They changed the national standards - only they forgot to tell us

Today we discovered that the Ministry of Education changed the wording of the National Standards for Reading and Writing for Year 5 and Year 7. The wording for Year 5 has changed from 'as they work towards level 3' to 'working at early level 3'. The same changes were made for the Year 7 standard only they relate to level 4.

The new reading and writing standards were sent to schools about 6 -8 weeks ago (I rang the MoE's 0800 number to check), only they didn't come with a letter explaining that they had changed and the reasons for it. No - they came as an A2 poster which we thought was an additional resource to help teachers implement National Standards. We naively handed the posters out not realising that we should have read them carefully in case something had changed.

I might be wrong but this feels to me like this change was made surreptitiously by bureaucrats with their fingers crossed that we wouldn't notice or that we would notice too late for anything to be done.

In my head there is a huge difference between a standard that says 'as they work towards level 3' and 'working at early level 3' and I do mind that they changed it without telling us. If I behaved like this as a principal I am certain my Board would have some robust feedback for me!

Which brings us to the implementation timeline. At the end of this year - that is in 8 school weeks time we are supposed to report to parents about students in relation to National Standards AND submitted our National Standards data to the Ministry of Education - only they moved the goal posts on us two months ago and omitted to tell us.

When and where is all this going to end? And do you think there is a difference in meaning between the wording 'as they work towards level 3' and 'working at early level 3'?