August 28, 2025 • 34 mins
The Education Minister says there was no option to do nothing when it came to changing NCEA.
The proposed changes include replacing the qualification with a system emphasising literacy and numeracy more.
Erica Stanford told Kerre Woodham changes were already underway with Labour updating the Level 1 curriculum, so there was no option to do nothing.
She says they either had to continue rolling out Labour's plan, or look at what a better plan could be, and that's what they've done.
Labour's education spokesperson has only just been briefed on changes to NCEA.
Willow-Jean Prime initially ignored, then later declined repeated offers from Stanford to give feedback on the changes.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins later said Prime was wrong to decline the offers.
Those offers were made as far back as March, but Stanford told Woodham Prime first met with officials last week.
She says she’s asked lots of questions, but has yet to come back with any feedback, so they’ll see where that goes.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Kerry Wood and Mornings podcast from
News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
He'd be a very good morning to you this hour.
I'm joined by Education Minister Erica Stanford, who will be
taking your questions. You can send them through via text
on nine two nine two, or you can call us
now eight hundred eighty ten eighty. If you don't bring
that's absolutely fine. I have questions. I have many questions.
(00:30):
Very good morning to your minister. Good morning, thanks for
having me well, thank you for clearing time and your diary.
I know it took a bit of doing and frowing
and you're very busy. You've got a lot on.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
There's a fair bit going on at the moment. But
it's always nice to see you, okay.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Now Leading one News last night, a group of eighty
nine secondary school principles are saying, oh, put the brakes
on for replacing the NCAA's school qualification. There was an
open letter to you and Acting Secretary for Education Alan
MacGregor read the plan les a clear rationale and poses
huge risks for disadvantage students. How many secondary school principles
(01:05):
do we have the country.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
There's about five hundred secondary schools, so do.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
You presume that only eighty nine are dissatisfied or in
the other four hundred odd are happy.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
There'll be a range of views. I know that when
we announced this proposal, and remember it's just a proposal,
we're out for consultation and genuine consultation, we knew there'd
be a range of views. But what I don't accept
is that there's no rationale. There has been an enormous
amount of work done by NZQA Qualifications Authority to show
(01:38):
what the makeup of standards has been that young people
are doing, and many of those are very low quality
unit standards and a range of different standards pushed together
that don't really give them deep a meaningful pathway in
any one subject. So we can see that there are problems.
(01:58):
And you also saw ERO come out and say seventy
percent of employers do not value the qualification, sixty percent
of teachers don't value Level one, and half of parents
don't understand it. Two out of five kids don't understand it.
So I think there was a very good rationale for
us to take a look at it. Also, remembering we
(02:18):
were already in the middle of a change process. The
labour had already started, they put in place new Level one.
There was no option to do nothing. We had to
either continue to roll out Labour's plan or we had
to look at what a better plan would be, and
that's what we've done.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Was that the first time they'd seen it when it
was announced, that was a criticism made by one of
the Princes. I'd never seen. I hadn't seen one news
for years and years and years. I watched it last
night because I knew you were coming in and I'm like, well,
they take a strong view, aren't they They have an opinion.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Look, she certainly did, and it's a shame that she
didn't interview some of the other Principles who have the
opposing view, because there are many of them who are
very keen to see us raise standards, but not only
raised standards, make sure that those young people were raising
their achievement level to meet this This ends CEA change
package didn't come out of nowhere. It's part of an
(03:09):
enormous reform package. And your listeners will have seen us
with our structured literacy, structured maths, explicit teaching that huge
reform package that's happening in primary and intermediate to raise
the level of literacy and numeracy and achievement so that
when those children get to high school, what is possible.
Do we need to continue to lower the bar of NZEA, No,
(03:31):
we don't. We can actually be aspirational for these kids
because they're at curriculum. It's part of a bigger plan.
And I think this poverty of low expectations of well,
just because a child is poor, they can't possibly get
a good qualification is the wrong way to look at this.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
For years, it used to be that a good education
was your ticket out of where you came from. If
you wanted to get up and out, it was education.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
That's exactly right. It is the cloak that we wrap
around our young people that changes their circumstances. It is
the great equalizer. Your means should not determine your destiny.
But if we continue to have this low expectation of oh,
we need a flex CEA that caters for all students,
which is code for we're going to scrape together things
to get our kids across the line when they're not
(04:13):
literal and they're not numerate. You know, that is not
the aspiration I've got and I think most parents have
got for their children. We are focused on raising achievements
so they can get a good qualification and that's the
work that we're doing, and.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
An expectation from the kids themselves. When I leave school,
I want to have options. I want to have been
given options so I can decide what I want to
do with my life, not be.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
And kids know. I've seen them commenting on Facebook like,
oh yeah, I got four credits for crawling through some
mud and that was counted as team building. I got
some points for working in a group. I got some
credits for making a coffee. They know, they're gaming, they know,
and we need to have higher expectations for them because
when we do, they rise to meet them.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
They do. All right, I'll go to a caller. I
have more questions. Shama. Good morning to.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
You, very good morning, and good morning to minister.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Good morning.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
I just got up one comment before and a question.
The comment is congratulations on a very bold move. There
needs to be some level of change. And I'm I
got a daughter, a fifteen year old daughter in school,
and I'm very concerned about the education curricular. But the
question I have, Minister, is that your consulting you mentioned
that it's currently on the consultation process. Is that a
(05:31):
consultation with a specific group of people. Are you going
to have a general public consultation process?
Speaker 3 (05:37):
The excellent question, and I wish I had the URL
on me. I don't, but if you google Ministry of
Education in CEA Reform, you will find that there is
a public consultation document open and it is targeted at parents, students, teachers, principles,
and employers. So we're after everyone's opinion and I need
(05:59):
everyone to log on and have this say. It doesn't
take long. It's quite a good document that lays out
the case for chain, lays out some of the issues,
and it prompts a whole lot of questions and there's
a lot of boxes for open ended answers as well,
So yes, please, please, we need everybody to have their say,
especially employers. I got a halfway mark the other day
(06:19):
about how many were up to and we're really lagging
behind in the number of employers who haven't had their say.
Lots of parents, lots of teachers, but not so many employers.
So a great question.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
We'll get the address before the end of the show
so that you can do it. Have you got labors
spokesperson for education. Have you met yet?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Look Willo Jean has had a briefing from my officials
where she grilled them, which was really good, lots of questions.
