At the chalkface - a snapshot of life in two New Zealand schools

Sunday Star Times

Teachers are stupid and kids are dangerous. The way pressure groups tell it, our education system is going to hell in a hand basket and it's a wonder anyone gets out of the playground alive.

Last month, the Principals' Federation politicked on a survey showing 6% of respondents had endured physical attacks on themselves or a teacher aide.

A recently released Ministry of Education discussion document claimed graduate teachers lacked the skills, knowledge and temperament to do their jobs.

"With nearly 10,000 students leaving school last year without basic literacy and numeracy standards, these findings should be of concern," said Katherine Rich, National's education spokeswoman.

Government has told principals to "endeavour" to reduce average secondary school class sizes to 26 but has given them no extra funding to achieve this.

It has, however, provided transitional funding for the third of schools that had budget cuts when were given three months' notice of census-based decile changes.

Remember the days of the old school yard? They're long gone.

On any given Monday through Friday, more than a quarter of a million teenagers get up and go to one of our 352 secondary schools. They study reading, writing and drug education. Science, social studies and adolescent sexuality. Today's teenagers are a tougher breed. As are the institutions tasked with the care of them.

Christchurch's Cashmere High School and Auckland's Western Springs College are typically middle-class New Zealand secondary schools. They are both ranked decile 8. They are led by principals who were this year awarded prestigious fellowships for overseas travel and education. Their boards of trustees include human rights lawyers, company chief executives and senior teachers. They are, by any conventional measure, "good schools".

Last month the Sunday Star-Times went back to the classroom. This was no To Sir with Love assignment. No rich-kid-poor-kid-white-kid comparison. Our project, simply: a tale of two schools a snapshot of life in two middle-of-the-road New Zealand schools that, between them, are responsible for the futures of more than 2700 young adults.

 ***

The boss of Cashmere High wears a suit and cufflinks. He manages 114 staff, an operational budget of $2.2 million, and a wages bill of $6.6m.

This is a school, but in 2008, it must be run like a business.

It's 8.20am, and principal Dave Turnbull has just instructed a second-in-charge to go to the school office and organise a cash cheque for a relief teacher who hasn't been paid.

"Get her to sign a note saying that she agrees to pay the school back when she can, or by the end of the year."

Turnbull sighs. "Schools have a salary service outfit ... that has difficulty paying people."

Students in mufti mill outside his window, field trip-bound. "I'm buggered if I know where they're actually going. In a large school, sometimes it's assumed by parents you'll know every student."

Some other assumptions: higher decile schools are rich, they deal with fewer social problems, teacher workload is lighter.

And some of that is true. But take a look at the implications of a high decile rating (based on the income, occupation, crowding, educational qualifications and benefit levels of a representative sample of households in the school's catchment), and understand why principals are concerned.

If you're decile one (representing the lowest socio-economic catchments) with 1000 students, then you'll receive an additional $779,890 in "targeted funding for educational achievement". If you're a decile 10 school you get zero dollars. Cashmere, with its decile eight ranking, qualifies for $40,340 per 1000 students.

"Obviously, a good case can be put for additional funding to low-decile schools," says Turnbull. "But the range, in my opinion, is too great. I'm interested in what the assumptions are behind this, in relation to funding and higher decile schools."

At Cashmere, the shortfall is picked up by parents (approximately $70,000 will be raised this year by way of donations, including a school fee of $70 per student or $120 per family), and a lucrative international student contribution worth a net $500,000.

The day before the Star-Times visits, Turnbull has paid $2500 to insure Cashmere against a sudden loss of that income.

"Without our international enrolments, I don't know how we'd cope. We're not an extravagant school, but we want to supply a breadth of curriculum... we spend every cent. Funding is an issue."

In the staffroom (that's a Margaret Hudson Weir painting on the wall she used to teach here), the people in charge are gathering.

"Reports are due this afternoon," they are reminded. "We'll be printing them tomorrow. Keep your cellphones on."

And from another corner of the room: "Quite a few people are using inappropriate cleaners on their white boards. Spray n'wipe leaves a film."

The bell rings. Doors swing open: red hair, pink hair, studded chins they are all dressed the same but there is nothing uniform about the 1600-plus students that have turned empty corridors into a swarm of humanity.

"Our most difficult kids are very difficult," says Turnbull. "I don't think they are necessarily more in number than five or eight years ago, but the degree of difficulty and defiance is worse."

Turnbull says no teachers have been assaulted at school. Cashmere employs a behaviour management system that involves removing students from classroom before it becomes an outright battle with a teacher.

"We will get kids who tell teachers to f--- off. That, to me, is a stand-down offence. I'm not going to have that language."

Drugs? "In every school in New Zealand, there will be some drugs. Every school." Cashmere used to ask the police to visit with sniffer dogs that no longer happens.

Alcohol? "Yes. Kids drink."

Cashmere, like all secondary schools, is grappling with a lowered drinking age. In a society where 18-year-olds can legally access bars, that will, inevitably, spill into school.

