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Can written reporting against New Zealand’s National Standards fulfil the mandate of creating a robust, learning-focused, home–school partnership?

Rowena Pearson, Helen Dixon, and Eleanor Hawe
Abstract: 

Proponents of National Standards in New Zealand have argued that a key benefit of written reporting against New Zealand’s National Standards will be parents who are fully informed of their child’s achievements and thus better placed to support their learning. Using an interpretive, qualitative methodology and drawing on the perceptions and experiences of eight parents, this study investigated such claims. Using the reporting of reading progress and achievement as a case study, particular attention is paid to the nature, scope, and complexity of the information communicated to parents in National Standards reports for children in Years 1 to 8, their understandings of this information and the factors that enhanced or inhibited understanding, or both.

Can written reporting against New Zealand’s National Standards fulfil the mandate of creating a robust, learning-focused, home–school partnership?

Rowena Pearson, Helen Dixon, and Eleanor Hawe

Abstract

Proponents of National Standards in New Zealand have argued that a key benefit of written reporting against New Zealand’s National Standards will be parents who are fully informed of their child’s achievements and thus better placed to support their learning. Using an interpretive, qualitative methodology and drawing on the perceptions and experiences of eight parents, this study investigated such claims. Using the reporting of reading progress and achievement as a case study, particular attention is paid to the nature, scope, and complexity of the information communicated to parents in National Standards reports for children in Years 1 to 8, their understandings of this information and the factors that enhanced or inhibited understanding, or both.

Reporting student achievement as an integral component of a learning-focused, home–school partnership

A robust home–school partnership is considered critical to the advancement of student learning. As noted by Timperley and Robinson (2002), home–school partnerships should be learning-focused; supporting and reinforcing learning. For this type of partnership to be forged parents must be provided with opportunities to fully engage in supporting their child’s learning. To this end reporting achievement is an integral component of a strong learning-focused partnership. To play an active role in their child’s learning parents and whänau1 must be provided with clear, easily understood information which includes details about current achievement and areas of need, as well as future priorities for learning (Absolum, Flockton, Hattie, Hipkins & Reid, 2009). Such information is vital in the first instance to form the basis of discussion between parents and their child, and secondly to empower parents so they can provide experiences at home that support and consolidate school learning.

Reporting student learning and achievement to parents in New Zealand takes many forms, from casual and spontaneous conversations at the classroom door through to planned and formal occasions where parents, teachers, and students are brought together. Although it is commonplace for schools to use various reporting mechanisms throughout the year, only one reporting practice is obligatory. Since the introduction of National Standards (NS) in 2010 schools have been required to report twice yearly in writing to parents, families and whänau about each child’s progress and achievement in relation to NS in reading, writing and mathematics in Years 1 to 8 (Ministry of Education, 2010a). Whilst it is mandatory to report progress and achievement in relation to these three learning areas, schools have the latitude to report information in other areas of learning and the key competencies as outlined in The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007) (NZC). In the junior years of primary school, the point where a summative report of achievement and progress is provided coincides with the anniversary of a child’s entry to school. Further on through the primary school, summative reporting takes place at the end of the school year. Irrespective of the year of schooling, schools are also required to indicate progress towards NS in an interim (usually mid-year) report. Although not compulsory, schools often offer parents face-to-face meeting opportunities to discuss students’ progress and achievement. Typically, these take the form of a parent interview or student-led conference.

To support parental understanding reports must be written in plain language (Ministry of Education, 2010b). A range of reporting formats developed by the Ministry of Education is available to schools and these can be amended to suit specific school communities (Ministry of Education, 2012). While there is considerable variation in the complexity of these formats, most include spaces for teacher commentaries in the form of short narratives. Formats range from the relatively simple “NS only interim report” to more complex reports that show progress and achievement over time. With the intention of illustrating best practice reporting a range of completed reports are available through the Ministry’s on-line portal, Te Kete Ipurangi (TKI).2

