Thank you for inviting me here to speak to you today. I am thrilled to be with you to celebrate the opening of your new classroom.
I’d like to acknowledge your Principal Trevor Morris, teachers, Board of Trustees, parents and students. You have a fantastic school and it is great that it is growing.
Some of you will be aware that education is one of my priorities as a Member of Parliament. I am on the Education and Science Select Committee and am pleased to be part of a government which has Education as a top priority. I believe that a good start in life comes from a good education and provides better opportunities for the future.
National Standards will set clear expectations about what students should be able to achieve in literacy and numeracy and by when. Students’ performance against these standards will be reported to parents in plain language.
Parents want to know how well their children are doing and what they can expect when extra help is needed. This policy is about using existing assessment tools to provide feedback that supports student learning and teacher effectiveness. The sector has been working closely with the Minister about who needs access to what information.
My youngest children are at Karapiro School, which is about half the size of Rotorangi and my oldest boy Hamish is 11 and he attends Cambridge Middle School. Small rural schools are a important and distinctive feature of our schooling system and an important centre for your community.
There are issues that are particular to small schools – from the ones that you can’t change that come with being in small rural communities, to the ones that you can change.
There is a great willingness to work together and find ways around problems. I know from my children’s school the number 8 wire approach is alive and well in our rural schools.
One of the major issues for small and rural schools is that of recruiting and retaining staff. The government’s voluntary bonding scheme for graduate teacher shortages in hard-to-staff schools aims to boost teacher numbers in hard-to-staff areas, and will go some way towards addressing this issue. The scheme is expected to cost $19 million over 3 years.
Last year’s changes to rural bus transport have also been a challenge for many schools. The new Minister of Education requested a review into the Ministry of Education's 2008 school transport tender process. You were one of the schools that I met with you expressed concerns following the allocation of tenders.
The report shows the Auditor-General is satisfied the Ministry followed good business practice in tendering for and awarding school bus routes, and that safety was not compromised. There is still room for improvement in some schools and with the review behind us, we can work on these issues.
In closing, I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.
Thank you to all those here today who have been part of creating this new classroom. With the work you are doing here we will have a brighter future.
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