Kyoda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. Students across the country are starting to head back to school and there are some big changes on the way for our youngest pupils. As well as twenty twenty five marking the return of charter schools. Primary school students will start to be taught structured literacy and mass this year as part of a curriculum refresh brought in by Education Minister
Erica Stanford. It comes as test results continue to show declines and achievement across all age groups. But are these changes enough to reverse falling standards and are our teachers on board with them? Today on the Front Page News, talg ZB education reporter Shannon Johnstone is with us to discuss what parents need to know about this year's changes. Shannon, what are the main education changes being introduced this term for primary school students?
Yeah, So this term primary schools are going to be required to implement structured approaches to reading and writing that also encourage to do twenty and forty week phonic checks for year one students and they'll also be required to use updated English curriculum for years zero to sixes and their updated maths curriculum for years zero to eight, and all schools have to use revised attendance codes and report daily attendance data.
This term, what do we mean by structured reading and math? What actually is that? Because I haven't been to primary school for a long time and I don't know me too many children.
Neither do I Chelsea. So structured literacy this is kind of based on a science of learning approach they call it. It's a systemic way of teaching kids to read. It includes things like I talked about before, those phonics checks in YE one and sort of teaching how sounds and letters match. When it comes to structure maths, there's a little bit of confusion, I guess you could say around that.
So there was a newsroom article last year that talked about this and they said some researchers have said there's a lack of research into the structured maths approach. Some have said it doesn't actually exist. The Education Minister Erica Stanford, she said it's explicit teaching in a structured manner.
A lot of these changes are coming amidst consistent data showing that our kids and teens aren't actually achieving at the same rates as they used to do. What are some of the recent stats you've seen showing how widespread this problem actually is.
So when the government announced the structured literacy changes, Education Minister Erica Stanford, she pointed to data that showed fifty six percent of year eight students were at the expected level for reading and only thirty five percent were at the expected level for writing. Twenty twenty two PISA results found twenty one percent of fifteen year olds we're at the lowest reading level and at the same time we've also seen sort of falling rates of NCAA achievement.
I understand that some controversy though over the statistics the government used to move forwards its maths changes. For example, Hey.
Yeah, so last year the Prime Minister described a total system failure in teaching maths. He said that based on twenty twenty three results of the Curriculum Insights and Progress Study that showed only twenty two percent of students are working at or above the expected level in year eight, And like you said, there was a bit of controversy around those statistics. So the art or educators collective they criticized the government. They said those results were questionable and
contradict previous national and international studies. They say it wasn't reflective of a drastic drop and achievement, but instead of a change in the benchmarking that was being used.
Our education system in New Zealand is changing and we should talk about it. The last few years, our education system has been somewhat the shambles. Listen to these stats
from the twenty twenty three CEA provisional achievement rates. Sixty percent of year eleven students achieving Level one, down from sixty four point nine percent in twenty twenty two, seventy two point two percent of year twelve students achieving Level two down from seventy four point nine and twenty twenty two sixty two point two of year thirteen students achieving Level three down from sixty eight point two percent in
twenty twenty two. If we don't have major change, our future generations will not just suffer from a lack of education, but our economy will. I because I believe one of our best future economic indicators is how many kids are in school and achieving today. So this is what we're doing to change course and get our education system back on track.
How have teachers and educators responded to these changes? Knowing how burden teachers are, I imagine they haven't really responded that well.
Yeah, so I spoke to NZDI President Repeckerless Sales just last week and she told me the changes are basically too much, happening too quickly. She says. There's also been some issues with getting the new resources for the new curriculum. She says it hasn't happened as fast as they would have liked, and apparently some schools still haven't got them.
And an NCDI serve a last year found more than seventy percent of principles and teachers say the two curricular changes as requiring too much too fast for it to actually be effective. They did want the government to either delay the maths curriculum until next year twenty twenty six, or leave it to school leaders to decide which of the two they implement this year.
Right, and when we're talking about resources as well, we're talking about you know, booklets and programs in curriculum and that kind of thing.
Hey, yeah, the teaching resources needed for implementing these changes.
Right, could there be an option that only one goes forward this year and the other the next door is the government pretty hell banned on doing both at the same time.
So I looked at the Ministry of Education website today and they said that schools are required to implement both from turn one, and I believe some schools are already starting term one this week, if not this week next week, so it does sound to me like that's happening.
The other big change coming this year is the return of charter schools. How many schools are opening up this year and where are they popping up?
Yeah, so this is obviously quite a big change to education. We've got seven opening this term. Two of those are in christ Church, four are in Auckland and one is in the Far North. There's quite a range of schools that are opening so Tippany. That is the old Saint Stephens Malti Boarding School. They are targeting mainly Maldi and Pacific boys. There's also a Malori immersion school opening. There's two Australian owned schools that already have successful campuses over
in OZ that are now coming over here. There's a Creative Arts college, a French school and also some schools targeting disengaged Youth and Associate Education Minister David Seymour tells me they're going to continue assessing the seventy eight applications that they received throughout this year. He reckons we could see more charter schools opening midyear. And when it comes to state school conversions, so these are state schools converting
into charter schools. Budget twenty twenty four allowed for thirty five state school conversions this year and next year, and David Seymour told me there is interest from state schools. Last week when I spoke to him, he told me that they had had two conversations with state schools just that week, and he reckons that we could see some open next year.