Difficulties related to reporting student achievement to parents have been well documented nationally and internationally. Although presented with large amounts of significant information about their child’s progress and achievement, parents have often felt confused and unclear about the key messages conveyed within a report. As a consequence and despite the volume of information communicated to them, parents have often felt ill informed (Crosby & Kim, 2006; Marino, et al., 2001; Power & Clark, 2000; Timperley & Robinson, 2002). Furthermore, teachers’ use of technical language to describe achievement has hampered parental understanding (O’Donoghue & Dimmock, 2001; Timperley & Robinson, 2004). Likewise, use of multiple points of reference in a learning area such as reading (e.g., reading age, reading level, stanine, curriculum level and/or grade for effort) has impeded understanding—and in the case of grades for effort, fostered misunderstanding (Hattie & Peddie, 2003; Timperley & Robinson, 2004). It has been argued that teachers’ propensity to accentuate the positive aspects of a student’s performance rather than identify areas of need or underperformance has affected the trustworthiness of information communicated to parents (Hattie & Peddie, 2003; Marino et al., 2001). Parental submissions made during the NS consultation process emphasised a need for accurate and honest reporting of achievement using reporting formats, points of reference, and language that foster parental understanding and involvement (Ministry of Education, 2009b).

New Zealand NS

NS statements have been described as:

A nationally consistent means of considering, explaining and responding to students’ progress and achievement in Years 1–8. They provide reference points or signposts that describe the achievement in reading, writing and mathematics, that will enable students to meet the demands of the New Zealand Curriculum. They will help teachers make judgements about their students’ progress so that the students and their teachers, parents, families and whanau can agree on the next learning goals. (Ministry of Education 2009a, p. 4)

Using a four-point scale (above, at, below, well below), and drawing on multiple sources of evidence, teachers are expected to make what is known as an overall teacher judgement (OTJ) about each child’s achievement in relation to the specified standard. While schools are required to use the four-point achievement scale for annual reporting of cohort and group achievement to a school’s board of trustees,3 they have some flexibility about how information about individual students is conveyed to parents.

To fulfil the mandate of making reliable and defensible judgements, teachers are required to gather evidence of student learning and achievement over time in relation to a standard. It is expected that teachers will draw on formal sources of evidence such as those gained from standardised tests which are known to have high degrees of reliability. In regard to reading, standardised tests such as the Progressive Achievement Tests (PATs) for reading comprehension and reading vocabulary or the STAR reading test are commonly used to assess specific components of Years 3–10 students’ reading knowledge and skills. There is also a strong expectation that teachers will complement test results with information gained about students “in situ”—as they are working within the classroom on their everyday reading tasks and activities. To this end, observation and student conferencing are promoted as useful strategies to gain further insight into how a student might be acquiring the requisite knowledge and skills inherent in a particular National Reading Standard. Seemingly, the Ministry’s promotion of teachers’ use of multiple sources of evidence is aimed at counteracting the bias that can occur if one particular measure is relied on to make an overall teacher judgement.

While it is argued that NS statements will help teachers make consistent judgements about student achievement, these statements are little more than broad verbal descriptions of attainment and as such, lack specificity (Sadler, 1987). Take for example the NS statements for reading at Years 1, 2, and 3. There is little variation between one standard statement and the next. The distinguishing feature between each of these standards is the reading level to be achieved in the core instructional series of readers4 used by schools:

After one year at school, students will read, respond to, and think critically about fiction and non-fiction texts at the Green level of Ready to Read (the core instructional series that supports reading in The New Zealand Curriculum).

After two years at school, students will read, respond to, and think critically about fiction and non-fiction texts at the Turquoise level of Ready to Read (the core instructional series that supports reading in The New Zealand Curriculum).

After three years at school, students will read, respond to, and think critically about fiction and non-fiction texts at the Gold level of Ready to Read (the core instructional series that supports reading in The New Zealand Curriculum).

As promulgated, the “vagueness” of the NS statements leaves them open to teacher interpretation (Elley, 2010), as it is not possible for achievement to be measured against the standards statements in either a direct or observable manner (Clark, 2010). For example, the ability to “think critically” is not observable and hence cannot be directly measured. Rather, teachers must draw inferences about a reader’s ability to think critically through the use of associated indicators or manifest variables such as a reader’s ability to identify the argument used in a piece of writing.

