Latest news with #Grocott
Otago Daily Times
5 days ago
- General
- Otago Daily Times
Christchurch school brings back traditional single-cell rooms
A second Canterbury school has made the costly move to ditch its near-new open plan classrooms. Shirley Boys' High School is spending $800,000 to transform its open plan classrooms, built in 2019, into single-cell rooms. When Shirley Boys High was rebuilt after being damaged in the Christchurch earthquakes the Ministry of Education was in the midst of a push for open plan classrooms, the Innovative Learning Environments. Shirley Boys High was one of a number of Christchurch schools being rebuilt or repaired which joined the movement. Six years after its brand new building opened, Shirley Boys' High principal Tim Grocott said it was obvious the open plan classrooms were not working for students or staff. "The level of distraction was just too high. There was too much movement going on. They can hear what is happening in the class next door - "oh that's sounds interesting over there, I wonder what they are doing". Particularly if something was being played on TV or anything like that. So that level of distraction was a negative factor." Grocott said the shared spaces meant that teachers had to do what they could to limit noise, whereas now they can teach in far more engaging ways. "To be a character, to be at the front and tell a story and have the boys laughing and all of those sorts of things that add to the enjoyment of learning - they couldn't do it. Because that would be distracting other classes around them." In 2024, Shirley Boys' High also did a formal inquiry into how students and staff were finding the open-plan rooms, and Grocott said the widespread unhappiness that was found meant they needed to respond. It will cost the school $800k to make the change, and Grocott said the school was in the lucky position of being able to cover that from school reserves put aside by the board over the last 10 years. The first part of the changeover was completed in the last school holidays, and the final stage will be done in the next school holidays. The feedback so far has been overwhelmingly positive and instantaneous. "Hugely positive feedback. The staff on the first day were absolutely thrilled. One of our teachers was hugging the walls in her classroom because she was so thrilled to have walls. But the boys are just much happier," said Grocott. Grocott said his view is that open plan classrooms are a flawed concept that just did not work for his school. A year ago, Rangiora High School finished the process of changing an open plan building, built in 2018, to single-cell classes. Rangiora High School principal Bruce Kearney said the feedback has been amazing. "The results have been a huge shift in engagement, in attendance, in achievement. It is not what I was expecting. I was expecting a small shift, but its gone through the roof, its made a massive difference in everything in the school." Kearney said while the open plan classrooms didn't work for his school, they may work for others, and his key bit of advice was to review them, and make changes if needed. Minister of Education Erica Stanford said open plan classrooms do work well for some schools, but she said she knows many schools want to switch back to single-cell rooms. She said that decision is up to the schools. "It seems to be a fad that comes and goes, but I think that the evidence is really tending more and more these days towards to making sure there are spaces that are quiet, potentially modular for children to learn. Especially for children with additional learning needs." In a statement, the Ministry of Education's Head of Property, Sam Fowler said the Ministry was aware some schools have converted open-plan classrooms to single-cell classrooms, and that there were schools where such work is currently underway or planned for the future. The Ministry does not have figures on how many schools have or want to convert such spaces. Fowler said schools in New Zealand are self-governing through their boards, meaning they are responsible for decisions regarding their daily operations and teaching and learning programmes. This includes choices about learning space configurations, and whether classrooms are open-plan or single-cell. He said new and redeveloped school buildings were designed for flexibility, enabling schools to tailor spaces to their preferred approach, but the Ministry was also implementing a programme of increased standardisation to ensure new buildings provide consistent and adaptable solutions for schools. The president of the Post Primary Teachers Association, Chris Abercrombie said the merits or otherwise of open plan classrooms was a frequent topic for teachers. He said the open-plan rooms can have positives, but require training on how best to use it. "Apart from one or two exceptions, very little thought seems to be given to that professional development. How to use the space effectively, how to teach there, how to often team teach, how to work together in that manner is often missing in that space." Abercrombie said the clear push from the Ministry towards open plan classrooms has died off, but the PPTA would still like to see proper research into their impact.
