Primary school principals in Marlborough say they are backing a no-confidence vote against the national standards policy at a Principals Federation forum.
Marlborough Principals Association president Bruce Pagan was one of 60 regional presidents and representatives of the federation who met at a forum in Wellington last week.
The forum passed a vote of no confidence in the national standards scheme introduced this year by the Government.
"We're continually frustrated at the unwillingness of the Government and the Ministry [of Education] to meet us and carry out a meaningful review [of the standards]," he said.
The federation was working on a public campaign about the standards that would be sent to parents within 10 days, he said.
The campaign was not meant to be an attack on the Government and would be funded by the federation, he said. The federation was against the standards as they were written, Mr Pagan said.
"If the Minister [of Education Anne Tolley] isn't going to listen, we feel we've got to take it above her and go directly to our clients," he said.
Most schools in Marlborough had started to integrate the national standards into their curriculums, including reporting to parents, he said.
Introduced this year, the policy ranks every pupil from year 1 to 8 at, above, below or well below national literacy and numeracy standards.
A lack of consistency in reporting a child's progress to parents was "pulling national standards into disrepute", he said.
The scheme requires teachers to assess a child's learning against national benchmarks showing where children should be at a particular age. Reports are sent to parents about their children. The standards left a lot of room for interpretation and no two schools had adopted the same reporting procedures, he said.
When children moved schools, parents would have different ideas about how schools did their assessment and reports, he said.
Canterbury schools have been told to stop reporting to parents until the "fundamental flaws" were fixed.
Canterbury Primary Principals' Association president Denise Torrey said schools should not report whether pupils had achieved national literacy and numeracy standards until Ms Tolley acknowledged the flaws and fixed them.
"At best, schools have school-wide standards, not national standards, as there's no clarity about what the standards actually are," Ms Torrey said.
"Right now, a standard at one school might not be the same at the school down the road, as that school might interpret them quite differently. One's `at' might be another's `below'."
Ms Tolley said the association's recommendation was "all about egos".
-with Fairfax
By SIMON WONG - The Marlborough Express
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