Further up the school, teachers of Years 4 and 5 students are faced with standards statements that articulate the expected knowledge and skills, and the expected level of achievement, in a “fuzzy” manner (Sadler, 1987). In these instances expected levels of achievement are referenced against national curriculum levels.5 For example Year 4 students are expected “to meet the reading demands of Level 2 of the New Zealand Curriculum” while at Year 5 the designated curriculum level is increased to Level 3. Given that curriculum levels cover a broad spectrum of achievement with each level encompassing at least 2 years of schooling they too fail to specify the precise elements of achievement to be met if a student is to exceed, meet, or fail to meet the specified NS. For example to be judged to be working at Level 3 (for the listening, reading, and viewing strand) students need to demonstrate they are able to “Integrate sources of information, processes and strategies with developing confidence to identify, form and express ideas” (NZC, p. 45).

Therefore, to make judgements about student achievement and progress in relation to the NS (and the curriculum level) teachers must draw on their intellectual and experiential resources and tacit knowledge derived from a history of making qualitative judgements. Critics of NS have argued that the “fuzzy” nature of the NS statements will affect the consistency of judgements made by teachers both within and across schools (Flockton, 2010). As Poskitt and Mitchell (2012) discovered, “teachers had mixed (equivocal) understanding of National Standards, [and] applied them in different ways…” (p. 53). Such differences support the contention that the accuracy of information communicated to parents may be compromised. While the moderation of teachers’ judgements has been emphasised as a practice to increase the accuracy and consistency of teachers’ judgements, moderation as a practice within primary school settings is still in its infancy in New Zealand (Hipkins & Hodgen, 2011; Poskitt & Mitchell, 2012).

Given that the NS statements promulgate expected achievement, it is not surprising to find they are framed in technical language that addresses the knowledge, understandings, and skills a student is to demonstrate. For example, reading standards at different levels of achievement address the ability of students to locate, evaluate, and integrate information and ideas within and across a range of texts, and to read, respond to, and think critically about texts (Ministry of Education, 2009a). While teachers are familiar with the terminology of these statements it is questionable whether parents will have the same level of familiarity. Therefore it cannot be assumed parents will necessarily understand what is meant by technical terms if these are used when reporting achievement. In fact during the consultation phase of NS implementation parents expressed significant concerns related to the register of the language used in the standards, commenting much of the language was not part of their everyday vernacular. Allied to these concerns was a lack of clarity about the purpose of NS and how the standards statements at each year level had been derived (Ministry of Education, 2009b).

A paucity of research focused on parental understanding of NS reporting has meant that the usefulness of current written reporting practices has yet to be demonstrated. This article pays particular attention to the nature and scope of information communicated to parents in formal, written reports and their understandings of this information.

The research design

Situated with the interpretive paradigm the current qualitative study attempted to gain insight into the subjective understandings parents bring to the reporting process. More specifically, the research questions guiding the study were:

What achievement information is communicated to parents in a formal written report?

What understandings do parents have regarding their child’s achievement and progress as communicated to them through the formal written report?

Although the study focused on the three areas of NS reporting (reading, writing, and mathematics), reporting student achievement and progress in reading is used in this article as a case study. Using reading in this manner exemplifies the level and detail of information provided to parents by schools, parents’ understandings of this information and the factors that enhance or inhibit this understanding, or both.

While purposive sampling was the preferred sampling strategy, a lack of response from parents in selected schools resulted in the use of convenience sampling. As a consequence eight parents agreed to participate in the study. Although the sample was one of convenience, the schools attended by the participants’ children reflected a range of decile ratings (1, 2, 3, 6 and 10), and included three full primary and five contributing schools. Participants’ children attending these schools ranged from Years 1 to 6. In saying this it is acknowledged the sample represents no other group other than itself and hence broad generalisations cannot be drawn.

