Background of students in Alternative Education: Interviews with a selected 2008 cohort

7. Learning at AE centres

The majority (93%) of the students we interviewed said they enjoyed learning at their AE centres. There were three students who said while they enjoyed what they learnt, they were not learning enough, and in our view they should have been in mainstream schooling with the full range of learning opportunities.

Students told us the way tutors taught them was how they preferred to learn (pedagogical approach); they talked about what they learnt (curriculum), and it’s relevancy to their lives and interests; and they talked about the progress they were making.

The pedagogical approach offered by AE

The biggest difference from secondary school was the small class size and the one-to-one help tutors gave students, giving them time to understand and do the work, and checking that they understood.

It’s easy to learn here. They sit down with you and help you. I feel calm here and I don’t get stressed out about making a mistake—they help take me through it and read it. They take time to come and help us, are interested in helping us get back to school. They are different to other teachers I’ve had… they actually listen and try to help me do my work and also find what I want to do in life. I didn’t get that in my other schools… I would like to be doing some more hands on type things like woodwork… but the other work is OK and I’m getting help for it. My reading is quite low but they have helped me get my grades up at AE—have pushed me along. I’m trying to learn how to read. I had R/R at primary. Learning is difficult—I need people to explain it and help out when I’m not coping. They say my work is getting better [Bob].

We get more help from the teachers—she doesn’t yell at us—she just talks to us. And we get more breaks [Colin].

I can do the work here. The school work is easier—they teach you better with 1-1 action and that’s what I’m used to. At college the teacher writes on the board, tells you what to do, then tells you to get into it. But they don’t really help you. But here (at AE) the tutors do one-to-one work with you and you can ask questions to them—they help you out. I’m getting the help that I need to learn. I would have thought that I would get help at college like I get at AE. Here they say if you need to ask anything you just say, but it wasn’t like that at secondary And here there is the teacher in the class as well (3 people in the class altogether). Mum said that this place would be a good place for my learning and it’s true. I’ve found it easier. I think that anyone who is out of college and is having difficulties should be able to come here. [Ace 1]

Ace 1’s last sentence is a grim indicator that secondary schools are not helping these learners. Henry’s next statement gives a vital clue about the kind of help these students need—breaking it down into manageable steps.

This place is pretty good. You learn more—I’ve learnt more. Less students so there is more 1-1. It’s easier than having 30 kids in the class and trying to get attention. Teachers here are very different to other teachers I’ve had. If we don’t understand the work our teachers can break it down until we do. Other teachers break it down but it’s still too big. [Henry]

I can understand our tutors better than teachers at schools. They talk to us in a way that really makes us understand. They break down the flash words to words we can understand. They would draw it on the board, teachers at schools won’t do that. I like it so much. [Samantha]

“Flash” words for Samantha are words she hasn’t come across before—that she may not have the cultural capital of our education system to understand.

I like the teachers here—they come down to your level, they don’t force us, but encourage us. I thought this would be just like school but its not. It’s cool. [Tweety]

Encouragement was often mentioned and is a huge component for these students’ damaged self esteem about their own learning abilities. Some of the students with learning disorders or delayed learning were being taught with appropriate strategies, such as the Toe by Toe approach mentioned earlier:

I’m a real slow learner. I know I am. I’m a hands-on learner. I find it easier learning and doing not like writing on a piece of paper. Reading at AE—we have a book and you sound out stupid words. They’re not words, they’re letters. You sound them out. Read sentences. A couple of people in my class do this. [Polly]

Curriculum

The basic numeracy and literacy curriculum areas were covered by each AE centre at the appropriate levels for students, but some centres offered a wider variety of subjects, including NCEA unit standards. However, not all centres offered NCEA opportunities to their students.

Maths and reading are at the right level. Its easier to remember, my reading is better now, confidence is heaps, heaps, heaps better—one of the bigger things. Now, I do pretty much all of the activities—didn’t in the past. Doing some NCEA standards. I’m doing alright [John Doe]

We have like different periods—maths, English, social, technology. Just like at a more relaxed level. Not heaps of people, its easier to concentrate. Peaceful here. In social studies we do debates; in technology we’re building a couch and we’re going to leave it here, it’s one of the options. We do unit standards in maths and English—I’ve got a few. [Bob Down].

