Erica Stanford: Education Minister on the Government releasing new data showing structured literacy is making a difference

There's confidence New Zealand schools are turning a corner on literacy skills.

The Education Minister says data shows 58 percent of new entrant students are at-or-above phonics expectations after 20 weeks at school - up from 36 percent in Term One.

The number exceeding expectations is more than double Term One's figure.

Erica Stanford says she wants 90 percent of kids to achieve curriculum level.

"As teachers become more confident and capable with explicit teaching and the new curriculum and structured literacy, the results will get better and better and better...we see that overseas."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Afternoon. Looks like we have a turnaround and kids being
able to read. The government has just released data on
the impact that structured literacy is having on new entrants.
Back in term one, just thirty six percent of them
could read at or above expectations. That went up to
fifty one percent in term two, and in term three
it's had fifty eight percent. Erica Stanford is the Education Minister.
High Erica Hike. Were you expecting the change to be

(00:22):
this immediate?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Ah, I was hoping that it would be. I've seen
results from schools who had gone out in advance and
been doing structured literacy for a while, and they had
phenomenal results. But we were rolling this out at scale
to tens of thousands of teachers and thousands of classrooms
across the country and to see it drive up so
quickly is just phenomenal, and it's actually it's quite an

(00:47):
emotional time, like for everyone in my office. I even
made one of my deputy secretaries cry when she saw
the results. It's pretty amazing. Just really invested in it, oh, massively,
of course we all are. We've been thinking about this
for so long In opposition, I spent so much time
in classrooms and talking to teachers and learning about this
science of reading and the reading wars and phonics and
what it meant, and then developing policy and then implementing

(01:09):
it and resourcing it and backing our teachers. And I
said them in the stand up today, I didn't teach
a single kid to read. That was all of the
teachers on the ground who have actually put this into action,
And I owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Now, I would imagine that these numbers will only get
better as we go on further. The thing is completely
compulsory from next year and teachers really start to understand
how this works. Would you expect that too, Well.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
It's compulsory from this year, but we are still training
our teachers. We've done about eighty percent of our year
zero to eight teachers, so in most of our year
zero to three. So it is compulsory this year. But
you're absolutely right. As teachers become more confident and capable
with explicit teaching and the new curriculum and structured literacy,
the results will get better and better and better, And

(01:54):
we see that overseas in their results.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Where are we aiming? Are we aiming at eighty percent.
Is that right?

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Well, I need eight I want eighty percent of kids
to be at curriculum by the time they go to
high school. But with our phonics check data, I've got
higher aspirations. I mean, I'd love us to get to
about ninety percent. I know the UK got to pre COVID.
I think they were sitting about eighty five percent. It
dipped during COVID, but they're heading back up again, so
there's no reason why we can't be up there as well.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
While I've got you, how do you feel about the
secondary school teachers with the rolling strikes this week?

Speaker 2 (02:25):
I think it's deeply unfair for students who are about
to sit the final exams that they have been getting
ready for for years, and who need those teachers in
their classrooms for that last minute revision. This is disrupting
not only that last bit of time they've got with
their teacher, but also a lot of their mock exams
that they'll get their derived grades from. It's really disappointing
that the union never took the offer to their teachers

(02:49):
before they decided to go on this strike. That's what's
so disappointing. I know that teachers want the best for
their kids. I'm just not sure about the unions.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Erica. Thank you very much, Erica Stanford, the Education Minister.
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