Data gathered from two sources comprised the dataset for what is reported in this article. The first source was an individual semistructured interview held with each of the eight parents of the primary-school-age children. With parents’ permission, all interviews were audiotaped and transcribed, and returned to parents for verification and or amendment. Given the research focus, the interview schedule tapped into parents’ understandings of the normative and narrative information provided within a NS report. In addition the interview questions tapped into parental perceptions of the usefulness of normative and narrative information in relation to supporting their child’s learning. The second data source was the current NS written report received by each of the eight participants for a child attending primary school. The collection and subsequent analysis of these documents was critical for two reasons. First, the documents served as an aide memoire for parents during the interview, prompting them to recall and explain details related to their child’s progress and achievement. Secondly, they provided a snapshot of the nature and scope of information provided to parents at a given point in time. As part of ethics approval, parental consent and student assent were gained to access and use the information contained with the school reports. Parental consent was also gained in regard to their wider participation in the study.

Ezzy (2002) has argued that an eclectic approach to qualitative analysis will result in a stronger, more robust interpretation of data. In the current study two complementary approaches to data analysis were used: content analysis and constant comparison. A content analysis of reporting formats resulted in identification of key content areas, including the normative points of reference used and nature of the language when reporting in a narrative format. Use of open and axial coding as part of the constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) facilitated identification of key categories and the overarching theme of parental [mis]understanding of information in written reports.

Reading: A case study of parental understanding of the information provided to parents

As required, all eight schools reported achievement in relation to NS in reading. Some variations were evident however in relation to the terminology used to convey the “above”, “at”, “below”, and “well below” judgements. Several schools added the word “expectation” to the assigned level while some commented that a child was working “towards” the standard, which softens the message if a child is operating “below” the NS. Others made mention of students working “within” the standard. While most parents did not understand how the NS statement or “levels” had been derived, all were conversant with the terminology of “at”, “above” and so forth, and no one was adverse to her child’s achievement being described in this manner. Overall, all parents in this study felt that schools’ use of NS levels provided them with a fairly positive picture of their child’s current reading achievement. Working at or above the standard in reading was equated with being average or above average.

With one exception, parents considered the NS judgement conveyed in the report to be trustworthy, as in the majority of cases this judgement aligned with their estimation of the child’s abilities and capabilities. The trustworthiness of the information was reinforced further by a parental belief that schools used reliable measures and processes to make these judgements. In the one instance where doubt was expressed, this was based on the parent’s experience of working with the child at home. While the teacher had identified an area to work on at home, the parent noted that her child had already acquired this particular reading strategy.

As can be seen from Table 1 many points of reference were used to indicate student achievement. All schools referred to at least one point of reference in their reporting of reading (NS) with six schools using multiple points of reference. Several of the points of reference used for reporting purposes were ones included in the standards statements such as the national curriculum level, and the Ready to Read instructional level. Five of the schools also provided parents with information related to a point of reference not included in the standard statements—the child’s reading age. However although a reading age was used, no information was provided to parents in regard to how the reading age had been determined, that is what test or specific instrument had been used to calculate the age. In addition, three schools also provided an effort rating in reading.

While parents paid attention to the various points of reference used within a report, they did not always have a clear understanding of these points and what they meant in relation to their child’s achievement. The most readily understood point of reference was the reading age. Unaware of the difficulties associated with using reading age as indicator of reading achievement, parents used the reading age for comparative purposes. Parents compared chronological age with reading age and from this comparison made inferences about whether their child was performing at, above or below what was expected. While one school used the child’s instructional level in lieu of the reading age (as recommended by the Ministry of Education) this point of reference caused confusion for the parent concerned as she did not understand what was meant by the term.

Table 1. Points of reference used when reporting progress and achievement in reading



School

Points of reference used

School A

National Standard

New Zealand Curriculum level

Instructional level

School B

National Standard

School expectation

School C

National Standard expectation

School D

National Standard

Reading age

School E

National Standard

School expectation

Instructional level

School F

National Standard

School G

National Standard

New Zealand Curriculum level

Instructional level (colour wheel)

Reading age

School H

National Standard

New Zealand Curriculum level

Instructional level (colour wheel)

Despite some schools providing additional tabulated information showing the relationship between year of schooling and curriculum level (see Table 2) most parents were unclear about what a curriculum level was and how it fitted with the NS. They were unsure about what meeting or exceeding the standard would look like at, for example, Level 2. References made to the Ready to Read instructional level also made little sense to parents unless accompanied by a reading age. While one school included a numerical scale of reading levels (<9 to 27) to show progress over time, there was no explanation of these levels (see Table 3). In addition, although progress was shown in a tabulated form on one child’s report there were no explanatory notes. The student’s parent was left to make her own interpretation about whether this progress was satisfactory.

