Phew! I can't tell you how much stress this piece of paper caused me!
Showing posts with label MOE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MOE. Show all posts
Sunday, 7 March 2010
Saturday, 30 January 2010
Application Filled and not quite rejected
Just before we went to Christchurch I sent off our application for Exemption I believe it was about 8 pages of guff designed to make the powers of bureaucracy at the Ministry of Education. I should have sent it earlier I left us with just over 15 working days to get it back before school started, but it was hard work.
The law states we must teach Merenia as regularly and as well as she would be taught in a state school. And that's all it says. The MOE get to interpret and decide how we can prove we are going to do this.
One of the things you have to do is present a years curriculum plan and with our plan to unschool and our curriculum therefore being Child-led I was struggling with how to honestly present information I didn't know. I called the Student support guy to ask what I was supposed to do. Big mistake. We both spoke a completely different language and I really struggled with his staunch passion for the 'state school way' and he just completely didn't understand me at all.
One of the examples that I gave him from Merenia's list was the fact she was keen to learn about Helicopters and I said that until we got into it I didn't know if she wanted to learn about Heli mechanics, Flight, Les' Heli related job or about being a pilot- and that quite possibly Merenia herself didn't know either. So how could I say what our first year curriculum might entail.
His reply was that it would be absurd to try and teach a 9 year old to be a pilot.
Um, so NOT what I had said.
By the end of the phone call despite me keeping my composure we parted most certainly not as friends. With my new found knowledge not gained directly but by inference I wrote our application in which I surmised from thin air what our first years curriculum might include and I wrote in edu-speak so as to make the educator who'd be reading it as comfortable as possible. I thought I had done well but I wasn't really surprised when the letter came back with a request for more info.
Perhaps most frustrating was his statement that: "In your application you state- "We don’t intend to adhere to school terms or hours...." which could be interpreted as an intent not to adhere to the requirements of the legislation."
What we actually said was.....
"Merenia’s education will be essentially constant from the moment she wakes till she falls asleep, most likely, knowing our girl, with a book in her hands. We don’t intend to adhere to school terms or hours especially as we have an older child who will also benefit from the activities and opportunities that will presented to Merenia. Also as we will be sharing the workload for teaching Merenia a reasonable amount of her learning will happen during weekends and evenings when her Dad is home from work. Just as our 2 year old is constantly learning from the activities and actions that occur daily Merenia will also be almost continually learning."
In my reply to him on Thursday I wrote:
"I’d like to assure you that on the contrary while children only spend approximately 11% of their time in any given year actually in the classroom it would be unthinkable for us for Merenia to spend such small amount of time actively learning. We were simply saying that the learning experiences and activities that Merenia takes part in would not happen *ONLY* between 9am and 3pm each term weekday. But that she would also spend time in the evenings, weekends and holidays. By structuring our programme to work like this we are able to offer Merenia a richer learning experience as she will be able to have one on one time with each of us, rather than in a Monday – Friday/9-3 style school timetable in which she will share one parent with her 2 year old brother ."
I hope that he understands it this time around.
I also had to provide more information on the content of our curriculum as well. Although I honestly couldn't see why and nor did he really explain it either. He read my email about 30 minutes after I sent it on Thursday morning but has yet to reply. I expect he will probably do it in writing in about 15 days and will probably ask for yet more info.
It's funny the ministry suggests they will take approximately 15 working days to approve your application/ask for more info if required. But if you are asked for more info you are expected to reply within 10 days of the date they wrote the letter or you are automatically declined. Something I find intriguing because if you get declined you then have to appeal to the head honcho... I'd quite like to do that because I think Gary is just picking on us because of the phone call.
All this leaves us in something of a no mans land. Until she gets her exemption Merenia is expected to turn up to school. But I've already sold her uniform and I sure as heck am not about to buy her school books.
There is a whole bunch more I could say on this there are some truly wrong aspects of this whole process which are in place because the government provided no clear guidelines so the MOE had to make up their own which are all based on the state model of education which I believe (and the research supports) has some huge issues. It reminds me of the ERO inspectors visiting Arthur Street School and trying to get their head around the Montessori classes.
The law states we must teach Merenia as regularly and as well as she would be taught in a state school. And that's all it says. The MOE get to interpret and decide how we can prove we are going to do this.
One of the things you have to do is present a years curriculum plan and with our plan to unschool and our curriculum therefore being Child-led I was struggling with how to honestly present information I didn't know. I called the Student support guy to ask what I was supposed to do. Big mistake. We both spoke a completely different language and I really struggled with his staunch passion for the 'state school way' and he just completely didn't understand me at all.
One of the examples that I gave him from Merenia's list was the fact she was keen to learn about Helicopters and I said that until we got into it I didn't know if she wanted to learn about Heli mechanics, Flight, Les' Heli related job or about being a pilot- and that quite possibly Merenia herself didn't know either. So how could I say what our first year curriculum might entail.
His reply was that it would be absurd to try and teach a 9 year old to be a pilot.
Um, so NOT what I had said.
By the end of the phone call despite me keeping my composure we parted most certainly not as friends. With my new found knowledge not gained directly but by inference I wrote our application in which I surmised from thin air what our first years curriculum might include and I wrote in edu-speak so as to make the educator who'd be reading it as comfortable as possible. I thought I had done well but I wasn't really surprised when the letter came back with a request for more info.
Perhaps most frustrating was his statement that: "In your application you state- "We don’t intend to adhere to school terms or hours...." which could be interpreted as an intent not to adhere to the requirements of the legislation."
What we actually said was.....