I've read one report on how some of these schools were already turning students away before their doors have even opened. Is that popularity surprising given the controversy that always surrounds these charter schools. I guess yeah.
I don't know if it's surprising. And we have seen charter schools before, and I think people do like them because they offer a kind of a different approach. So if you had, like a disengaged child, maybe you'd look at it. If you did really want that Mlori immersion environment. Maybe you'd be looking at that school in the Far North.
We're also seeing new school lunches this year as well, aren't we. What are the big changes there?
Yeah, so we've got a new model this year. The government set objectives which were to provide nutritious lunches at a cost of three dollars per student per lunch. The external contract has been awarded to a group called the School at Lunch Collective and for schools that have been using an internal and ewe hupu model, they'll have funding of four dollars per student per meal and access to
government negotiated wholesale ingredients. And every school that was in that school lunch program last year, I understand, is still getting a school lunch. It's just a bit of a different model.
The Act Party has sent out a sweet about school lunches. Can you explain how sushi is woke?
Oh?
Look, if you don't get that sushi's woke, I don't know how to wake you up. But the key message here is that we are introducing the kinds of foods that are put in the lunch boxes and the children. The other seventy five centsive kids who rely on their parents to send their Dutch.
New Zealand has a diverse culture, and so why not one one type of food and promote another one.
Well, first of all, any students of Japanese heritage may find that it's quite possible for a school to order the supplies required to make sushi under this model if they'd like to. So we are not trying to marginalize students of Japanese heritage or those who would prefer or quinoa.
Are dealing with them all. Why not sushi?
Someone talks to me this morning. I asked them what hummus was. They said that, you know, wasn't rice, rice and quinoa.
I had a baby and it wasn't good, right, And any idea in what the kids will be eating obviously not sushi or anything work like that.
I think when I saw the announcement, butter chicken was there. That's not which would be nice. That's a bit woe.
Curriculum, charter schools, lunches, these are all the things that seem to change with every government. Hay, does this sector need more long term planning and bipartisan agreement on that rather than shaking things up every few years. I guess the constant changes probably aren't helping those pass rates.
I definitely say so. I mean every election we hear sort of the education unions, the sector group leaders talk about how education seems to become a bit of a political football every election, and I think that they're quite sick of that, and they often also call for a more bipartisan approach.
And in terms of these charter schools journ and there's a wide variety there. Hey, have we heard from any of them?
Yeah, I've spoken to a couple of principles that are opening up their schools this term. So Busy School principal Muana i Lower their school is opening FIB seven. She tells me that they've been having a lot of families come through last week. They're doing a lot of interviews this week and starting with around fifteen to thirty students. Tippany, which is opening south of Auckland. I've also spoken to
one of their leaders, Nathan Jury. He said they've seen strong demand from locals in Auckland, around New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific and they're opening with around forty students. And Mastery School Principal Rose mcinary told News Talks a b this week that they have sixty primary age children enrolled and more than forty are waitlisted.
It's kind of good. I mean, I know that there's been some controversy around bringing chatter schools back, but especially if you've got a kid that's so disengaged and doesn't want to be there and just doesn't some kids just don't operate within that usual traditional model. Hey, what are some of the kind of things that these schools do differently.
Yeah, So busy school the one I just mentioned that in Auckland, and they're going to offer a dual approach of half the week students will be looking at NCA usual curriculum. Half the week they're going to be doing work experience more like vocational kind of stuff.
And so this busy school that they say their goal is to help students build skills that lead them to meaningful careers. So that's all a part of that.
Yeah, absolutely, So having that duel approach of you do your NCAA curriculum that you need, and at the same time you're working towards finding a kind of job or career, getting that experience, getting that skills and.
Just finally Shannon. The cell phone ban, I'm probably I'm sure you're sick of hearing about this. Any feedback you've heard about if that's been actually a success or not.
Yeah, I think every school has had different experiences. A lot of schools already had their own kind of cell phone bands operating. I did talk to Mount Albert Grammar School principal Patrick Drum. They had brought in a band before the government enacted ban, and he tells me that it caused a real kind of culture shift at their school.
He said that they went from students sitting around at lunchtime just staring at their phones, and now there's rugby bulls being thrown through windows, which he actually said was a bit of a positive change, and it was really nice to see kids out and about again, well kids being kids.
Hey, I mean cell phones. Even if you go out with your friend group as an adult and everyone's on their cell phones, it's disenchanting. So I can't imagine actually having to learn something with that distraction on your hands. Hey, exactly.
And I think even at lunchtime, you know, ked socializing more, not just looking at your phones. How can that be a negative thing?
Thanks for joining us Shannon.
Thank you, Chelsea.
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzedherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also a sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.