Stronger HSC Standards? A Question rather than a Statement

The New South Wales Minister for Education has recently released a statement about creating ‘Stronger HSC Standards’. This statement has the subheading ‘Current State, Future State’. The immediate positive is the development of a Science extension course, and there are proposed changes to English, Mathematics, Science and History syllabuses, with record numbers of teachers participating in the review of these changes.

In a short video, Adrian Piccoli explains what the HSC reforms will mean to students. There are various benefits, like fewer assessment tasks and a revision of some aspects of the curriculum, he says. Of the ‘stronger HSC standards’, the screen tells us that ‘most students will meet the minimal standards in Year 9 NAPLAN tests’. Students who may not meet the standard in Year 9 are reassured: ‘don’t worry … you’ll have lots of opportunities to complete the tests online’. These tests will take about half an hour to complete in each area. You can read about the reforms and see the minster's message at the following link: http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/policy-research/stronger-hsc-standards/

Now, let’s test some of these claims by considering the numbers, and the impact on students who don’t meet the new minimal standard in Year 9. Will it be quite as ‘no worries’ as the minister suggests? In ‘Stronger HSC Standards – Frequently Asked Questions’, the Board of Studies forecasts that ‘at least 50% of HSC students will pre-qualify for the minimal standard in Year 9, by achieving Band 8 in their NAPLAN reading, writing and numeracy tests’. However, the majority of students in NSW were below Band 8 in writing for the last four years, even leaving aside reading and numeracy. According to the NAPLAN National Report in 2015, 67% of NSW students were below Band 8 in Writing, and 48% were below Band 8 in both Reading and Numeracy. The 2016 report has not yet been released but the projections for writing are no better. If Band 8 is required in each of reading, writing and numeracy, it follows that the majority Year 9 students will be moving into Years 10-12 with a cloud over their head as to whether they will reach the minimal standards to quality for the HSC.

Why set the bar so high? The minimal national standards, according to ACARA, are indicated to parents as being Bands 5 and 6; that is, below Band 7. However, the minister has effectively raised the bar to Band 8, presumably on the basis that students would need to move ahead to Band 8 by the end of Year 12. While this makes some sense, were the age-appropriate minimal standard of Band 7 applied, schools could more sensibly be able to deal with the approximately 25% of students who are below the reading standard, for example, through targeted programs. Setting the bar higher will affect a great number of students who would otherwise be essentially on target for sound results in the HSC examinations.

Another issue to consider is the socio-economic impact. For example, if the (less than) 50% of students who prequalify for the HSC minimal standards in Year 9 happen to largely fall in wealthier suburbs or in selective schools, then these students could move their attention onto the HSC earlier, while the other students will need to focus on the ‘basics’. We have seen this approach contribute to great inequalities in the United States, where the ‘No Child Left Behind’ policy meant that schools in poorer areas ‘dumbed down’ the curriculum to try to get their students to pass basic skills, high-stakes tests. The curriculum loses its richness and students fall further behind. In contrast, Finland, which everyone likes to quote for their incredible PISA rankings, has no standardised testing, just school-based assessment and high levels of resourcing. 

The only way this could be said to be overstated is if the online tests to be set for students in Years 10 to 12 are not that difficult to pass, and are, indeed, set at a lower level than a Band 8 in writing and reading in NAPLAN. This may well be the case – assessing writing is expensive and difficult, but the sample online questions are really quite basic. So, relax and don’t worry? Possibly, but this begs the question: why make half the State or more go through a pointless exercise? Why unsettle adolescent students in Year 9 with a demand that they jump through a hoop to gain a qualification that has been seen as a basic right for many years?

The ‘Stronger HSC Standards Blueprint’ is a more promising document, with three references to creativity, one to innovation, and one to interdisciplinary learning – all hallmarks of a progressive education that is indeed future focused. These three key terms are missing all together in the ‘Strong HSC Standards – Current State, Future State’ document. This, in itself, may be telling.

A focus on basics, whilst a popular theme, may mean that we have lost an opportunity to reach for some of the true future state aspirations of a modern economy: creativity, innovation, and interdisciplinary learning - helping students make connections across different areas of knowledge. Comparing the ‘blueprint’ to the ‘current state, future state’ documents makes me think of the ABC show, Utopia, where a senior bureaucrat has leant heavily on a policy document to skew the outcome in the wrong direction. It’s not too late to go back to the fundamental driver of change: if we want stronger HSC standards, is this the best way to get it? Or, would we be better to change the driver itself, and simply aim to develop a stronger, more rigorous HSC?