What I'm waiting on now from her is her feedback.
I don't expect labor to go through the URL and
go through the website. What I expect from them is
now to bring me back their suggestions and proposals and
what their constructive viewers on how we could strengthen the proposal.
(07:02):
So she's met with them, I've got I think she's
overseas for a while. Then when she comes back, I
will meet with her in person to get that to get.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
That kind of feedback. All right, and we'll just squeeze.
Can I squeeze in a quick question before we go
to the break? Yes, I can, Marie, Good morning to you. Hello,
Hi there.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
My question is around the young people. And I am
a youth worker and I work with lots of young people,
and I've been speaking to some of my friends recently,
and some of them have come from different countries and
their migrants out here, and they talk about how when
they came here and they.
Speaker 6 (07:36):
Sit in school, they didn't.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
Learn anything because they had already learned it when they
had come from their other schools and their other countries.
And I just want to ask the Minister if the
current I grew up here in New Zealand, and I
want to ask for if the plans that she is
proposing is going to help our young people to be
able to have influence and have better careers and stuff
and be able to help grow news the more, or
(08:01):
if it is just going to continue to when immigrant
students come, they're just going to be a bit. It's
kind of embarrassing, you know that our friends have come,
and just kind of just wondering what the Minister's aspirations
are for our kids that are here growing up here
in New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Thanks Mariy.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Look, one of the things that we noticed was that
when we internationally benchmarked our curriculum and our expectations against
other countries, we like to compare ourselves to we are
well behind. And so you're absolutely right when those migrant
children or young people come, even when New Zealanders have
traveled overseas and lived overseas for a number of years
with their children, the feedback I get is they come
(08:42):
back to New Zealand and the standards are far lower now.
We want our young people to be able to operate
on the world stage and you go and get jobs
overseas and compete with other young people, and we can't
do that if the learning that they're doing isn't at
at the same level. So what we've been doing with
the new curriculum that we're building is internationally benchmarking line
(09:04):
by line to make sure that everything is on par
with other countries now and many listeners who might have
children at primary school will have noticed this year. They
will have had a notice from their school that the
primary school maths curriculum has jumped up, and it's done
that because we internationally benchmarked it. We realized that we
were leaving far too much information and material till the
(09:25):
end of primary school. We needed to bring it back earlier.
So that've all been told that, you know, if your
child was ahead before, maybe they'll be at curriculum now.
If they were at before, they might be slightly blow.
It's not your child, it is curriculum expectations. But if
we again want to be internationally comparative and competitive, we
need to be benchmarking and that's what we're doing. So
very good question.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
I picked up the six year old this week, how
is your daying?
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Good?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
We're doing statistics in maths? What And the eight year
old was like, we only did statistics last year. How
have you doing it this? Like statistics?
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Loving it, absolutely loving it.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
They are capable of so much more than what we've
been doing, and it's really exciting this new curriculum.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
When News Talks said, b I've got a question from
Rachel are concerned mother cut to carry? Can you please
ask them, Minister way on Earth their scraping. Outdoor education
is a subject. It's what keeps many children at school.
It's good for their mental health as well as their
physical health.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Well, we haven't made any announcements on the curriculum yet.
We've been in discussions about what sort of curriculum areas
we should have. No decisions have been made. I haven't
announced them yet, and we've been out consulting with different
groups and listening. And I know that outdoor education will
play an important part of the new curriculum. It's where
we put it. So there will be some announcements shortly,
(10:44):
but there's no need to panic just yet. What we're
essentially doing is going through the curriculum and understanding how
many children are actually taking that subject or parts of
that subject, and currently is it made up of standards
or is it made up of unit standards? Should it
sit in an academic standard, should it sit in vocational
So it's not so much about scrapping things, it's about
(11:06):
saying where does it sit? Because the old n CEA
allowed the flexibility allowed teachers and to pull together lots
of different standards and create something new like outdoor education
or criminology, which aren't things that we think are subjects
or in our subject list, but they've been created. So
now we're going back and going, okay, where do they sit?
(11:27):
So you won't see things disappear as much as you
will just see them shift somewhere else. So there's no
need to panic just yet. I know how engaging outdoor
education is and we've been consulting with lots of different
groups and so we'll be making announcement in the next
couple of weeks about that.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Matt's good morning to you. Did I not ask if
we've been properly about working with labor? Yeah?
Speaker 6 (11:50):
No, yeah, I was just wondering, can't hear you can't
hear you speak up.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
Sorry, I can't hear it all better. Okay, So they're saying,
you've got much agreeants. What's them on what you're doing?
And the mort its.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Look that thanks for your question and concern. We've just
started the process. As you know. I tried to get
them to talk to us and consult with us on
this back in March, and we only just had Willow
gene prime In talking to my officials about a week ago.
So she's asked lots of questions but hasn't come back
(12:32):
yet with thoughts or that we're only early in the process.
I expect that she will. That'll be the next step.
She will meet with me and she will talk to
me about where she thinks things will need to be
strengthened or changed or I expect her constructive feedback next.
I think the first meeting was really about presenting the
changes and her asking lots of questions. So we'll see
where that goes. But I mean, Chris Hopkins has already
(12:53):
come out and he said, look, there are problems with
n CEA. He's in agreement. He labor tried to fix
NCAA already Level one rolled out last year. It was
and essentially, if I'm being honest, an unmitigated disaster. It
didn't fix any of the problems. It was implemented poorly,
and that's what started me on my journey of well,
(13:15):
I don't want to replicate that mess. I want to
do something better and implement it better. So the answer
is I don't know yet, but I'm very confident given
the comments by Chris Hipkins.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
You have to feel for the teachers, don't you, who
have been given change after change after change within the curriculum.
The curriculum is not their fault.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
No, you're absolutely right, and I can understand from principles
and teachers who've just been through this level one change
under the previous government, and we'll have PTSD about it
because it was a disaster. But I want to assure
them and parents that the reason I got the Educationer
of your office to do their report was to learn
from those mistakes so we don't do them again. That's
(13:57):
why you're seeing I bought a group of principles around
me to work out how we carefully stage and manage
this through. You've got to have the curricul them embedded first,
and then you put the qualification in place. Now we're
moving on very quickly to what does good implementation look like.
