Schools plan to use catch-up funding on extra classes

Schools are trying to find extra teachers and tutors so they can spend their share of $20 million for catch-up learning.

Principals told RNZ some teenagers needed more help to get NCEA qualifications and they were running out of time.

The Education Ministry has recommended schools use the money announced by the government last week to give students at least three hour-long catch-up sessions every week for 10 weeks in small groups.

However, some principals have rejected a special tutoring programme offered to some schools with a lot of Pacific students.

They said the scheme required 80 percent attendance which was not a reasonable expectation for students already struggling because of low attendance.

Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate principal Kiri Turketo said she was pleased to get the funding but it had come a bit late in the year.

“It’s probably a little bit too late in the sense that now we’re in week nine so we’ve got about five weeks before the NCEA exams start. I would have appreciated the money probably earlier in the year so that we could plan for how we spend that money wisely,” she said.

She was hoping to use the money on the homework clubs and NCEA workshops her school normally ran but she was worried some of the services the school might want to use were already booked up.

“Some of that money will be used to … get external providers to come in to run the workshops for teachers who are too tired ‘cos let’s just face it, we’re exhausted. But when you’ve got a lot of schools all vying for the same needs, it’s supply and demand.”

Porirua College principal Ragne Maxwell says Year 13s are now in their third year of doing exams in the midst of a pandemic.
Photo: RNZ / Phil Pennington

Porirua College principal Ragne Maxwell said absences and Covid-19 isolation had sapped the will of many students and the extra money was welcome.

“It’s not really about studying for exams which they’re already doing with their teachers where they’ve got exams or bringing in new credits; it’s largely about finishing work that they’ve got in a situation where attendance is so poor and students are so demoralised.

“For our Year 13s this is their third year of Covid while they try to achieve credits,” she said.

Maxwell said the school would use the money to boost programmes it had offered in the past, such as a credit catch-up scheme during the exam period in November.

“We could put more teachers into the room who are known to the students and people who are relief teachers for us … who might otherwise not be working for us who know the students, know the school, know the assessments and can come in and deliver that tailored, personalised delivery that’s so important for our students.”

Significant help needed for quarter of senior students

James Cook High School principal Grant McMillan said it was tracking the progress of every student and about a third were on target with another third needing only a little support.

However, about a quarter of the school’s senior students were unlikely to complete their NCEA qualification this year without a lot more help.

“They might by March, April next year but of course if we can do that this year all the better and for our level three students, some of whom are going to tertiary, they will need those qualifications sorted by the end of February next year anyway so this could be pivotal for those students,” he said.

McMillan said the school would try to provide the right help for each student.

“For some it will be extra teaching or extra tutoring. For some it will be more time when they would be on exam leave normally being taught in school and those teachers released too so they can teach them directly in small groups or some of it might be an outside provider,” he said.

Both Maxwell and McMillan said the ministry had offered their schools a tutoring programme specially tailored for Pacific students but they would not be taking it up.

They said it had too many conditions, such as a requirement that students attend 80 percent of the sessions.

Albany Senior High School principal Claire Amos said the funding would be of limited use because schools would struggle to find extra teachers and tutors.

“I don’t know where these tutors are going to come from,” she said.

Amos said finding staff and ensuring they could do the job was a big ask for schools that were already stretched by a range of demands.

“It’s too little, it’s too late, it feels ad hoc, it feels like a Band aid and I don’t see how we’re going to use the money and the resources to do anything effective.”