Choosing the right road

Waikato Times

Many parents worry about which type of school to send their budding adolescents to and struggle to understand the range of educational options, but Tracey Cooper finds it’s the people, not the type of school they attend, which have the greatest impact on a child’s education.

Middle, intermediate, full primary, composite, area, kura, correspondence, home.

The range of schooling options available to parents for their little darlings as they make the transition from child to young adult can be as difficult to understand as the budding teenagers themselves.

And even more difficult to figure out which is best.

It's long been recognised that aside from the first three years of life, children go through their most significant developmental changes between about 12 and 14 years of age.

Professor Clive McGee, founding director of Waikato University's Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research, says in the 1920s, educationalists and politicians believed that early adolescence stage "was a time for kids to grow up and they were difficult to handle emotionally, physically, psychologically. People thought they needed some special treatment where teachers could deal with them sensitively".

That special treatment saw the country's first intermediate school - Kowhai Intermediate in Mt Eden, Auckland - open in 1922.

"It makes sense and that remains one of the main reasons (for intermediate schools)," McGee says. "Post World War II we were building intermediates very quickly."

"There are a crucial two or three years where most kids are going through puberty. The stability (of an intermediate) can protect them, they may get lost in secondary school. That's not a criticism of secondary schools, they have got other things to deal with. And leaving them in primary schools could also have a negative impact."

Education ministry research from 2007 says one of the major concerns underpinning middle schooling (which includes intermediate and middle schools) is that of the primary to secondary transition.

"At its most basic, this transition typically comprises a change of school and a change from a generalist class teacher in a 'home room' to a range of specialist teachers and subjects at a larger school site with older, adolescent to adult children.

"It is important to note not all students will find the transition problematic. Many will experience little difficulty in adjustment and will relish the change," the research says.

Traditional intermediate schools cover two years of education, Years 7 and 8, when students are about 12 or 13 (see panel on E3).

But for some kids, a full primary, where they stay at the same school until Year 9, when they start secondary school, is preferable. Or composite schools - often referred to as area schools, although not all area schools are composite schools - where children stay at the same school for their entire education, might be the best option.

In recent years, middle schools - which cover Year 7 to Year 9 or Year 10 (ages 11-14) - have become a more popular option, even though there are just seven middle schools in New Zealand.

The Waikato is home to three: Cambridge Middle School; Berkley Normal Middle School and St Andrews Middle School (both in Hamilton), with St Andrews having the distinction of being the first in the country, making the change in 1995.

St Andrews principal Keith Jackson says middle schools "cater to emerging adolescents and their needs. We try and gear our programmes specifically to that."

Like intermediates, middle schools are "home room based", with students spending most of the time with one or two teachers while also attending classes elsewhere in the school in specialist areas such as technology and art.

"The home room teacher has the opportunity to get to know the kids really well and their learning needs," Jackson says.

"We use formative assessment and diagnostic assessment throughout their time at the school. We can keep an eye on their progress."

Jackson says the extra two years at a middle school can help make students' transition to secondary school smoother and senior students also get the opportunity to develop their leadership skills.

"Some kids really blossom," he says.

However, most students move on to secondary school after just two years at middle school, with about a third staying more than two years.

Long-serving Fairfield Intermediate principal Bill Noble says intermediate schools are also middle schools and while there are groups who think they (intermediates) shouldn't be there, they serve a vital role.

"These are emerging adolescents, they are changing. They know things are happening to them but they don't know what it is. It's a big thing, and that's why we need middle schools to deal with these kids in their situation," he says.

"The difference between intermediate and secondary is that we teach kids, they teach subjects."

He says there's no evidence that intermediates are worse or better than middle schools.

McGee agrees and says while there does "seem" to be some evidence that some students, particularly low achievers, may be better in middle schools, where they would stay longer and get more attention, "there is no evidence to show that one school structure is better for students than another".

"Can we say one is better than the other? No we can't."

McGee says full primary schools which cover from Year O or Year 1 to Year 8 offer different advantages but there is no comparative research which shows students do better academically than those from middle schools or intermediates and the transition to secondary school can be harder from a full primary.

"In a full primary school, students can stay with the same cohort throughout their primary schooling, which gives security and a sense of belonging. However, because most full primaries are in small towns and rural areas, they are often very small and when the students go to a secondary school it can be a hard transition to deal with."

Melville High School principal Clive Hamill says whether students start at secondary school in Year 9 (from intermediate or a full primary) or Year 11 (from middle school) makes no difference as long as the secondary school they attend has a thorough process of nurturing students into the new school structure.

"Each of them offers different strengths to students. We have two full days where our Year 9s are the only students at school and they get to know the place and the staff," Hamill says.

He "absolutely" notices differences in students from different schools.

"Part of that is one of the strengths of secondary schools, dealing with students from a whole range of abilities and development. It's also one of the challenges, taking that rich variety of ability and making sure we have a good handle on it. We find that different schools have different strengths."

Hamill was principal at Raglan Area School before moving to Melville in 2006. At Raglan the school had students from 5 to 18 years old and he believes it was probably the "most effective way to focus on learning".