Table 2. Expected achievement by year level and curriculum level: Reading

Table 3. Reading progress over time by colour wheel level

All schools provided parents with narrative commentaries to explain their child’s achievement. Some of these commentaries, typically full of technical terms and phrases, summarised the strategies and skills a student had mastered and were quite short:

“Answers literal questions about a text”

“retells what has happened in her own words”.

Likewise, when areas of need were identified they too were couched in specialist language, such as the following comment:

He now needs to adhere to the meanings within the text—reconstructing information that is contained in different sentences and inferencing.

When asked to talk about these comments, frequently parents were unable to expand on them in regard to the knowledge and skills their child had mastered and those that might need to be developed further. The majority of parents reiterated verbatim what was written in the report.

Some narratives were quite long and dense, incorporating a combination of information about what had been achieved and what needed to be worked on:

X is an enthusiastic reader who is able to make connections between his prior knowledge and the information within a story. X is a very fluent reader and enjoys reading aloud. He consistently makes predictions about the meanings of unfamiliar words, however he is not rereading around those unfamiliar words to evaluate whether his prediction fits the context of the sentence.

Longer narratives that contained a raft of information proved difficult for parents to decipher in an accurate manner. In several instances parents focused on the positives of what had been achieved and it was only when rereading their child’s report again (during the context of this project’s semistructured interviews) that their attention was drawn to areas of need. A lack of attention to the detail conveyed within a longer narrative had resulted in one parent misinterpreting her child’s overall progress and achievement.

Seven out of the eight schools attempted to draw parents’ attention to areas of need through the incorporation of a section of the report entitled “next learning steps”. Once again the written commentaries contained a lot of technical language focused on reading strategies:

To develop understanding of the literal and figurative language using to context of the text.

And:

[X needs to] gain a deeper understanding of the text message by analysing the poetic language of the author.

While schools seemingly had gone to considerable lengths to provide parents with in-depth information about next learning steps, the use of technical language functioned as a barrier to parental understanding. A number of parents commented they needed teacher assistance, often provided during a parent–teacher interview, to make sense of these narratives. Even then, without the provision of real examples to illustrate specific details in these narratives, parents struggled to understand what had been achieved or how to provide assistance.

All parents in the current study articulated how important it was to help their child at home and displayed a willingness to provide assistance. To this end, parents considered sections in a report such as “how to help” to be important in the consolidation of their child’s learning. At the same time, parents acknowledged they might not have the requisite knowledge to support learning at home. They therefore wanted, and appreciated, clear, specific guidance in plain language about how they could help their child. Comments such as the one below were seen as helpful as they provided simple, easy to understand strategies, which parents could add to their repertoire:

Please continue to read with her and ask her questions about the book where she needs to use her opinion to answer them.

In this study only three schools had sections in their reports where teachers provided specific suggestions for parents about how they might help their child at home to strengthen specific reading strategies and skills. Phrasing these suggestions in plain language was, however, atypical. Thus the use of language unfamiliar to parents proved a further barrier to parental contribution to reading improvement.

Although it is mandatory for schools to provide parents with written reports twice yearly, the timing of these reports was an issue for one parent. As for other parents in this study, the interim NS report was issued mid-way through the school year, after the child had been at school for 2 terms. From the perspective of this parent, receiving information at this time meant there had been a number of lost opportunities to help her child during the first 2 terms of school. Until she received the written report, she had been unaware of what her child’s areas of need were and thus had not been clear about how she could support and consolidate learning at home.

Discussion: Can written reporting fulfil the mandate of creating a learning-focused partnership between school/teachers and parents and their children?