The resourcing that teachers will need, the planning that they
will need, the professional learning and development they will need,
(14:20):
potentially the AI tools that they will need. I sat
in the meeting for two and a half hours yesterday
talking about the types of amazing technology we can offer
our teachers to help them implement the new curriculum. So
there is a lot we are going to wrap around.
We're not going to say here's the curriculum. Good luck,
which is what happened last time.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Very good morning to you.
Speaker 7 (14:39):
Good morning Carrie, and good morning Minister Erica.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Good morning, how are you great?
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Thank you?
Speaker 3 (14:45):
How are you good?
Speaker 7 (14:48):
I just wanted to start off and say to Erica,
if I may just thank you so much for being
passionate about education for our kids and the large changes
you're trying to make for the kids these days. Can
I ask, though, will structured literacy be continued? I threw
up into year eight and intermediate because my kids have
(15:10):
done the structured literacy and I've seen huge positive changes
with their reading and spelling in that.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Oh good question, and the answer is yes, it will be.
In fact, we just announced last week that we're going
to be training structured literacy teachers in intermediates and also
in high schools. I think the thing people misunderstand is
that structured literacy is just about phonics in teaching a
child to read at cat That is the basis of it.
(15:40):
But it's so much more than that. It's about spelling
and grammar and comprehension all the way up and learning
the spelling rules, and it should flow all the way
through up into intermediates. So the answer to that is yes,
and I'm so pleased to hear that it's doing well
for your children and their reading and comprehension and spelling.
It is very much about the way that it's taught
(16:03):
as well. It's taught explicitly. A tea will model. She'll
ask the children to repeat it back to her. Then
they'll write it, then she writes it, then you say it,
then you say it. It's just the most amazing thing
to watch in the classroom.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Lorraine, you are in the classroom, are you?
Speaker 8 (16:18):
I know, y Carrie. I've retired about four years ago,
but I've taught forty years and most of those were
in the new entrant year one class but.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Thank you for your service.
Speaker 8 (16:30):
I'll say, I think it's not to years off my retirement.
But there's this one thing about structured writing for our
little new entrance.
Speaker 7 (16:40):
I don't know.
Speaker 8 (16:41):
Have you spent much time watching in structured writing in
the new entrant class?
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Yes?
Speaker 8 (16:45):
I have. My big worry about it is that like
my little five year old Grende, he went to school
being able to write, but he he is just like
Rich in language, and he's writing already using the lips
of question marks. He's asking what do you think when
I blah blah blah. He's doing all this sort of stuff.
(17:05):
He went up to the office and got a certificate
for being an author blah blah blah. Within eight weeks
he would not write. And this is out fear that
the structured writing is tied closely into the reading. So
in reading he's doing oi. Ioy. It's quite advanced for
a little five year old. I found the book quite hard.
(17:26):
There was words like awkward, awk and all these different things.
And until he can put that into his writing, he
can't progress in his writing. So it's so tightly controlled
that he's too scared. And my daughter rang me and said, mummy,
won't write it how many Moore and I said, I
knew this would happen because with the bright kids, it
(17:48):
does not always work.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Okay, yeah, Look, the answer to that is that teachers
in the classroom should be adapting learning for those bright kids.
One of the things that we're trying to achieve with
structured literacy is the reading and writing crisis that we have,
and we've got to face the head on. I mean,
half of our kids are not at curriculum for reading
by the time they go to high school it is,
(18:11):
and we know that half of them fail literacy assessments
at NCA. So we're trying to solve for that problem.
But there are always going to be children like your
grandchild who are keen being smart, smart kids who are advanced,
and they need to be extended in the classroom. And
that's why on our it's a platform called Taharangi that
(18:31):
the Ministry run. There are a whole lot of resources
available to extend children because they should not be bored,
they should not be afraid of writing, and those resources
are available and it's on the ministry and I'll make
sure that we're out with our curriculum advisors pushing that message. Yes,
we are trying to accelerate those who are behind and
(18:53):
who are turning up to school without rich language and
without all those great vocabulary and great writing skills. But
on the other hand, we have children who are very
advanced and they will get bored very quickly and turned
off if we're not extending them. And that is up
to the teacher in the classroom with the resources that
we're providing, So we'll make sure that that message is
(19:13):
being put out there. VI are our curriculum advisors. But
that shouldn't be happening.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
I'm Lorenz but grumpy nice one. Kerry cut me off,
while Erica blamed the teacher so poor. Unfortunately we only
have time for a question. I don't think you're blaming
the teacher where you pay, not at all. Not extending
the grandson.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
No, that's my expectations of what should be happening in
a classroom. They will be they should be being extended,
and that's the and actually it's on the ministry to
make sure that we are getting that message out there.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
As a forty five year teacher and senior manager in
secondary education, I believe the Minister is guilding the lily
and playing politics with all the criticism and proposed changes
coming on the back of the strike and wage claim.
It's a further imposition on teachers which doesn't acknowledge what's
currently being done and what more is being expected of teachers.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Look, one thing I didn't think I would have to
do when I came into politics and came into being
the minister to replace MCA. It's certainly not a political thing.
I surrounded myself, as I've said, with principles and said
to them, here are the challenges. Here's what ENZQA is saying,
Here's what err was saying.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
We're in the.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Middle of a change process. It's already underway. Labor have
already done NCAA Level one. We're about two, two and three.
Give me some advice, and the advice came back that
this was the direction we should take. It certainly was
not political. It came from a group of experienced principles.
I mean, I tell you what, my job would be
a lot easier if I didn't have to do this.
It's not certainly not political at all. But I'll tell
(20:40):
you know, if you want a really good statistic, last
year in Level one, only eleven percent of students did
all four maths standards. So my question is, how on
earth are we setting young people up for success at
level at year twelve in mathematics when they don't have
(21:01):
all of the knowledge they need to continue Eleven percent
These are the types of things I wasn't constructing anything.
I was looking at statistics like that thirty percent of
students are using unit standards like filling in a form,
making a coffee, picking up rubbish to get across the line.
That's not gilding the lily. That is statistics that I
was faced with. And I took to a group of
principles and said, we've already tried to tweak this once
(21:23):
or many times. We've just been through a big change
process with labor. It's not working. What do we do?