 The opinions expressed here are personal ones.

Connecting and Knowing - What Students Say They Value in their Teachers

A few years ago, I wrote up a study based on a question I put to each of our Year Twelve students indvidually, during a series of nearly eighty interviews I conducted over a couple of weeks. The question was: Who is a standout teacher for you, and why? I used a clustering method ('logico-inductive') to identify key themes and the student's words as evidence for these themes. The article I wrote, published in Australian Educational Leader 36.3 (2014) had the heading 'Connecting and knowing: the qualities of standout HSC teachers ...' In a broad sense, I had clustered the themes under the headings 'attitudes to students and work'; 'attitude to subject' and 'teaching methodologies.' Having repeated a variation on this study for three years (I am currently mid-way through the third year) - I can say with absolute certainty just how important 'connecting' is in the minds of students. This is not some sort of easy mateship or connection to youth culture. Rather, the students speak repeatedly about the effort the teacher makes to get to know them as individuals and how they learn - so that adjustments to teaching and learning can occur naturally and authentically.

Last week, I had my individual student meeting with Amy - an interesting thinker, one of those students who manage to combine being largely quiet with being forthright - when she does speak up, it's to challenge an idea or seek clarification on something important. Otherwise in class, she has a faint smirk on her face. In our meeting, she shared with me a humorous narrative she had written last year which concerned a parent and a child. The parent was religious and worried; the child was a thinker, amused at the world and full of direct questions - but careful not to go too far with her worried mother in their conversations about God. Reading the story helped me to understand the student in my class, to piece together something as I have described here. And this week, and this might be just a matter of my perception, I think she's spoken up a few more times and shared a few more thoughts, to the benefit of all.

So, creating a culture of thinking involves knowing not just our subject and what we know, but what our students know and what makes them tick. In this particular case, my student chose to share something that was comic and yet also cosmic. She needs something of the bigger picture. I think that I have found a way of helping to connect her learning in the classroom.

The Cognitive Apprentice



 In Creating cultures of thinking, Ron Ritchhart includes the idea of the 'dispositional apprentice' - whereby teachers model and nurture 'the very attitudes, values and behaviours we want to see in our students' (p.127). Taking this idea to the central area of concern - creating a culture of thinkin - Ritchhart advocates the teacher as leading the student as the 'cognitive apprentice'. This requires an overt modelling of thinking by the teacher: 'One needs to deliberately bring the thinking to the surface, to make it visible, whether it's in reading, writing or problem solving. The teacher's thinking must be made visible to the students and the student's thinking must be made visible to the teacher' (Collins, Brown and Holum 1991, p.3; cited in Ritchhart, p.130).

How might this work in practice?

In our English Extension class, we have been studying the novel Eucalyptus (1998) - a rather complex text which is a form of 'cultural hybrid': a novel and an anti-novel; an appropriation of a fairy tale structure, organised under an apparent taxonomy of trees. Our guided discussions in class have been about the nature of Bail's commentary on Australian culture through various literary techniques, including appropriation, anecodate, motif, embedded storyteller etc. As we approached an essay that the students have been asked to write, I felt it was time for me to model some of my own thinking about the text. Prior to the two lessons this took, we had read and discussed (through a thinking routine - Claim-Support-Challenge) two complex academic articles which examined the novel in relation to other contemporary Australian fiction, and cultural matters. My own presentation took the form of notes I had written, spoken aloud, with me highlighting certain 'thinking moves' such as 'connection making'. For example, in looking at an idea from the text, I was able to draw the students attention to ideas from the previous readings. 'I am making a connection here to the Fiander article in terms of the idea of 'an anxiety' about white writers' 'own connections to the land ...'. The 'Undertanding Map' provides some good language teachers can use to make their thinking explicit (for example, 'I'm uncovering complexity when I point to ...' or, 'I'm looking for the 'heart of the matter' in saying that ...). See:  http://www.ronritchhart.com/ronritchhart.com/COT_Resources_files/Understanding%20Map.pdf

On other matters, I had another of my student meetings, with Christina, who brought two pieces - a past essay, and a past short story (micro fiction). From the essay, we were able to identify her strengths in terms of structure and clarity. Christina, in re-reading her work, could see that there was more complexity to the topic than she had allowed for, and this helped us to set a goal for her discursive writing. In her own fiction, it was pleasing to see how she had shaped her language so sharply, with obvious skill and editing. And we could see where one metaphor fell flat, requiring an immediate reversal of logic to make sense. I felt really positive that a short time with the student allowed me to build a more personal connection and understand her as a writer and a thinker without it being at 'arm's length' in the tradition of marker first, helper second. The one-to-one time obviously has a strong connection to the cognitive apprenticeship, which implies the mentoring and guidance of the more experienced 'master' of the knowledge.

