Kyle Brewerton: Auckland's Remuera Intermediate Principal on only a quarter of Year 8 students achieved curriculum writing

Belief changes to class sizes and staffing are needed to improve writing achievement at intermediate level.

The Government's launching a new digital tool for students sitting below the standard and introducing more professional development in literacy. 

New data shows only a quarter of Year Eight students achieved their curriculum writing level last year. 

Auckland's Remuera Intermediate Principal Kyle Brewerton told Ryan Bridge these poor figures are due to a lack of resourcing.

He says there's big class sizes and little staffing, while in high school it's vice versa.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Going with education. Only a quarter of year eights that's
age eleven or twelve can write at the level the
new curriculum expects, which is pretty bleak. Sixty one percent
more than a year behind. Education Minister Erica Stanford's plan
well fund a teacher in every school to upskill on
structured literacy. Question is is that going to be enough?

(00:20):
Will it work? Kyl Brwton is the remy Wear intermediate
School principle on the phone this morning. Kyl, good morning,
Good morning Ryan. Pretty shocking numbers.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah, as a sector, we're struggling to make sense of
those figures. At the moment. We obviously have a relatively
new curriculum. We're still transitioning to the new curriculum. We
don't have access to the specific metrics that they're using
to assess that writing, and we don't have exemplars of
what that writing looks like. So it's hard for us

(00:52):
to really sort of have confidence in those numbers. We're
not disagree necessarily, but it's just really hard to have
that confidence. Who so, you know, well, it's done through
a study basically that's been run for many, many years
and teachers, if you like a trained up they go
into this into the study, they go into schools, they

(01:14):
work with kids, and then they take that marketing that
that work back and then they market. But as I say,
the sector as a whole doesn't see that marketing schedule,
doesn't see the exemplars that that's been aligned against.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
I think we're all mean told you that there does
that mean cale that you teachers have never seen that before,
so then you've never trusted them or never known the
detail on the numbers.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
We've known that there's an issue in literacy, and no
one's disagreeing with that, it's just the degree of that
need that's been sort of highlighted. To your point about
the marketing schedule or the you know, whatever you want
to call it, No, we don't have access to that
particular one because it's an evaluation study that's done across
the country, so to give it sort of so's they're

(01:56):
sort of trying to avoid people, almost like if you like,
teaching to a test, but without knowing exactly what it
is that is being sort of measured against it. As
I say, it's just hard for us to be able
to align what we're seeing at our schools with what
we're being told.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
How is it that you can be kids are almost
going back, which you've got forty one percent of year
three students that expected curriculum benchmark, thirty three percent in
year six, and then just twenty four percent in year eight. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Well, I mean, the bottom line is, if those numbers
are accurate, and that is indeed the case, there's a
pretty compelling reason for it. When you look at the
way our school system is designed. We put the least
amount of resource and we have our highest class sizes
in years four to eight. So we start off reasonably
well and then we suddenly ramp everything up. We have

(02:49):
these big classes, we have very little in the way
of staffing, and then sort of we get to the
high school and think, oh my gosh, we need to
sort this out, and we start to increase all our
staffing again, reduce the class sizers, and we put a
lot more resource in. So common sense would suggest that
if this has been a long standing issue, why are
we not keeping our resourcing quite high in those junior years,

(03:11):
getting that foundation rock solid, getting those kids to where
they need to be so they can really really thrive
in high school.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Cayle, appreciate your time this morning. Carl Briton remu Era
intermediate school principal.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
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