It was very genuine. They came back with their suggestions
and now we're out for consultation and it's been going
on for a year, this process.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Do you think that some teachers, not all, but some
teachers are just tribal because whether if it comes from national,
they're not really that interested. They ideologically opposed to what
you might come up with.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
I think all teachers want the very best for their students,
and it's all coming from a good place. And I
know that in many schools they've got challenges and issues
with the levels of poverty in their communities, and I
understand where they're coming from. And also it is a
huge change, but I want them to know that we
(22:18):
will be standing beside them. Not only will we be
making sure that the students that are coming through are
getting the wrap around support they need. And you can
see that in my math's action plan and the fact
that next year we've got tutoring for thirty four thousand
intermediate students to get them up to standard. One hundred
and fifty thousand students next year will get writing support
AD intermediate, so when they hit high school they will
(22:38):
be prepared more prepared at curriculum so they can get
a qualification that's meaningful. But also to those teachers, we
will wrap around you. We've got a plan and you
can go online and have your say about the role
out in the timing of the curriculum and the qualification.
We will be providing curriculum days, professional learning and development,
(22:58):
all of the resources that you need, all of the
planning that you need. We're listening to feedback about what
teachers need to make the successful. I understand and I
know that big change can be confronting, but we are
here to walk beside you as my message.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
I have had so many callers tell me over the
years about spending money they simply do not have, but
they're finding from making sacrifices themselves to send their primary
and secondary school EDU kids to know those number works
and the after school tutoring programs because they knew the
(23:35):
curriculum was failing their children. The kids knew that they
were failing, and then with that kind of one on
one tutoring, they were able to get the skills they needed.
Is this going to be able to replace a lot
of the shoring up of deficiencies that parents could see?
Speaker 3 (23:51):
That's what I am striving to do. Raise achievement closely
equity gap, so that you don't need to have after
school lessons, or use every dollar that you have to
send your child to a private school, or you know
whatever you consider to be the thing that you need
to do to get your child across the line. And
it bothers me about all of this after school tuition
(24:13):
because what it's doing is further exacerbating that equity gap
that we have. You look at all of our PIASA results,
all of the international studies show that we have the
biggest gap between the top performing kids and the bottom
performing kids and the OECD and it is stubborn and
it is widening and it is not getting any better. And
that's why this huge reform program is underway. Structured literacy,
(24:34):
structured maths. We've trained thirty thousand teachers in structured literacy,
twenty thousand teachers and structured maths. That will happen every
single year. We will continue to do this and roll
it out. We've got one hundred thousand maths books went
out to classrooms. We've changed to explicit teaching in the classroom,
single cell classrooms. We know we're not building any more
of these open planned classrooms. It is a complete and
(24:57):
utter shift in how and what we are teaching. A
brand new curriculum year by year, internationally benchmarked to leave
nothing to chance. If your child is at school in
Devenport compared to Invercargo, they will have the same curriculum,
the same expectations. We will be reporting to parents twice
a year using progression monitoring assessments that come into force
next year. It is a it is I've got six
(25:20):
priority areas that we're lifting all at once to make
sure that these children when they go to school, they
get the very best, So you don't you won't need
to send your child to after school care or after
school I should say, tutoring to supplement what they're not
getting in the classroom.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Megan, good morning to you.
Speaker 9 (25:42):
Good morning.
Speaker 8 (25:44):
Hello.
Speaker 9 (25:44):
You've got a question, Yes, so do I. I'm an
early charted center owner and I have been quite concerned
for some time now as we've sort of engaged with
some new entrance teachers about the lack of school that
and you five year olds have got when they come
out of early childhood into the primary school sector, and
(26:06):
it's been a bit of a concern. So we at
our center, we've actually engaged primary ex primary school teacher
to help work with their teachers to help them with
this new structure of literacy and making sure we're preparing
our children well enough so when they go to school
that they're not going to feel incompetent or not have
the skills, or the teachers not starting right at the
(26:29):
beginning with them. So my question is, because I know
there's a lot of early childhood centers out there that
aren't doing any sort of early literacy or neuiracy. So
is there anything going to be put in place to
help up school early childhood centers to help our younger
children when they go into this primary sector.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Firstly, it does make sense. Can I say thank you
so much for what you've done and by employing that
teacher to get your little wei ones ready for school,
that's just amazing And it's one of the things I've
been I've been looking we are considering is the fact
that we've got so many five year olds who are
turning up to school who have the oral language of
(27:13):
a two year old and they have been to e C.
Many of them haven't as well. You know, they can't
hold a pen, they are unable to sit on a
mat and take instruction. They're not ready for school. And
we spend you know, the government spends a lot of
money on early childhood education. And what are the expectations
we should have? And it sounds Megan like you know
(27:33):
exactly what they are. But what I guess the question
for us and what we're looking at is what is
the expectation we should have as a government of five
year olds who are entering school when they've come out
of ECE, that they should be able to recognize their name,
understand that letters make sounds, hold a book up the
right way, take their jumper off, have a conversation with
an adult to ask what they need. That they're toilet trained.
(27:56):
So there's a number of expectations and so that's my
starting point of looking at Okay, what are the expectations
that we should put back on ECE centers. And then
and the next question is does it how does it
fit into the curriculum into t FDIK and I think
that it probably does all fit in there. And then
your question that is then what do you need to
help get those young people or there's young New Zealanders
(28:20):
up to where they need to be. And so that's
something that we will consider. But we've done quite a
bit already. So there's you have seen COR forty fucker Pie,
which is the literacy and numerousy tool that is now
in early childhood centers. We launched that last year and
also in this year's budget there was a significant amount
of money for early literacy, the Enriched program, which is
(28:41):
helping early learning centers to understand how to have rich
interactions and conversations and illicit responses from young people to
build their oral language. There's quite a bit going on,
but there's certainly more to do, and we're thinking about
what school readiness looks like. What are your expectations of parents. Well,
that's a good question. My expectation of parents and it's
(29:03):
the easiest and most simple thing they can do is
to speak to their children. And it sound like that
sounds like an odd thing to say, but all of
the research shows right from when they're a baby eye
contact so that they are looking into your eyes and
you are speaking to them, and then when they are
old enough to respond, that you're eliciting a response that
builds rich oral early language. And that is the most
(29:27):
important thing anyone can do. And it's free and it's simple,
and it doesn't take long every day to build their
oral language, they will be successful at school in literacy
and in numeracy, their social and motional regulation will be better.