Student Interactions - Varying the Conversations

My meeting today made me reflect on how the conversation changes each week as I look at student work and set some individual goals. The format I am using is as follows:


- Title of piece of work:
- Context of work:
- Feedback and mark received:
- student observations on own work:
- GG Goals, Moving Forward (in summary):


The format allows me to ask the student questions about their own piece of writing, and this gives me some insight into each students' thinking about their own writing and development in this subject. This has been particularly good in terms of the 'student observations on own work'. Before I indicate where I think they have done well and could improve, the student has a chance to self-reflect; often their own thinking guides the conversations from here.


Today, Tristan showed me an essay he had written last year on a comparison of tragedy, looking at Macbeth and Oedipus Rex. He felt, looking back, that he had rather over-relied on context and that this was something which in some ways typified his approach. We then talked about the idea of the question he was responding to, and what the 'heart of the matter' might be in this case. As a goal, I have asked him to consider writing essay questions in his own words, in several ways, to identify this 'heart' and then to consider whether it is possible to 'collapse' some of the contextual points in his essays to develop this central focus further.


Today's conversation, in other words, was quite different from last week's one. This would seem to indicate how just twenty minutes with a student can help me to see their thinking and working in a way that could help guide their work for the coming term.

Connections and Interactions - Progress Report

Reflecting on my goal to focus on Interactions as a cultural force (after Ron Ritchhart, Creating cultures of thinking) ...


"Great teachers often explain their success in terms of relationships" (Ritchhart, p.201). Without in any way laying claim to being a "great teacher" I'm working on building the relationships in my small senior class by having individual student meetings  a) to review a past essay or story in English Extension, and b) to build a sense of engagement with each student by valuing their past work and setting some learning goals for the year for this subject.


Today's meeting was with Zoe. One of the questions I am asking my students is to reflect on their own writing. What are you proud of? What would you do differently the next time around? Zoe proved to be very self-reflective, quite clearly able to see how she had made connections at a conceptual level between the two novels in her essay. She was also able to articulate the next steps in her own writing, particularly in relation to structure. As we talked through her essay, we were also able to see how considering the intentions of an author might open up the discussion, particularly when we are talking about potentially controversial characters (such as Holden Caufield, and her current reading of Humbert Humbert).


In class, there has been some progress on the metaphor of utilsing 'passing moves' to improve student interactions in thinking about classroom patterns of discourse. In the last two lessons, there have been a number of instances where the students have made use of the connecting phrases (see previous blog entry) and done so in a self-conscience manner. I would take this as being an important step - even when it is done with a smile - later we might hope that the passing moves become routine and we no longer even need to notice them. The lesson ended with us laughing together over a student's reaction to my offer to extend their lesson into their recess break each week. I take this as a good sign of the building of relationships for mutual respect and conversations as "unrehearsed intellectual adventure" (Oakeshott 1959).

Intellectual Basketball

In continuing my current goal of building connections with my students, I had my second student meeting today at lunch time. Xavier brought along a piece of creative writing he had completed in Year Ten; he had received full marks on the task but limited feedback (his words). He was never the less able to articulate clearly what he had enjoyed about writing the piece - in terms of the content, structure and language choices he had made. We looked together at things he could improve further in the next piece of creative writing he attempts - particularly in the area of research and further refinement to promote authenticity, avoid anachronisms, and specificity. The meeting helped me to get to know Xavier a little more and understand something of his ability to reflect on his writing, and to take advice (not an easy thing for anyone to master).

The other aspect of my current goal is to building interactions in the classroom, particularly by using some strategies to enrich classroom discussion. Picking up on ideas from Ron Ritchhart's Creating cultures of thinking (2015), I have made a wall poster and intend to use this quite explicitly at first to shift the conversation from 'ping-pong' (teacher-student interactions) to 'basketball' (teacher-student-student ... interactions). The image is from an online search and I am not sure of the copyright in terms of any reproduction (best avoid). The specific 'passing moves' I am going to try are sentence-starters for students:
* Connecting with what _______ said ...
* I want to agree/disagree with ___________ because ...
* _________'s comment makes me think ....
* If we follow that idea out, then ...