"But they need to be resourced like secondary schools not primary schools."

While there has been little research on the merits of the different schools, a 2008 Education Ministry report A Focus on Students as they Transition from Primary to Secondary Schooling says while just over a third of students in the study were "excited" about the prospect of moving to secondary school, most were anxious or afraid. Most worried about the possibility of being bullied "but for most students it was, to a great extent, simply that they were fearful of the unknown. Some weeks after the transition, despite their earlier fears, most students in the study considered they had settled quite quickly into their new school," the report says.

However, "it was evident that when they looked back over Year 9, many students had found it much harder than they'd necessarily realised at the time".

"Many students identified a range of positives for them personally. However, there was a small group of students for whom the positives were overshadowed by more negative elements.

"Broadly speaking, the transition was not `negative' per se for students in the study, but it certainly was a marker of an important time of adjustment for many students.

"That most students generally coped well with the transition from primary to secondary schooling is due in considerable part to the work put in by schools and teachers. In addition, when there was good communication between students and their families, and between their families and the school, this did seem to be an important factor in how positive students felt about being at school, and in particular, how well they coped with the transition."

McGee says the transition between primary and secondary schools is also a "politically charged" situation.

"Tensions arise over the performance of students; some primary teachers claim that secondary teachers fail to fully capitalise on the skills of students after they leave Year 8. Some secondary teachers claim that primary teachers fail to prepare all students for Year 9 academic work."

Having separate unions in primary and secondary schools didn't help.

"I think the whole issue of whether they are actually primary or secondary schools is a big one," McGee says.

"We have separate teacher unions for primary and secondary so it is inevitable they will argue for their patch. Unions are fighting over the middle ground and the struggle continues."

At St Andrews Middle School, both unions are represented in the junior and senior school and Jackson says it works "very well".

But no matter which type of school parents choose for their kids, it's more likely to be the people, not the places, which have a bigger impact on a student.

The New Zealand Association of Intermediate and Middle Schools says that what makes a difference for students in the middle years is teachers who are connected to their students, understand where the students are coming from, who seek to establish and support them in their journey and who believe in and are advocates for their students.

And it doesn't really matter which type of school provides that.

McGee says what is more important is "the quality of the school and teachers, the support schools get from parents. If home and schools both play their part, it's going to work".

"The biggest impact on a kid achieving at school is their classroom teacher or teachers. There is a lot of evidence at secondary level that shows that enjoyment of a subject is very strongly related to the teacher rather than the subject," he says.

Noble agrees.

"I'm here because I had a teacher at Te Aroha College, D D Baird, and he cared about me. I was a young fella who'd just lost his dad and was going off track a bit. He got me and sat me down and said he cared about me. It was the single most important aspect in my education.

"The most powerful thing any child can say is `my teacher cares about me'."

Like McGee and Jackson, Noble says the first option any parent should consider is to send their kids to the nearest school available.

"Support the local school," Noble says.

"Go to the school you've got next door, it's your community school, it's there for you, use it. If there's an issue there, talk to the teacher, talk to the principal."

McGee says parents "would have to have a very good reason not to send them (their children) to their local school". "I can't see that any school in Hamilton is not working as hard as possible to do as well for their kids as they can."

Parents shouldn't worry too much about the type of school their children may attend, he says.

"Many parents seem obsessed with getting kids into the best schools, but that's very hard to define. It depends on the child. If the kids are okay, they will do well anywhere. It's the ones who don't achieve so well, are not well adjusted, they are going to struggle.

"For parents, I don't think they should get uptight about trying to find the best school, it's hard to determine what that actually means anyway. Some particular child might need a particular school but the vast majority will fit in to their local school and do well.

"Hamilton's traffic problems could be solved if people went to their local school."

And it's worth remembering, not everyone gets to choose where to send their kids.

"The people who get the choices are those who can afford to supply transport," McGee says.

"Many people don't have that option and have to go to the local school. There are parents who have difficulty finding out about one or another school, they have to have faith in their local school."

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SCHOOL YEAR

It can be confusing, even for experts in the field, to understand what year a child is in at school, or when someone talks about a particular school year, what age child they mean. As a rough guide, adding four to the school year will be pretty close to the child's age, although the issue is complicated by when children have their birthday. For example, if a child first starts school between July and December, they will be classed as Year 0 but a child who starts school between January and July will be classed as Year 1. Although this too may vary depending on the school. It gets more confusing for people who grew up with primers, standards, J levels or forms. An 11-year-old could, depending on when and where they grew up, be in either Year 7, Standard 5 or Form 1.

Year 1, Primer 1/J1, age 5

Year 2, Primer 2/J2, age 6

Year 3, Standard 1/J3, age 7

Year 4, Standard 2, age 8

Year 5, Standard 3, age 9

Year 6, Standard 4, age 10

Year 7, Standard 5/Form 1, age 11

Year 8, Standard 6/Form 2, age 12

Year 9, Form 3, age 13

Year 10, Form 4, age 14

Year 11, Form 5, age 15

Year 12, Form 6, age 16

Year 13, Form 7, age 17.