"Merenia’s education will be essentially constant from the moment she wakes till she falls asleep, most likely, knowing our girl, with a book in her hands. We don’t intend to adhere to school terms or hours especially as we have an older child who will also benefit from the activities and opportunities that will presented to Merenia. Also as we will be sharing the workload for teaching Merenia a reasonable amount of her learning will happen during weekends and evenings when her Dad is home from work. Just as our 2 year old is constantly learning from the activities and actions that occur daily Merenia will also be almost continually learning."
In my reply to him on Thursday I wrote:
"I’d like to assure you that on the contrary while children only spend approximately 11% of their time in any given year actually in the classroom it would be unthinkable for us for Merenia to spend such small amount of time actively learning. We were simply saying that the learning experiences and activities that Merenia takes part in would not happen *ONLY* between 9am and 3pm each term weekday. But that she would also spend time in the evenings, weekends and holidays. By structuring our programme to work like this we are able to offer Merenia a richer learning experience as she will be able to have one on one time with each of us, rather than in a Monday – Friday/9-3 style school timetable in which she will share one parent with her 2 year old brother ."
I hope that he understands it this time around.
I also had to provide more information on the content of our curriculum as well. Although I honestly couldn't see why and nor did he really explain it either. He read my email about 30 minutes after I sent it on Thursday morning but has yet to reply. I expect he will probably do it in writing in about 15 days and will probably ask for yet more info.
It's funny the ministry suggests they will take approximately 15 working days to approve your application/ask for more info if required. But if you are asked for more info you are expected to reply within 10 days of the date they wrote the letter or you are automatically declined. Something I find intriguing because if you get declined you then have to appeal to the head honcho... I'd quite like to do that because I think Gary is just picking on us because of the phone call.
All this leaves us in something of a no mans land. Until she gets her exemption Merenia is expected to turn up to school. But I've already sold her uniform and I sure as heck am not about to buy her school books.
There is a whole bunch more I could say on this there are some truly wrong aspects of this whole process which are in place because the government provided no clear guidelines so the MOE had to make up their own which are all based on the state model of education which I believe (and the research supports) has some huge issues. It reminds me of the ERO inspectors visiting Arthur Street School and trying to get their head around the Montessori classes.
♥
Tuesday, 29 December 2009
Status Update
When I left off we had just spent 5 days at Timatanga, not long after that we attended a BOT meeting to discuss whether Merenia would be accepted to attend. I believe they would have been happy to have her but Les and I had already agreed that although we really like the school, and it was an easier option, we felt it wasn't the best option for Merenia at this time... we my revisit it again in the future though.
So Merenia is to be homeschooled. She had her heart set on Timatanga as she had made such great friends already but she took the news really well.
I have written the first draft of my exemption application, it's ok but needs some work as I think it sounds a bit wanky/teacher-y and that's not how I intended to present myself, unsurprisingly. I have also joined a couple of Homeschool Yahoo groups which have been invaluable in terms of information and resources.
So the plan for the next week or so is to get the exemption finished and sent in so that we are ready to go by the time school starts back. Once it is sent off then we need to look at how are days will look (busy but relaxed) and draw up a some very basic guidelines like limiting Singstar and Saddle Club DVD's etc. And we need to decide 'what' we need to join (Rodney HE) and sign up for (Choir and Ukulele) and what extra resources we may need (a ukulele, more clothes). :-)
We need to formalise some arrangements like Merenia's appointment as 'Head Gardener' for 2010. Tell school (Yipee!!) and then we are go!
So Merenia is to be homeschooled. She had her heart set on Timatanga as she had made such great friends already but she took the news really well.
I have written the first draft of my exemption application, it's ok but needs some work as I think it sounds a bit wanky/teacher-y and that's not how I intended to present myself, unsurprisingly. I have also joined a couple of Homeschool Yahoo groups which have been invaluable in terms of information and resources.
So the plan for the next week or so is to get the exemption finished and sent in so that we are ready to go by the time school starts back. Once it is sent off then we need to look at how are days will look (busy but relaxed) and draw up a some very basic guidelines like limiting Singstar and Saddle Club DVD's etc. And we need to decide 'what' we need to join (Rodney HE) and sign up for (Choir and Ukulele) and what extra resources we may need (a ukulele, more clothes). :-)
We need to formalise some arrangements like Merenia's appointment as 'Head Gardener' for 2010. Tell school (Yipee!!) and then we are go!
Thursday, 19 November 2009
A Interesting Week
Merenia, Will and I have spent the last 5 school days at Timatanga having school visits (Les also did a day of parent help). I'm not going to spoil Merenia's thunder as I know she is part way through a post about it.
From a more personal perspective while I believe it is a great little school it has left me with more questions than answers and made the decisions we have to make a lot harder for a number of reasons.
The one thing that was demonstrated quite clearly is that it is possible for a state integrated school to operate in a manner that much better suits the students (and I'd suggest the teachers also) within the State prescribed restrictions. I hope that will continue to be so with the new National Standards currently being introduced by the National Government.
I'll let Merenia tell the rest of the story (hopefully sometime soon) and fill in the gaps once she is done.
From a more personal perspective while I believe it is a great little school it has left me with more questions than answers and made the decisions we have to make a lot harder for a number of reasons.
The one thing that was demonstrated quite clearly is that it is possible for a state integrated school to operate in a manner that much better suits the students (and I'd suggest the teachers also) within the State prescribed restrictions. I hope that will continue to be so with the new National Standards currently being introduced by the National Government.
I'll let Merenia tell the rest of the story (hopefully sometime soon) and fill in the gaps once she is done.
Monday, 21 September 2009
Holy Homeschool Batman!
So today I had my phonecall returned from the nice lady I called last week at the Ministry of Ed. She is sending us out an information pack and application for exemption. The plan at this stage if we decide to go ahead with home schooling is to start at the beginning of next year. We have lots of conversation going on about this every day; pros, cons, subject matter and 'school trips' (apparently we'll be going on quite a few of them).
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