Hattie (2010) has cautioned that “the success of NS will depend on parents’ understanding school reports not merely on the … quality of school reports” (p. 10). Plain-language reporting is thus critical if parental understanding is to be facilitated (The Practitioners Reporting Group, 2011). Plain-language reporting is considered that which is personal and relevant to the student, framed succinctly and in language that is familiar to parents, and which is supported by illustrative examples (Ministry of Education, 2010b). In the current study parents showed a reasonable degree of familiarity with the terms “above”, “at”, “below”, and “well-below”, equating them with notions of above-average, average, and so forth. To this end, they had a general understanding of where their child stood in a comparative sense, although the point of reference (a national standard) was not well understood. Seemingly, to provide parents with a full picture of their child’s achievement schools used a variety of additional reference points (Kofoed, 2009), most of which were neither familiar to parents nor well understood by them. Significantly the only point of reference (other than the NS) parents showed familiarity with was a reading age. Again, a stable reference point such as reading age provided generalised, comparative information, which enabled parents to draw inferences about their child’s achievement, although not about areas of need or how they might support learning at home. Seemingly, parents placed confidence in a measure of their child’s reading ability that is known for its variability and unreliability (Beech & Singleton, 1997). As reading experts have argued it is impossible to give any credence to what a reading age implies unless it is known how that reading age has been derived (Vincent, 1997). Indeed, the Ministry of Education cautions schools against the use of a reading age when reporting reading achievement (Ministry of Education, 2010c). The study highlighted how schools’ reporting of, and parents’ misplaced confidence in, a reading age as an accurate measure of reading ability had the potential to foster parental misunderstanding of progress and achievement.

By definition reading is a complex cognitive process that involves the integrated use of a variety of strategies which will assist the reader to decode symbols, make sense of them, and actively respond to what is read (Clay, 1991). In contrast to the generalised comparative information provided to parents, written narratives contained specific information pertaining to the strategies and processes critical to reading at a particular level. It was these commentaries that parents in this study had the most difficulty understanding. At best it can be argued they had a limited and rather shallow understanding of current achievement, areas of need, and how they might help in relation to supporting the development of essential reading strategies and processes at home. A myriad of cautionary tales from the past (e.g.: Crosby & Kim, 2006; Hattie & Peddie, 2003; Power & Clark, 2000) has highlighted the barriers to parental understanding created by the use of technical language when explaining achievement. Although it is mandatory for schools to report in plain language, the majority of narrative comments provided on the reports did not fulfil this criterion. Specialist domain and subject knowledge pertaining to reading was needed to make sense of the comments communicated to parents in this study. While others have written about teachers’ reasons for the inclusion of technical language in reporting practices (see for example, Timperley & Robinson, 2004) it was beyond the scope of this study to delve into these reasons. However if reporting is to fulfil the aim of strengthening home–school partnerships then the challenge of translating a specialist body of knowledge into plain language must be a priority for schools.

Findings from this study call into question whether written reporting as it currently exists can fulfil the mandate of creating a learning-focused partnership between school/teachers, parents and children. As shown, the scope, nature and complexity of the information communicated to parents prevented the deep understanding necessary for parents to work in such a partnership. Absolum et al., (2009) have cautioned against parents playing the role of “passive recipients of information” (p. 29). Seemingly parents’ general acceptance of the trustworthiness of the judgements communicated to them, coupled with their limited understanding of what was being reported, placed them in such a position. The challenge for schools is to communicate the “academic story” to parents in ways that enable them to be more fully involved in their child’s learning, should they so desire. As this study has illustrated, providing detailed information in the form of next steps or how to help was insufficient in itself. While reports may be able to contribute to the development of a partnership, in that they can form the basis of “serious talk” (Feiman-Nemser, 2001), they must be supplemented with other reporting practices if parental understanding is to be achieved (The Practitioners Reporting Group, 2011).