Learning here is cool—maths, English, literacy. Feel as though I am keeping up because we learn things we don’t know. Not doing NCEA. [Lush]

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we have our classes—maths, English, fitness, dance music or art, cooking, and then we do something in the afternoon like ICT , technology and Te Reo and on Wednedsay we go rock climbing. We go on camp to the marae at [..town]. Its mostly morning work—we do options in the afternoons or go out in the afternoons. On Thursday and Friday we do life skills and outdoor ed.—we change around. Beauty therapist comes in for Life skills. All learning is good here—its easier level. Secondary school was just so boring, so I didn’t do anything. [Superman]

Relevancy of learning

The kind of learning offered was more relevant to students’ lives and of interest to them, and the learning styles used were more practical, which appealed to many of these students.

A lot of the work we do here is more practical. We do money skills and stuff in maths. We are doing a unit on forms for English—filling them out and stuff. Its stuff we’ll use, like you use maths everyday no matter what job you have. More useful stuff than what I was learning at college. You do different units every couple of weeks so it’s more variety. Like for maths, they mix it up but we still do geometry and the other parts. I find the spelling and reading easier here—was always pretty good at maths, but there was some stuff I hadn’t learnt, so I’m filling in the gaps and stuff. It’s not so controlled like school. You’ve got food around and you can listen to music and stuff. You still have to be quiet to let people get on with their work. Similar to school but more relaxed. I think the centre is good because even though you might not be learning heaps, it’s better than learning nothing at secondary school where you wouldn’t even try. How things are setup here makes it easier to try and do it. [Matt]

They have the right subjects here, just the basics that we need in everyday life. My reading has improved from last year. Reading is hard sometimes, but my tutors help me a lot. I can read a form. Reading a long book is hard. [Jessica]

Learning makes more sense here—it has more direction and I can see what I’ll use it for (work). Before getting to AE I hated learning—sitting in class, writing down all the notes and stuff. Couldn’t really see how I’d use what we were supposed to be learning. Now learning is more important cause I’m at that stage where I’m preparing for work…I want to get a job. [Henry]

Teachers here (AE) will ask what I’m interested in and they go through the careers book and they get together all the work/credits etc you need to do it. You just read through it and do the credits and you’re ready to go. Since I’m year 10 I can do credit work and hold them till next year. Next year I would have nearly finished level 1. Feels pretty cool to have that head start, I see all the other year tens around and they don’t even know you are doing it. I’ve done OSH units, English and maths, and formal letter writing and some other bits and pieces. We do work on the computer as well, mainly writing and graphics and stuff bits of art and things. [Reuben]

I like reading if I get into it –thinking and making sense of stuff. I like learning more about how to do work. [ E-Rep]

Progress being made

Students were having success with their learning again and were enthusiastic, and proud of the progress they were making. This was possible because of the formative assessment that was being used by teachers, so that they were working at appropriate levels.

Good how they test you at the start of the year (at AE) to see what level you are at and then give you work that matches it. Means you can see yourself progressing. Teachers up at the school just throw a book in front of your face and say that’s what you’re doing today. But here they talk to you about it—they want you to progress on with your work. Here I do the work but up at school I would have been bombing my book and talking to mates until class finished…In a month I would have done more than I would in a whole term up at school. You barely even know you are doing it!.. It was too easy to slack up at school. [Reuben]

One student had already completed an impressive number of unit standards:

Look at how many credits I have got compared to my friend at College—I’ve got way more. [Shows interviewer her CV] (See appendix C). I even have some level 2 credits. I’m doing NCEA unit standards. I’ve been here (AE) 18 months. [Pam]

The following summarised story illustrates how important it is for these students to be learning something they are interested in. Sonny’s story is about his passion for learning about cars, which ironically, started with his stealing of cars! It also shows how he has the capacity and competencies to learn independently, when he is interested and motivated:

Primary was when I used to be good, always went to school and stuff. I liked it and there were good teachers there. I didn’t mind learning at primary—I didn’t mind doing it, but when I got to intermediate I didn’t like it, and secondary was worse. At intermediate school there was this group we hung out with, stealing cars. Stolen over 100 cars. Mum got sick of the police coming round. I want to get my licence—I’ve read the road code four times and done the test on the internet three times.

Secondary school—I didn’t like it—the learning was too hard and the teachers were idiots. Anger was the main problem because teachers made me angry and kept getting me annoyed because of the way they treated me.

I didn’t have a clue what AE was, but it is way better than school. Its not quite up to the standard that college can do, but its more understandable to us. The teachers here explain, not like the secondary teachers who won’t break it down to make it easier—but they do here. I ask if I can do maths most of the time, I have a little trouble with punctuation and spelling. I don’t like reading books—I only read books about cars. I want to just do the subjects that I need to do that I want to do. Now that I’m here I’m doing the subjects I need to do for what I want to do.