Otago Daily Times
5 days ago
- General
- Otago Daily Times
'Flawed concept': Canterbury high school ditches open-plan rooms
A second Christchurch school has made the costly move to ditch its near-new open-plan classrooms. Shirley Boys' High school is spending $800,000 to transform its open-plan classrooms, built in 2019, into single-cell rooms. When Shirley Boys' was rebuilt after being damaged in the Christchurch earthquakes, the Ministry of Education was in the midst of a push for open plan classrooms, the Innovative Learning Environments. Shirley Boys' was one of a number of Christchurch schools being rebuilt or repaired which joined the movement. Six years after its brand new building opened, Shirley Boys' principal Tim Grocott said it was obvious the open-plan classrooms were not working for students or staff. "The level of distraction was just too high. There was too much movement going on. They can hear what is happening in the class next door - "oh that's sounds interesting over there, I wonder what they are doing". Particularly if something was being played on TV or anything like that. So that level of distraction was a negative factor." Grocott said the shared spaces meant that teachers had to do what they could to limit noise, whereas now they could teach in far more engaging ways. "To be a character, to be at the front and tell a story and have the boys laughing and all of those sorts of things that add to the enjoyment of learning - they couldn't do it. Because that would be distracting other classes around them." In 2024, Shirley Boys' also did a formal inquiry into how students and staff were finding the open-plan rooms, and Grocott said the widespread unhappiness that was found meant they needed to respond. It will cost the school $800,000 to make the change, and Grocott said the school was in the lucky position of being able to cover that from school reserves put aside by the board over the last 10 years. The first part of the changeover was completed in the last school holidays, and the final stage would be done in the next school holidays. The feedback so far had been overwhelmingly positive and instantaneous. "Hugely positive feedback. The staff on the first day were absolutely thrilled. One of our teachers was hugging the walls in her classroom because she was so thrilled to have walls. But the boys are just much happier," Grocott said. Grocott said his view was that open-plan classrooms were a flawed concept that just did not work for his school. A year ago, Rangiora High School finished the process of changing an open-plan building, built in 2018, to single-cell classes. Rangiora High principal Bruce Kearney said the feedback had been amazing. "The results have been a huge shift in engagement, in attendance, in achievement. It is not what I was expecting. I was expecting a small shift, but its gone through the roof, its made a massive difference in everything in the school." Kearney said while the open-plan classrooms didn't work for his school, they may work for others, and his key bit of advice was to review them, and make changes if needed. Minister of Education Erica Stanford said open-plan classrooms did work well for some schools, but she said she knew many schools wanted to switch back to single-cell rooms. She said that decision was up to the schools. "It seems to be a fad that comes and goes, but I think that the evidence is really tending more and more these days towards to making sure there are spaces that are quiet, potentially modular for children to learn. Especially for children with additional learning needs." In a statement, the Ministry of Education's Head of Property, Sam Fowler, said the ministry was aware some schools had converted open-plan classrooms to single-cell classrooms, and that there were schools where such work was currently under way or planned for the future. The ministry did not have figures on how many schools had or wanted to convert such spaces. Fowler said schools in New Zealand were self-governing through their boards, meaning they were responsible for decisions regarding their daily operations and teaching and learning programmes. This included choices about learning space configurations, and whether classrooms were open-plan or single-cell. He said new and redeveloped school buildings were designed for flexibility, enabling schools to tailor spaces to their preferred approach, but the ministry was also implementing a programme of increased standardisation to ensure new buildings provide consistent and adaptable solutions for schools. President of the Post Primary Teachers Association Chris Abercrombie said the merits or otherwise of open-plan classrooms was a frequent topic for teachers. He said the open-plan rooms could have positives, but required training on how best to use it. "Apart from one or two exceptions, very little thought seems to be given to that professional development. How to use the space effectively, how to teach there, how to often team teach, how to work together in that manner is often missing in that space." Abercrombie said the clear push from the ministry towards open-plan classrooms had died off, but the PPTA would still like to see proper research into their impact.