"Probably the most gratifying thing about most kids today is the drink-driving thing. They don't. My generation did."

Later, on walkabout around Cashmere's sprawling grounds, Turnbull points out the places students gather to misbehave.

"Across by the creek over there. You could have a lookout, and teachers going over there have to walk, so you get about two or three minutes to stop whatever you're doing ... I think the students like to think we're a little bit dumb about things like that."

In his first six months, Turnbull carried a map of the grounds. The school is a maze of two-storey corridors and poky corners. A recent Education Review Office report said "students, in many cases, learn in untidy, crowded and drab teaching spaces". New enrolments have exceeded expectation and there is pressure on classrooms. Turnbull acknowledges the criticism. "But I did a wee bit of research. There is nothing to indicate that the quality of buildings actually enhances education. The real effect is the quality of teachers."

He stops walking, and pauses at an ageing mural.

"We're reluctant to pull it down, because it was done by [singer] Bic Runga when she was here. At that stage she couldn't make up her mind whether to be an artist or a singer. She probably chose the right thing," says Turnbull, diplomatically.

Cashmere has also educated popera's Yulia, and boy band Zed. Its students go to space camp in the United States, to cultural exchanges in Japan.

We turn the corner and enter a warm, shiny new building. This, says Turnbull, is the only conductive education facility in the world within a high school setting. The children in these classrooms are severely disabled. "Some of the things being done here, you would normally see happen in a hospital or a health type environment. It integrates education, physical health, emotional wellbeing... every kid in our society deserves the very best."

 ***

In another classroom, in the same school, Nicole Billante, 31, is standing in for a form teacher who has had to take emergency leave. She reads the morning's notices and hands the floor to the student council rep who asks for ideas to take to a lunchtime meeting. Her classmates' wants are simple: a dance and longer breaks.

This year, Billante is directly responsible for 140 students. She always wanted to teach. A political science degree sidetracked her into public policy research in Sydney, but four years ago she made it into the classroom.

"I didn't love it the first year," she admits. "If you'd talked to me then, I would not sound nearly so positive. It was hard work, and why it was hard work now I can't remember. But I was tired all the time. You come in wanting to do so much...

"It's an emotional rollercoaster. You're so idealistic, you want to help everybody, but there are the ones you think you didn't get to know well enough I don't know how they work, I don't know how to get to know them better.

"All the research shows, and it's so true, that it's about the relationship. The most effective learning will take place when you have a good relationship with that student."

Billante lists workload and resourcing as the top issues facing teachers.

"In an ideal world, we'd have the technology for kids to use and we'd be able to supply them with whatever was going to be the best for them."

The reality: "No matter how good your principal is about managing money, there's still just never enough. You're still strapped. We have a quota for photocopying, for example 50 pages per student, per year. You're always trying to work out ways to be more economical."

Parents have high expectations, says Billante. "They tell us, `we're so used to being involved in our child's education at primary school, and then they come here and we just feel completely out of the loop'. You can understand their anxiety but at the same time, I have up to 150 students, and it's impossible to know 150 sets of parents. You rely a lot on the child communicating directly with the parent. Teenagers are not always the best at that."

When Billante filled out the last census questionnaire, she estimated her working week at between 50 and 60 hours. "There is a heavy workload but it's really flexible."

Later that day, as 16 Year 12 English students sit in a computer lab and consider the question "Are we learning from social inequities of the past?", Billante reminds them this is a silent assessment, based on their study of the novel To Kill A Mockingbird. "It's worth 90%. And I'm going to spend a lovely Sunday night on the couch with your essays."

There are moments, says Billante, when she knows she's snapped. "Where I know that it was as much me as it was the student, because I was tired or stressed or those sorts of things. But we all do it. It's human nature.

"I know I don't have it as hard as teachers in decile one or two schools. I have friends who work in those places. That is hard work.

"But where decile funding penalises us is, we don't get any extra... and we don't have quite an affluent enough community to give us the private funds which some high-decile schools get."

There's a danger, she says in assuming a high-decile school will have "good" students.

"You don't know what someone's home life is like, how much stress parents might be under."

But here's the key: "We can't control for home, but we can control what we can do in the classroom. If we're doing our best for that child, then that child, who is perhaps not from the best home, can still do well."

 ***

Ken Havill is stirring something leafy and green through a mug of hot water. "Green tea," says the Western Springs College principal.

"I've had so many people come through this office from China and Japan and they give me green tea, so I've got a fridge full of it. I actually quite like it. I used to walk down to the staffroom and get an instant coffee nine or 10 times a day. I've knocked that on the head."

At Western Springs, the students call their teachers by their first names. They don't wear uniforms (the last time parents were surveyed on this, 92% said they wanted their children to keep wearing mufti). The school roll has almost doubled since 2003 and its make-up has altered dramatically. Back in the 1990s, Pacific Island pupils represented half the roll. Today that community accounts for just 11%. Tight immigration policies, combined with the gentrification of contributing suburb Grey Lynn, have literally changed this school's face and its decile rating.