I just love my cars! Just everything to do with cars—the sound system, the performance. I want to be a mechanic just so I know how I can fix my engine when it breaks down, be able to do it up to go faster, being able to rebuild it—put new bigger and stronger parts in it. One of the teachers here said that if I can do well in my maths and literacy they will try to get me into a mechanics place once a week. I want to be able to finish school here to get on a course straight away. I don’t want to go back to school. I’d rather learn what I need to do to be able to get the qualifications to go straight into a mechanics course. I want a job working on cars my whole life. I want to get an education so I can work on cars. Got my own goals now that I want to achieve them and work on cars, so my friends won’t influence me now.

Stealing cars was what made me start liking cars. Once we moved up here my brother got a car and that’s when I started working on cars. I know the main points on how an engine works and how to install a sound system with amps and stuff. We taught ourselves how to do it. We started off by looking on Trade Me—at the boy-racer cars, and seeing what they do to their cars. Me and him never had a clue about what the parts were. We got some performance books and started reading the whole books. We’ve got a computer at home. [Sonny]

If ever there was a story to illustrate the common sense of the Schools Plus policy, it seems to us, that this is it.

Limitations of AE

In spite of the success stories of AE, sixty-one percent of the students told us, in a number of different ways, that their AE centres were not resourced sufficiently to provide the quantity and quality of catch-up learning they needed. This next young woman was running out of unit standards available to her:

Miss B [teacher] needs to have more access to more unit work. I’m running out of stuff to do. I was going to go back to the college, but there are too many teachers who listen to the gossip, so I decided it wasn’t worth it. Nit-picking about uniforms—I don’t like that. [Pam]

The student who had been kept home by her parents for a year was finding AE limiting and it was actually putting her further behind in her education:

Int: Are you catching up here (at AE)?

Mudz: No, it’s been too boring. We don’t learn enough—we only study 3 days a week (Mon– Wed). Thursday is quiz day and Friday is go-out day. I feel anxious about this. I’m only here to learn the most I can, not muck around and go out. I keep telling them the breaks are too long, I just want to hurry up and get back into class. They don’t do unit standards here…I wouldn’t mind starting in the 3rd form again. I’d like to go. [Mudz]

Some AE centres were very poorly resourced and several did not even have computers for the students to use.

We don’t do unit standards here. The maths and English we do here feels like revision—not learning new stuff. Don’t use the computers here. [Will]

Another student wanted NCEA unit standards work for future employment opportunities:

There’s enough opportunities for learning—but I want more job experience stuff. No job skills stuff at AE. Can’t get NCEA anymore, because I can’t go back to school. I got 10 NCEA credits from last year, while I was at college. The work at college wasn’t that hard, I just didn’t want to learn, but my attitude towards learning has changed since being at activity centre and AE. It would be more positive if I can get NCEA credits. [Method]

One of the AE students we talked to was a reasonably new immigrant from the Pacific Islands. His behaviour problems were the ‘reason’ he was sent to AE, but his main problem, it seemed to us, was that he needed more ESOL help. He was intelligent and had done well in primary school in Samoa and his parents’ expectation was that he would do the same here. When he arrived in New Zealand in 2005 he did not speak much English, but he had learnt quickly and could speak to us and make himself understood perfectly well. However he had not had help with English and his behaviour reflected this. It appears that the secondary school found AE to be an easier alternative than giving him the help he deserved:

It’s better learning here—English and maths. Some of it’s easier. The English is pretty hard. Can read it but writing is harder. The order to put things down is hard. Think I should be getting more English—need help with English as it is my second language. I need to listen to the teachers more. Not fight. Mum and dad said I shouldn’t have come here—I felt no good. They said if I don’t get a good report to go back to school, I will have to go back to Samoa—live with my grandma and grandpa. [Eugene]

Another student knew she wasn’t able to get the credits at her AE centre she needed for her desired career:

Here the learning is pretty easy—I’m doing enough learning, but would like to do more English—doing maths level 1. If I want my dream job—air hostess, but my mum thinks I won’t get it because of all my stuff with the police and school. Don’t know what I need to do for NCEA to be one. I need some credits for my job but I can’t do credits here. [Tweety]

For the last three weeks I’ve been asking for extra work so I can get my standards up, to get back to school. My parents are happier than when I was at college. I think these places are really good. I think some people think that when they get kicked out of school it’s the end of their career, but they can come here [Tom].