But in the age of devices and screens, kids are
being served or young three four year olds are being
(29:51):
served words, but they're not eliciting a response, so they're
not talking, and that's the most important thing. Parents can do.
And my plea to parents are everywhere. If you've got
a toddler is elicit a response from them and talk
to your children. All the research shows how important it is.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
News talk, said big Man. We're almost at the end, Sasha,
quick question from you.
Speaker 6 (30:12):
Yes, I know, we haven't got much time, just quickly.
I've got one kid who's been through n CEA and
one child still in the system. And whilst they understand
how the credits for sort of very everyday things you know,
are probably not hitting the bill the actual core subjects.
I think you know what components of NCAA will carry
(30:34):
through to the next system. Are we going to go
strictly to an exam only program? Because I have found
for my kids the fact that they can plan out,
you know, a group working activity, internal assessments as well
as an external assessment. It's kind of a really great
package and it gets them to sort of work through
(30:54):
the process all year round.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
Yep.
Speaker 6 (30:57):
And I just wonder which components will kind of be
kept I guess, yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Yeah, no, And you're absolutely right, we don't want to
be moving to an exam owner lee situation, and that
was floated by a few principles I saw out there,
but we took the best aspects of NCA, and one
of those is being children being able to show what
they know and can do during the year in internal assessment,
so there will be a combination. I think the key
(31:22):
thing that was missing before though, was they could all
skip exams and there will be the requirement to do
if the subject suits it, an exam, but it will
only be a component of a much broader package of
internal assessments, so they can do all of these rich
learning tasks during the year, so that will be kept.
Vocational pathways have being kept. We're not scaling, so if
(31:44):
you pass, you pass. But I also I think that
the key misunderstanding that I think parents grapple with I
certainly did before I became the minister, was that core
subjects are not core subjects across the country. So you
might find you know, you're doing English, but in one
school you're doing two English standards and in another school
you're doing all four, in another school you might doing three,
(32:05):
so it's it's not consistent and it's not deep rich
learning in each core subject area. So that's one of
the key changes of the proposal is that English will
be a written curriculum that every school will follow, and
every student will learn the same curriculum in all of
the deep rich learning within that curriculum area and be
assessed against it. And that's the key change of this
(32:28):
whole proposal to set kids up for success neurodivergency.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
A lot of questions from parents of neurodivergency worried that
their kids will be left behind.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
Something we've also been thinking carefully about because there are
more and more children that are showing signs of ADHD
or autism or other dyslexia, dyspraxi. I mean, there's a
lot of things and we have to make sure that
they are set up for success. Part of our reform
package is structural literacy structured maths, which was designed for
dyslexic children and neurodiverse children. But when you're looking at NCA,
(33:00):
we are also making sure that it's flexible, so that
there is internals and externals, and when they are having
to sit exams, that there are special assessment conditions. We
already have special assessment conditions so reader writer's extra time.
There's a whole lot of things that we offer to
give young people with neurodiversity success in their exams, twenty
(33:22):
percent of them use those special assessment conditions. I've already
tasked n ZQA with finding out what is gold standard
best in practice around the entire world. What more can
we do to make sure that if we are saying
that an examination will be part of a big package
of internals and externals, that we're setting these kids up
for success too.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Yeah, I think the teacher aids what are we doing there.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
We've just announced the biggest learning support package in a
generation at this budget, seven hundred and fifty million dollars
of a lot of that is into teacher aides, into
learning support more ores, which is your very high needs children.
So there is a huge package. She'll be an extra
two million teacher aid hours by twenty twenty eight, so
(34:06):
huge amount of resource going in there.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
So we could have done three hours with you. I
think I'll come back. I know it's hard for you.
I know you're busy, but I think our listeners are
our callers would our parents, our grandparents, our teachers would
love to hear more from you. And you know how
to answer a question, which is great
Speaker 1 (34:26):
For more from Kerry Wooden Mornings listen live to news
talks it'd be from nine am weekdays, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Kerry Wood and Mornings podcast from
News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
He'd be a very good morning to you this hour.
I'm joined by Education Minister Erica Stanford, who will be
taking your questions. You can send them through via text
on nine two nine two, or you can call us
now eight hundred eighty ten eighty. If you don't bring
that's absolutely fine. I have questions. I have many questions.
(00:30):
Very good morning to your minister. Good morning, thanks for
having me well, thank you for clearing time and your diary.
I know it took a bit of doing and frowing
and you're very busy. You've got a lot on.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
There's a fair bit going on at the moment. But
it's always nice to see you, okay.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Now Leading one News last night, a group of eighty
nine secondary school principles are saying, oh, put the brakes
on for replacing the NCAA's school qualification. There was an
open letter to you and Acting Secretary for Education Alan
MacGregor read the plan les a clear rationale and poses
huge risks for disadvantage students. How many secondary school principles
(01:05):
do we have the country.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
There's about five hundred secondary schools, so do.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
You presume that only eighty nine are dissatisfied or in
the other four hundred odd are happy.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
There'll be a range of views. I know that when
we announced this proposal, and remember it's just a proposal,
we're out for consultation and genuine consultation, we knew there'd
be a range of views. But what I don't accept
is that there's no rationale. There has been an enormous
amount of work done by NZQA Qualifications Authority to show
(01:38):
what the makeup of standards has been that young people
are doing, and many of those are very low quality
unit standards and a range of different standards pushed together
that don't really give them deep a meaningful pathway in
any one subject. So we can see that there are problems.
(01:58):
And you also saw ERO come out and say seventy
percent of employers do not value the qualification, sixty percent
of teachers don't value Level one, and half of parents
don't understand it. Two out of five kids don't understand it.
So I think there was a very good rationale for
us to take a look at it. Also, remembering we
(02:18):
were already in the middle of a change process. The
labour had already started, they put in place new Level one.
