A Communal Kick in the Teeth

I have just recieved the the following from a close friend.

I spent the afternoon reading the facilitators report for Upper Hutt that was released to me under the Official Information Act. I was horrified to find that the entire Pinehaven community submission was summarised in one line:
"The PPA support a merged school as their last and least preferred option"

In the Pinehaven community document this option read:

"This is our last option and least preferred because one of the two communities will suffer deeply through the loss of their school.

Note that this proposed model for the two schools is not sustainable if the United States research favouring schools of less than 400 pupils were to be understood and implemented by a future government.

This trend toward small schools in the United States is backed up with an impressive body of research. The Minister of Education admitted in a public meeting on November 11th, in Upper Hutt, that New Zealand is starting to experiment with the "school within a school" concept. We are concerned about arriving at the bizarre situation of having paid to create one school and then having to pay again to split it into two separate schools!

But if such a decision is to be imposed, in the teeth of strong community opposition, then we believe that Pinehaven is the more logical site.

We understand that the Pinehaven School board is actively promoting the idea of a combined school on the Pinehaven Site. Whilst this is against the wishes expressed to the PPA by the greater Pinehaven community, we believe this option would, at least, be preferable to no school or empty buildings on the site. Logistically and financially the Pinehaven site would be the optimal site for a large school."

The Pinehaven community spent their blood and guts on this submission. To have it so lightly discarded is a kick in the teeth to the whole community, and and indictment of the network review process. What this tells me is that the real aim of a network review is "can we get away with closing your school".

If you are interested, the full Pinehaven community document is available here.

11:20:40 PM    

More 'Mr Right' teachers wanted. A study identifies some of the qualities it takes for a man to become a good primary school teacher. [BBC News | Education | UK Edition]

My Aside: note that  the authors "spoke to some female teachers to gauge the ideal type of man to fill the job". A good scientific study!

11:09:42 PM