Last year, Western Springs learned it was going up a grade. "It cost us between $20,000 and $25,000 in reduced [Education Ministry] funding," says Havill. "But it cost us a lot more than that, because we had a first point of contact health service grant through the Auckland District Health Board, and they knocked that on the head... they decided we were a reasonably high decile school and there were others on the isthmus that should get the money. That was worth $50,000."

Havill is a Sacred Heart College old boy. He is regularly hit up for contributions to his former school. "There is a huge reservoir of funding support. This school does not have anything like that at all."

The decile change forced Western Springs to increase its school fee it expects to raise $123,000 from parents this year, up from $96,000 last year.

"The board wrote to all the parents. I don't know if people were happy, but I think they've bitten the bullet."

At the start of every school year, Western Springs hosts a barbecue for new students and their families. "At the powhiri," Havill said, "I told them I wanted them [parents] to feel like this secondary school was like a primary school, in the sense that parents are comfortable bowling up and walking through the doors. If you make parents feel welcome, and have an open gate and open door, a lot of anxieties are alleviated."

Testament to parental commitment: after every Warriors rugby league home game, an army of Western Springs parents cleans up Mt Smart stadium.

"That's the main way our parents have fundraised," says Havill. "It's bloody hard work getting down underneath those seats and picking up the rubbish. And they've been doing it for years."

You get the sense this is a community, not just a school. Its students are high academic achievers (the last Education Review Office report was glowing). Teacher turnover is about 13%, compared to the Auckland average of 16%. Senior students run weekly peer support lessons. "What do you do if you see a friend smoking?" they ask a group of Year 9s. "Take it out of his mouth and put it in his leg," suggests a student. The older boy suppresses a laugh. "Hmm. That's good. Because you can't smoke in your leg ..."

Actually, smokers are most likely to be referred to Quit programmes. Today's health programmes are more educative than punitive.

Drugs? "Every year we have occasion to deal with a few kids in this area. It's about being vigilant. There is no evidence of anything beyond dope. I'm on the lookout for P and there is no evidence of that."

In Havill's "how to be a good school" book, two things count: academic achievement and discipline. "A kid should know where they are in the system, in terms of how close to the edge they are."

***

It's raining. A pukeko stalks across a playing field. The cafeteria lunchtime special is spanakopita, and later that day Monty Beetham will bring his Dancing with the Stars' routine to the school. But first, classes.

John Ward, 38, is teaching Year 9 social studies students the intricacies of longitude and latitude. Remember the latter, he suggests, by thinking of it as flatitude, "but please don't say that in an NCEA assessment".

John. Johnno. Jonathan. Wardy. He answers to them all. Back in the United Kingdom, he sold coffee to restaurants and catering companies. He always wanted to be a teacher, "but we had a house, a mortgage, and it was just too much to give it all up to train again".

When his wife took a job in New Zealand, it allowed a career change.

"You think those cliche things, `I want to make a difference'. I don't think anyone would realistically do this if they didn't. All those things I hoped for have probably come to fruition."

He's directly in charge of four classes, and about 120 students, but is also the dean of a 250-strong "house".

"That first year is challenging, without question. There's so much going on. It's not just the teaching, it's all the things around it."

The teachers the Star-Times met don't just teach. They coach soccer and hockey and debating. They spend their lunchtimes patrolling playgrounds and marking essays. They do their prep work at home, late into the night, and they're at school before 8am most days.

Ward's starting salary was $38,000. Teachers' pay, he says, is an issue. "I'm the secondary earner in our house. In terms of attracting the highest calibre of people to do this job, some of the top graduates who come out of university might not look at teaching because they will be motivated by financial reward.

"How many talented people does that rule out of teaching?"

He's never been told to f--- off (it's a stand-down offence at Western Springs too), never felt physically threatened. Does his gender make a difference?

"You're always going to get those situations where it would be better for a male teacher or a female teacher to be dealing with something. The trick is, if you're facing one of those situations, hand it over."

He thinks, perhaps, he gets genuinely annoyed with students "maybe three times a year... maybe I shouldn't say that. Now they'll know I'm pretending the rest of the time".

And yet: "Every single lesson is not a raging success. Every year, there's some frustration where you think you could have done better. When I compare it to sales, if you don't do a pitch properly, you don't get the business. But the things you're doing here if you get them wrong, and keep getting them wrong can have really lasting and damaging consequences."

***

Remember the days of the old school yard? The bathroom walls still proclaim (pick-a-name-any-name) is a dirty slut; chewing gum is still banned. Today's students are also asked to switch off their cellphones and keep their classrooms free of graffiti tags.

Principals grapple with new funding models, teachers grapple with new educational assessment procedures. The kids keep coming.

At a form class at Western Springs, the Star-Times shared a student's birthday celebration. Pupils sang. His teachers led the three cheers and later one asked, "Can you feel the love?"

And the student said yes.