There was no option to do nothing. We had to
either continue to roll out Labour's plan or we had
to look at what a better plan would be, and
that's what we've done.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Was that the first time they'd seen it when it
was announced, that was a criticism made by one of
the Princes. I'd never seen. I hadn't seen one news
for years and years and years. I watched it last
night because I knew you were coming in and I'm like, well,
they take a strong view, aren't they They have an opinion.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Look, she certainly did, and it's a shame that she
didn't interview some of the other Principles who have the
opposing view, because there are many of them who are
very keen to see us raise standards, but not only
raised standards, make sure that those young people were raising
their achievement level to meet this This ends CEA change
package didn't come out of nowhere. It's part of an
(03:09):
enormous reform package. And your listeners will have seen us
with our structured literacy, structured maths, explicit teaching that huge
reform package that's happening in primary and intermediate to raise
the level of literacy and numeracy and achievement so that
when those children get to high school, what is possible.
Do we need to continue to lower the bar of NZEA, No,
(03:31):
we don't. We can actually be aspirational for these kids
because they're at curriculum. It's part of a bigger plan.
And I think this poverty of low expectations of well,
just because a child is poor, they can't possibly get
a good qualification is the wrong way to look at this.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
For years, it used to be that a good education
was your ticket out of where you came from. If
you wanted to get up and out, it was education.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
That's exactly right. It is the cloak that we wrap
around our young people that changes their circumstances. It is
the great equalizer. Your means should not determine your destiny.
But if we continue to have this low expectation of oh,
we need a flex CEA that caters for all students,
which is code for we're going to scrape together things
to get our kids across the line when they're not
(04:13):
literal and they're not numerate. You know, that is not
the aspiration I've got and I think most parents have
got for their children. We are focused on raising achievements
so they can get a good qualification and that's the
work that we're doing, and.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
An expectation from the kids themselves. When I leave school,
I want to have options. I want to have been
given options so I can decide what I want to
do with my life, not be.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
And kids know. I've seen them commenting on Facebook like,
oh yeah, I got four credits for crawling through some
mud and that was counted as team building. I got
some points for working in a group. I got some
credits for making a coffee. They know, they're gaming, they know,
and we need to have higher expectations for them because
when we do, they rise to meet them.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
They do. All right, I'll go to a caller. I
have more questions. Shama. Good morning to.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
You, very good morning, and good morning to minister.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Good morning.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
I just got up one comment before and a question.
The comment is congratulations on a very bold move. There
needs to be some level of change. And I'm I
got a daughter, a fifteen year old daughter in school,
and I'm very concerned about the education curricular. But the
question I have, Minister, is that your consulting you mentioned
that it's currently on the consultation process. Is that a
(05:31):
consultation with a specific group of people. Are you going
to have a general public consultation process?
Speaker 3 (05:37):
The excellent question, and I wish I had the URL
on me. I don't, but if you google Ministry of
Education in CEA Reform, you will find that there is
a public consultation document open and it is targeted at parents, students, teachers, principles,
and employers. So we're after everyone's opinion and I need
(05:59):
everyone to log on and have this say. It doesn't
take long. It's quite a good document that lays out
the case for chain, lays out some of the issues,
and it prompts a whole lot of questions and there's
a lot of boxes for open ended answers as well,
So yes, please, please, we need everybody to have their say,
especially employers. I got a halfway mark the other day
(06:19):
about how many were up to and we're really lagging
behind in the number of employers who haven't had their say.
Lots of parents, lots of teachers, but not so many employers.
So a great question.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
We'll get the address before the end of the show
so that you can do it. Have you got labors
spokesperson for education. Have you met yet?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Look Willo Jean has had a briefing from my officials
where she grilled them, which was really good, lots of questions.
What I'm waiting on now from her is her feedback.
I don't expect labor to go through the URL and
go through the website. What I expect from them is
now to bring me back their suggestions and proposals and
what their constructive viewers on how we could strengthen the proposal.
(07:02):
So she's met with them, I've got I think she's
overseas for a while. Then when she comes back, I
will meet with her in person to get that to get.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
That kind of feedback. All right, and we'll just squeeze.
Can I squeeze in a quick question before we go
to the break? Yes, I can, Marie, Good morning to you. Hello,
Hi there.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
My question is around the young people. And I am
a youth worker and I work with lots of young people,
and I've been speaking to some of my friends recently,
and some of them have come from different countries and
their migrants out here, and they talk about how when
they came here and they.
Speaker 6 (07:36):
Sit in school, they didn't.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
Learn anything because they had already learned it when they
had come from their other schools and their other countries.
And I just want to ask the Minister if the
current I grew up here in New Zealand, and I
want to ask for if the plans that she is
proposing is going to help our young people to be
able to have influence and have better careers and stuff
and be able to help grow news the more, or
(08:01):
if it is just going to continue to when immigrant
students come, they're just going to be a bit. It's
kind of embarrassing, you know that our friends have come,
and just kind of just wondering what the Minister's aspirations
are for our kids that are here growing up here
in New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Thanks Mariy.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Look, one of the things that we noticed was that
when we internationally benchmarked our curriculum and our expectations against
other countries, we like to compare ourselves to we are
well behind. And so you're absolutely right when those migrant
children or young people come, even when New Zealanders have
traveled overseas and lived overseas for a number of years
with their children, the feedback I get is they come
(08:42):
back to New Zealand and the standards are far lower now.
We want our young people to be able to operate
on the world stage and you go and get jobs
overseas and compete with other young people, and we can't
do that if the learning that they're doing isn't at
at the same level. So what we've been doing with
the new curriculum that we're building is internationally benchmarking line
(09:04):
by line to make sure that everything is on par
with other countries now and many listeners who might have
children at primary school will have noticed this year. They
will have had a notice from their school that the
primary school maths curriculum has jumped up, and it's done
that because we internationally benchmarked it. We realized that we
were leaving far too much information and material till the
(09:25):
end of primary school. We needed to bring it back earlier.
So that've all been told that, you know, if your
child was ahead before, maybe they'll be at curriculum now.
If they were at before, they might be slightly blow.
It's not your child, it is curriculum expectations. But if
we again want to be internationally comparative and competitive, we
need to be benchmarking and that's what we're doing. So
very good question.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
I picked up the six year old this week, how
is your daying?
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Good?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
We're doing statistics in maths? What And the eight year
old was like, we only did statistics last year. How
have you doing it this? Like statistics?
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Loving it, absolutely loving it.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
They are capable of so much more than what we've
been doing, and it's really exciting this new curriculum.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
When News Talks said, b I've got a question from
Rachel are concerned mother cut to carry? Can you please
ask them, Minister way on Earth their scraping. Outdoor education
is a subject. It's what keeps many children at school.
