As featured in The New Zealand Herald, Saturday 3 October
Last week I attended my 10-year-old daughter’s celebration of learning and walked away feeling more optimistic about New Zealand education than I have in a long time.
What struck me most was how visible the learning was. I could see what the children were reading and writing, the maths they were doing, the concepts they were learning and how their work had progressed. Perhaps because I had been in exactly the same position four years earlier, when my older son was the same age and at the same school, the contrast was particularly noticeable. There has been a visible uplift in the quality and structure of the work.
That isn’t a criticism of the teachers four years ago. We have always had extraordinary teachers in New Zealand. What feels different today is the clarity and consistency around what children are expected to learn and the quality of the tools teachers now have to support them.
The government’s new maths books are a great example. Introduced nationally under Education Minister Erica Stanford’s curriculum changes, they provide schools with a consistent, carefully sequenced resource for teaching mathematics.
The difference is especially clear when I compare them with what my son had four years ago: a simple notebook with random pieces of paper glued in, containing far less work and covering far less material. I was genuinely impressed by the new books. As a parent, I could open my daughter’s book and see what she was learning, how the lessons fitted together and how her understanding was developing. The national approach gives every child a common foundation, regardless of which school they attend, while making it easier for teachers to identify where students need more support or are ready to move ahead.
The teachers were positive about many of the new tools, while acknowledging they are not perfect and improvements are being made in response to schools’ feedback. I found that reassuring. Good reform should be responsive. You put better tools into classrooms, listen closely to the people using them and then keep improving them based on what works.
There are also encouraging signs nationally. The latest PISA results show New Zealand’s achievement stabilising after years of decline, with students remaining above the OECD average in reading, maths and science and the socio-economic achievement gap narrowing as disadvantaged students make gains. We still have too many children not reaching the levels of literacy and numeracy they need and too much variation between our highest and lowest-achieving students, but these results give us reason to be hopeful.
As a parent of three children at very different stages of education, those statistics don’t feel abstract. Ultimately, parents want to know some fairly simple things. Is my child learning? Are they progressing? Where are they struggling? If they are behind, are we identifying that early enough to do something about it? And if they are doing well, are they being challenged enough?
One of the changes I think is already making a tangible difference is the renewed focus on reading, writing and maths, including the requirement for schools to spend an hour a day on each. It sounds incredibly simple, but perhaps that is part of its strength. Children need to read, they need to write, they need to understand numbers and they need the time and repetition to develop those skills properly.
I have also been impressed by the transparency of the new SMART assessments. For too long, parents have sometimes been given broad descriptions of how their children are doing without enough clarity about what those descriptions actually mean.
I want to know whether my child is where they should be for their age, where they are strong, where the gaps are and whether they have progressed over the past six months. If they are behind, I want to understand exactly what they need help with. If they are ahead, I want to know whether they are being stretched. Good assessment gives parents and teachers that information.
That doesn’t mean turning schools into exam factories or constantly testing children. There is a big difference between testing for the sake of testing and assessing learning so that we can improve it. If a child has a gap in reading at eight, I want to know at eight, not when they reach intermediate or secondary school after spending years trying to compensate for something that was never properly identified.
The same principle applies at a system level. Consistent information about how children are progressing means we can understand which approaches are working, where additional support is needed and which schools are achieving strong results that others can learn from. It allows us to move away from assumptions and towards evidence.
None of this means the work is finished. Education reform shouldn’t be something designed in Wellington, rolled out and then declared complete. The best systems keep learning. They listen to teachers, parents and students, respond to what is happening in classrooms and keep evolving.
There is still a long way to go to reverse the decline in educational achievement we have seen over many years. But standing in my daughter’s classroom last week, looking at the work on the walls, seeing the books the children were using and talking to her teachers, I could see something tangible changing.
Sometimes the biggest changes aren’t particularly complicated. Teach children to read, write and do maths exceptionally well. Give teachers great tools. Measure whether children are learning. Be transparent with parents about how their children are doing. Then keep improving the system based on what works.
That is why the launch of the Parents’ Alliance feels particularly timely. My daughter’s celebration of learning reminded me how much stronger the connection between home and school becomes when parents can see and understand their children’s progress. Parents have an important role in supporting learning, and our voices should help shape the system our children depend on.
Four years after standing in the same school with my son, I can see the difference. That gives me real reason to be optimistic about where New Zealand education could be heading.
