites. Interviews with parents, students, and teachers at decile 1 schools focused on the learning activities that students might engage in at home as well as the role of parents to support their children’s learning. Findings indicated differing perspectives on the relative merit of formal and informal learning activities and whether these should be set by the teacher or taken up by students independently. The role of parents to support learning was agreed on by all participants, however, less clear was what form that support should take. The potential for unintended constraints to learning through mismatches in understandings is discussed.

English-medium schools’ inclusion of whānau Māori aspirations for their children has been identified as a critical factor in the wellbeing of Māori students. What can teachers and school leaders in English-medium schools do to include whānau aspirations and strengthen whānau engagement in Māori students’ learning and wellbeing? A group of professional learning and development project leaders and regional facilitators reported strategies they had supported schools to use with this goal in mind. Most approaches had positive effects on strengthening school–whānau partnerships, with unforeseen challenges emerging in one case. Some of the reported approaches and their effects are incorporated into five fictionalised narratives that teachers and school leaders can reflect on when they review their practices for engaging whānau.

Despite policies recommending schools collaborate with whānau and Māori communities, and research that indicates why these connections are important, what remains less obvious is how these partnerships might be best achieved and sustained. This article discusses a professional development resource that challenges and supports school leadership teams to listen to their Māori communities in order to begin to develop relational and culturally responsive connections with these same communities. The research draws from the experiences of school leadership, Māori parents and whānau. In this article we present themes from interviews with two researchers who have engaged extensively with Māori communities, and we provide an activity to consider these ideas in your school.