It's good for their mental health as well as their
physical health.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Well, we haven't made any announcements on the curriculum yet.
We've been in discussions about what sort of curriculum areas
we should have. No decisions have been made. I haven't
announced them yet, and we've been out consulting with different
groups and listening. And I know that outdoor education will
play an important part of the new curriculum. It's where
we put it. So there will be some announcements shortly,
(10:44):
but there's no need to panic just yet. What we're
essentially doing is going through the curriculum and understanding how
many children are actually taking that subject or parts of
that subject, and currently is it made up of standards
or is it made up of unit standards? Should it
sit in an academic standard, should it sit in vocational
So it's not so much about scrapping things, it's about
(11:06):
saying where does it sit? Because the old n CEA
allowed the flexibility allowed teachers and to pull together lots
of different standards and create something new like outdoor education
or criminology, which aren't things that we think are subjects
or in our subject list, but they've been created. So
now we're going back and going, okay, where do they sit?
(11:27):
So you won't see things disappear as much as you
will just see them shift somewhere else. So there's no
need to panic just yet. I know how engaging outdoor
education is and we've been consulting with lots of different
groups and so we'll be making announcement in the next
couple of weeks about that.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Matt's good morning to you. Did I not ask if
we've been properly about working with labor? Yeah?
Speaker 6 (11:50):
No, yeah, I was just wondering, can't hear you can't
hear you speak up.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
Sorry, I can't hear it all better. Okay, So they're saying,
you've got much agreeants. What's them on what you're doing?
And the mort its.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Look that thanks for your question and concern. We've just
started the process. As you know. I tried to get
them to talk to us and consult with us on
this back in March, and we only just had Willow
gene prime In talking to my officials about a week ago.
So she's asked lots of questions but hasn't come back
(12:32):
yet with thoughts or that we're only early in the process.
I expect that she will. That'll be the next step.
She will meet with me and she will talk to
me about where she thinks things will need to be
strengthened or changed or I expect her constructive feedback next.
I think the first meeting was really about presenting the
changes and her asking lots of questions. So we'll see
where that goes. But I mean, Chris Hopkins has already
(12:53):
come out and he said, look, there are problems with
n CEA. He's in agreement. He labor tried to fix
NCAA already Level one rolled out last year. It was
and essentially, if I'm being honest, an unmitigated disaster. It
didn't fix any of the problems. It was implemented poorly,
and that's what started me on my journey of well,
(13:15):
I don't want to replicate that mess. I want to
do something better and implement it better. So the answer
is I don't know yet, but I'm very confident given
the comments by Chris Hipkins.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
You have to feel for the teachers, don't you, who
have been given change after change after change within the curriculum.
The curriculum is not their fault.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
No, you're absolutely right, and I can understand from principles
and teachers who've just been through this level one change
under the previous government, and we'll have PTSD about it
because it was a disaster. But I want to assure
them and parents that the reason I got the Educationer
of your office to do their report was to learn
from those mistakes so we don't do them again. That's
(13:57):
why you're seeing I bought a group of principles around
me to work out how we carefully stage and manage
this through. You've got to have the curricul them embedded first,
and then you put the qualification in place. Now we're
moving on very quickly to what does good implementation look like.
The resourcing that teachers will need, the planning that they
will need, the professional learning and development they will need,
(14:20):
potentially the AI tools that they will need. I sat
in the meeting for two and a half hours yesterday
talking about the types of amazing technology we can offer
our teachers to help them implement the new curriculum. So
there is a lot we are going to wrap around.
We're not going to say here's the curriculum. Good luck,
which is what happened last time.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Very good morning to you.
Speaker 7 (14:39):
Good morning Carrie, and good morning Minister Erica.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Good morning, how are you great?
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Thank you?
Speaker 3 (14:45):
How are you good?
Speaker 7 (14:48):
I just wanted to start off and say to Erica,
if I may just thank you so much for being
passionate about education for our kids and the large changes
you're trying to make for the kids these days. Can
I ask, though, will structured literacy be continued? I threw
up into year eight and intermediate because my kids have
(15:10):
done the structured literacy and I've seen huge positive changes
with their reading and spelling in that.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Oh good question, and the answer is yes, it will be.
In fact, we just announced last week that we're going
to be training structured literacy teachers in intermediates and also
in high schools. I think the thing people misunderstand is
that structured literacy is just about phonics in teaching a
child to read at cat That is the basis of it.
(15:40):
But it's so much more than that. It's about spelling
and grammar and comprehension all the way up and learning
the spelling rules, and it should flow all the way
through up into intermediates. So the answer to that is yes,
and I'm so pleased to hear that it's doing well
for your children and their reading and comprehension and spelling.
It is very much about the way that it's taught
(16:03):
as well. It's taught explicitly. A tea will model. She'll
ask the children to repeat it back to her. Then
they'll write it, then she writes it, then you say it,
then you say it. It's just the most amazing thing
to watch in the classroom.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Lorraine, you are in the classroom, are you?
Speaker 8 (16:18):
I know, y Carrie. I've retired about four years ago,
but I've taught forty years and most of those were
in the new entrant year one class but.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Thank you for your service.
Speaker 8 (16:30):
I'll say, I think it's not to years off my retirement.
But there's this one thing about structured writing for our
little new entrance.
Speaker 7 (16:40):
I don't know.
Speaker 8 (16:41):
Have you spent much time watching in structured writing in
the new entrant class?
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Yes?
Speaker 8 (16:45):
I have. My big worry about it is that like
my little five year old Grende, he went to school
being able to write, but he he is just like
Rich in language, and he's writing already using the lips
of question marks. He's asking what do you think when
I blah blah blah. He's doing all this sort of stuff.
(17:05):
He went up to the office and got a certificate
for being an author blah blah blah. Within eight weeks
he would not write. And this is out fear that
the structured writing is tied closely into the reading. So
in reading he's doing oi. Ioy. It's quite advanced for
a little five year old. I found the book quite hard.
(17:26):
There was words like awkward, awk and all these different things.
And until he can put that into his writing, he
can't progress in his writing. So it's so tightly controlled
that he's too scared. And my daughter rang me and said, mummy,
won't write it how many Moore and I said, I
knew this would happen because with the bright kids, it
(17:48):
does not always work.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Okay, yeah, Look, the answer to that is that teachers
in the classroom should be adapting learning for those bright kids.