The Independent
12-03-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Lords talking about themselves ‘to destruction' during hereditary peers debate
Members of the House of Lords are talking about themselves 'to destruction' amid a proposed law to oust hereditary peers, Parliament has heard. Labour peer Lord Grocott, who has long campaigned to end birthright membership of the upper chamber, criticised colleagues for the pace of debate on the legislation. He argued that the Bill is a narrow and specific one, with just five clauses, intending to end the right for hereditary peers to sit and vote in the Lords, not to carry out wider reform of the unelected chamber. The former MP said: 'Everyone knows that no organisation is happier than when it's talking about itself and we're demonstrating this, I think testing it to destruction, during the debate on this Bill so far. 'A simple five-clause Bill would not normally have an attendance like this.' His comments came as peers continued their line-by-line scrutiny of the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill, which is on its third day of committee stage. Lord Grocott continued: 'So far we've discussed, up to today, 10 groups of amendments. There are 32 groups left to discuss. We are averaging five groups a day. 'At this rate of progress, we shall be debating this for committee day after committee day after committee day, some of us no doubt enjoying ourselves. We all like talking about our own organisation and how we work. 'But in relation to other matters that this House should be considering on the floor of the House, to spend another six, seven or eight days or more that these stats suggest we will be doing on this Bill, repeating arguments that have been heard on numerous occasions and 90% of which we know are not directly related to the Bill and will at any event some of them come forward at a later time…' Lord Grocott, who has tabled numerous private member's bills over years attempting to remove the remaining hereditary peers, insisted: 'We really do need to do better today if we want to be seen as relevant.' Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Sentamu agreed, saying: 'I am not a prophet, nor a prophet's son, but I would like to have a healthy check. None of the amendments you put are going to end up in this Bill.' He added that the amendments 'have nothing to do with the Bill' and that peers are 'luxuriating' by discussing further reforms that are set to happen in the future. Lord Strathclyde, a Conservative hereditary peer, said: 'There is no attempt to try and filibuster this debate.' Peers debated for more than two and a half hours the idea of adding to the Bill an attendance or participation requirement for members of the Lords. Several argued that a participation requirement was listed in Labour's election manifesto, alongside the ousting of hereditary peers. However, the Government argued that there is no consensus on what this participation requirement should be and that the Bill is the first step in the process of wider Lords reform. During the prolonged debate, peers exchanged numerous ideas on how a participation requirement could work. It was suggested that peers could be required to attend a certain percentage of sitting days, with debate about whether this should be set at 1%, 10%, 15% or higher, and potentially with exceptions for those with a good reason or a leave of absence. However, some argued that this would eliminate 'low frequency, high impact' peers who are at the top of their fields and only contribute occasionally on the subject they are an expert in. It was also argued that it could result in peers coming in as 'lobby fodder' to vote and do little else. It was then suggested that peers should be required not just to attend, but to actively participate. This could take the form of speaking in the chamber or grand committee, serving on a select committee, asking oral questions, tabling written questions or taking part in official delegations overseas. It was argued that this would eke out those peers who 'clock in and disappear', but others claimed this would create a 'perverse incentive' to take part in proceedings only to meet the minimum requirement. Attorney General Lord Hermer said there is 'very considerable agreement' that peers should be obliged to participate, that metrics to measure participation should be decided on, and that failure to meet these without good reason would be 'incompatible' with membership of the Lords. But this is where the agreement ends, he said. The senior law officer said: 'As the amendments and the debate today has demonstrated, there is as yet no measure of agreement as to what the requisite participation levels should be, what the metrics will be. 'Participation in this house can take many different forms, but specifying which should be the metrics applied to requisite participation is a complicated and nuanced matter… 'We are not yet at a point where consensus has been reached and further work and further discussion is required.' Lord Hermer told peers that Lords leader Baroness Smith of Basildon has engaged in 'over 60' discussions with peers to develop the plan for how to move forward with further reforms after this Bill. He concluded: 'The Government is committed to moving forward, hopefully through consensus, to push to the next level of reform, at which participation will be key.'