Several students mentioned wanting to go to university:

AE is showing me that I can get to university—that was my main goal since primary… The school work at AE reminded me about what I liked about school. I enjoyed learning at primary and intermediate. Missed all that learning during 3rd form due to wagging and stuff. [Max]

Interventions

The main and most effective educational intervention these students received at AE was one-to-one tuition. Some also received phonetic instruction such as the Toe by Toe programme to help with literacy. However, the main type of interventions mentioned by the students at AE were various counselling programmes run by different community groups or government agencies to help with their drug and alcohol problems and psychological problems. Pink had counselling from CYF; Christine had anger management counselling; Will and Jerry had marae-based counselling for drug and alcohol; Method had drug counselling from a community programme; Jessica received help from a social worker; and Dillon had family mental health help.

The following students had sessions at community/ marae-based programmes:

Before I came here (AE), I didn’t think about my future. Since I’ve been to [name of drug and alcohol programme]– it helps people like us who roam the streets, young kids and gangs and stuff. Will go to sleep over at the marae for a week and have people come in about education, drugs—it’s pretty cool, given me hope. An ex-mob person who came out of jail started it. Do contraception, pregnancy, education. This programme is helping people here. [Tweety]

Counselling is helping me do better and give up the green smoking. Over at …[Maori place name]. They don’t put you down—they tell you stuff you’d want to hear, and it makes you feel good and makes you want to keep off the stuff, so I give it up. Like if you don’t have education when you’re older it will be hard in life, so if I gave up the stuff and went to school and I’d have a clear mind. Want to give up ciggies too [Jerry].

One young person had also been helped by a police office:

The police officer (X) was the one who got me in here—to change my ways. Cause I done three other assault charges. Stabbed someone in the calf—got in a fist-fight—Going to court next Thursday. I’m trying to make the best of it while I’m on the outside. Counselling is helping me do better and give up the green smoking. Over at ‘Y’ [Maori name]. They don’t put you down—they tell you stuff you’d want to hear, and it makes you feel good and makes you want to keep off the stuff, so I give up. Like if you don’t have education when you’re older it will be hard in life, so if I gave up the stuff and went to school and I’d have a clear mind. Want to give up ciggies too. [Jerry]

There was one case however which stands out in our study, where a young woman was never offered counselling after a traumatising ordeal:

That horrible thing that happened to my sister [being raped], happened to me this year. It was one of the teachers from here (work experience outside AE). The person that taught us—the mechanics, did it and a couple of his mates. The tutors were going to move me. They talked to me and helped me. They didn’t send me to a counsellor. The police came. I dropped the charges because the mechanic’s dad is the president of a gang. Don’t think it’s fair that I had to do that. Only did that so that my family will be safe. [Polly]

Re-entering mainstream schooling again

A minority of students, as we have seen could see the advantages of re-entering mainstream schooling again, especially to do NCEA credits. However, the majority did not think their return to college would be successful and they wanted to stay in AE until they could move into a job or vocational training.

I started here this year and will stay until I turn 16 or my leaving exemption comes. [Lush]

One of the AE tutors we spoke to said there was never more than a 15 percent success rate per year in returning AE students to mainstream. From our findings it seemed that until the secondary system changes there is little point in these students returning, because they would find the same things in place, and the support they clearly need would not be forth-coming. AE is working extremely well for these students in the main, but we did not see evidence that many of these students would be able to work in the independent way required of present secondary schooling. They were going to need the continued one-to-one assistance to catch up with their learning and transition into vocational training.

The one exception to the traditional secondary model that we saw was a college’s on-site/off-site scheme, which seems to be catering to the diverse range of students needing extra help more successfully than the norm. Students were able to switch from on-site to off-site and back again, as their needs dictated. Teachers from both the college and the off-site centre were working closely together and appeared to be working for the needs of the students in a holistic way. The doors had not closed for the students here, and yet there were choices for students in this model as well, which seemed important to us. For example, Pam did not want to go back to college, so she could stay off-site and get on with doing unit standards there.

The need for more resourcing for AE does however remain a critical factor, in our opinion. The present level of funding seems to be holding some students back and preventing them access to the educational opportunities that mainstream students have of right.

Our findings in this study mirror many of the findings of an earlier Ministry of Education study (O’ Brien, Thesing and Herbert, 2001) on Alternative Education, where quality indicators of AE were developed. We found students’ opinions confirming the importance of the indicators in this study around the place where the programme operates, the programme curriculum and the programme providers.