A significant implication arising from the study relates to the way in which information about student achievement and progress is best communicated to parents—that is, communicated in a way that facilitates development of a robust learning-focused home–school partnership. Current legislation enforced through NAG2a (Ministry of Education, 2010a) gives primacy to written reporting. However, within the context of other professions, oral forms of communication have been recognised as powerful in the facilitation of understanding (Darling & Dannels, 2003). In New Zealand, the Ministry of Education’s designation of other forms of reporting as optional underplays the potential of oral forms of communication as a way to aid parental understanding. If it is a requirement for schools to establish a learning-focused partnership through reporting then plain language, oral-reporting practices that support dialogue must be afforded the same status as written reporting. While it is acknowledged that not all parents seek the same level of involvement in their child’s education and learning (Kofoed, 2009) face-to-face parent interview once a year should become mandated practice. Placing the onus on schools to offer an interview would extend parents’ rights and provide parents with a further opportunity to gain a more comprehensive picture of their child’s achievements.

An effective parent–teacher interview or student-led conference has the potential for all those involved to engage in a two- or three-way dialogue focused on achievement, areas of need, and ways to help. The provision of reciprocal dialogic opportunities can help parents to better grasp the reading conventions and strategies embedded in the NS statements. However such opportunities are virtually impossible to create within a written report even with the use of plain language. Similarly, the use of and discussion about a child’s work can illustrate a student’s strengths and weaknesses in a personalised, authentic, and meaningful manner, yet it is difficult to provide such examples in a succinct and accessible written form. For parents, simply “reading” about achievement is no compensation for viewing, hearing, and talking about a child’s work during an interview or conference. As such, interviews informed by the detail provided in a report and framed in a conversational tone have the potential to provide parents with insights into their child’s learning and achievement and how they might provide constructive assistance at a level not able to achieved by written reporting alone. Furthermore the inclusion of a parental voice (and student’s voice) in these conversations can provide teachers with insights into aspects of a student’s learning not necessarily evident in the school context.

A final comment: A possible way forward

Although the current study is small-scale in nature (and thus the findings must be treated cautiously), it highlights how despite schools’ best intentions, reporting achievement to parents in ways that are accessible and easily understood is neither straightforward nor simple. Proponents of NS have argued that a key benefit of NS reporting is that parents will be fully informed of their child’s progress and achievement and as a result will be better placed to support their child’s learning at home. Such claims have not been realised in this study. Looking to the future, if we are serious about parents becoming fully informed and as involved as they wish in their child’s learning, a combination of written and oral approaches to reporting, with each given equal status and treatment, is necessary.

Notes

1A Mäori word used to describe an extended family.

2Available http://assessment.tki.org.nz/Reporting-to-parents-whanau/Examples-and-templates/Examples-from-schools

3Each school has an elected board of trustees (BOT) composed of parent representatives, the school principal, and a teacher representative. Others outside the school community may be co-opted to the BOT. BOTs are responsible for a school’s governance and also have control over a school’s management.

4Ready to Read is the core instructional reading series used in all New Zealand schools. Developed to meet the needs of the diverse range of students who attend school in New Zealand, the series is crafted and levelled to ensure an increasing level of challenge. Every book in the series is classified according to one of seven levels of difficulty. These levels of difficulty are depicted pictorially on what is known as a colour wheel.

5The New Zealand Curriculum Framework, the official policy for learning and teaching in New Zealand, divides each learning area, such as English, into eight curriculum levels. Framed as curriculum objectives each level outlines in more detail the knowledge, understandings and skills that a student is expected to demonstrate.

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The authors

Rowena Pearson is an experienced primary school teacher with a particular interest in assessment and students’ learning. In 2014 she completed her Master of Education degree at the Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Auckland.

Helen Dixon (corresponding author) is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education and Social Work. Her teaching and research interests are focused on all aspects of assessment for learning both within the compulsory schooling sector and within higher education. She also has a particular interest in teacher beliefs, including their efficacy beliefs, and how these influence assessment practice.

Email: h.dixon@auckland.ac.nz

Eleanor Hawe is a principal lecturer in the Faculty of Education and Social Work. Her research focuses in the main on assessment for learning—more specifically, goal setting, feedback (including peer feedback) and the development of students’ evaluative and productive expertise across a range of educational contexts and teaching subjects. In 2015 Eleanor received a national Tertiary Teaching Excellence Award.