One of the things that we're trying to achieve with
structured literacy is the reading and writing crisis that we have,
and we've got to face the head on. I mean,
half of our kids are not at curriculum for reading
by the time they go to high school it is,
(18:11):
and we know that half of them fail literacy assessments
at NCA. So we're trying to solve for that problem.
But there are always going to be children like your
grandchild who are keen being smart, smart kids who are advanced,
and they need to be extended in the classroom. And
that's why on our it's a platform called Taharangi that
(18:31):
the Ministry run. There are a whole lot of resources
available to extend children because they should not be bored,
they should not be afraid of writing, and those resources
are available and it's on the ministry and I'll make
sure that we're out with our curriculum advisors pushing that message. Yes,
we are trying to accelerate those who are behind and
(18:53):
who are turning up to school without rich language and
without all those great vocabulary and great writing skills. But
on the other hand, we have children who are very
advanced and they will get bored very quickly and turned
off if we're not extending them. And that is up
to the teacher in the classroom with the resources that
we're providing, So we'll make sure that that message is
(19:13):
being put out there. VI are our curriculum advisors. But
that shouldn't be happening.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
I'm Lorenz but grumpy nice one. Kerry cut me off,
while Erica blamed the teacher so poor. Unfortunately we only
have time for a question. I don't think you're blaming
the teacher where you pay, not at all. Not extending
the grandson.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
No, that's my expectations of what should be happening in
a classroom. They will be they should be being extended,
and that's the and actually it's on the ministry to
make sure that we are getting that message out there.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
As a forty five year teacher and senior manager in
secondary education, I believe the Minister is guilding the lily
and playing politics with all the criticism and proposed changes
coming on the back of the strike and wage claim.
It's a further imposition on teachers which doesn't acknowledge what's
currently being done and what more is being expected of teachers.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Look, one thing I didn't think I would have to
do when I came into politics and came into being
the minister to replace MCA. It's certainly not a political thing.
I surrounded myself, as I've said, with principles and said
to them, here are the challenges. Here's what ENZQA is saying,
Here's what err was saying.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
We're in the.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Middle of a change process. It's already underway. Labor have
already done NCAA Level one. We're about two, two and three.
Give me some advice, and the advice came back that
this was the direction we should take. It certainly was
not political. It came from a group of experienced principles.
I mean, I tell you what, my job would be
a lot easier if I didn't have to do this.
It's not certainly not political at all. But I'll tell
(20:40):
you know, if you want a really good statistic, last
year in Level one, only eleven percent of students did
all four maths standards. So my question is, how on
earth are we setting young people up for success at
level at year twelve in mathematics when they don't have
(21:01):
all of the knowledge they need to continue Eleven percent
These are the types of things I wasn't constructing anything.
I was looking at statistics like that thirty percent of
students are using unit standards like filling in a form,
making a coffee, picking up rubbish to get across the line.
That's not gilding the lily. That is statistics that I
was faced with. And I took to a group of
principles and said, we've already tried to tweak this once
(21:23):
or many times. We've just been through a big change
process with labor. It's not working. What do we do?
It was very genuine. They came back with their suggestions
and now we're out for consultation and it's been going
on for a year, this process.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Do you think that some teachers, not all, but some
teachers are just tribal because whether if it comes from national,
they're not really that interested. They ideologically opposed to what
you might come up with.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
I think all teachers want the very best for their students,
and it's all coming from a good place. And I
know that in many schools they've got challenges and issues
with the levels of poverty in their communities, and I
understand where they're coming from. And also it is a
huge change, but I want them to know that we
(22:18):
will be standing beside them. Not only will we be
making sure that the students that are coming through are
getting the wrap around support they need. And you can
see that in my math's action plan and the fact
that next year we've got tutoring for thirty four thousand
intermediate students to get them up to standard. One hundred
and fifty thousand students next year will get writing support
AD intermediate, so when they hit high school they will
(22:38):
be prepared more prepared at curriculum so they can get
a qualification that's meaningful. But also to those teachers, we
will wrap around you. We've got a plan and you
can go online and have your say about the role
out in the timing of the curriculum and the qualification.
We will be providing curriculum days, professional learning and development,
(22:58):
all of the resources that you need, all of the
planning that you need. We're listening to feedback about what
teachers need to make the successful. I understand and I
know that big change can be confronting, but we are
here to walk beside you as my message.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
I have had so many callers tell me over the
years about spending money they simply do not have, but
they're finding from making sacrifices themselves to send their primary
and secondary school EDU kids to know those number works
and the after school tutoring programs because they knew the
(23:35):
curriculum was failing their children. The kids knew that they
were failing, and then with that kind of one on
one tutoring, they were able to get the skills they needed.
Is this going to be able to replace a lot
of the shoring up of deficiencies that parents could see?
Speaker 3 (23:51):
That's what I am striving to do. Raise achievement closely
equity gap, so that you don't need to have after
school lessons, or use every dollar that you have to
send your child to a private school, or you know
whatever you consider to be the thing that you need
to do to get your child across the line. And
it bothers me about all of this after school tuition
(24:13):
because what it's doing is further exacerbating that equity gap
that we have. You look at all of our PIASA results,
all of the international studies show that we have the
biggest gap between the top performing kids and the bottom
performing kids and the OECD and it is stubborn and
it is widening and it is not getting any better. And
that's why this huge reform program is underway. Structured literacy,
(24:34):
structured maths. We've trained thirty thousand teachers in structured literacy,
twenty thousand teachers and structured maths. That will happen every
single year. We will continue to do this and roll
it out. We've got one hundred thousand maths books went
out to classrooms. We've changed to explicit teaching in the classroom,
single cell classrooms. We know we're not building any more
of these open planned classrooms. It is a complete and
(24:57):
utter shift in how and what we are teaching. A
brand new curriculum year by year, internationally benchmarked to leave
nothing to chance. If your child is at school in
Devenport compared to Invercargo, they will have the same curriculum,
the same expectations. We will be reporting to parents twice
a year using progression monitoring assessments that come into force
next year. It is a it is I've got six
(25:20):
priority areas that we're lifting all at once to make
sure that these children when they go to school, they
get the very best, So you don't you won't need
to send your child to after school care or after
school I should say, tutoring to supplement what they're not
getting in the classroom.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Megan, good morning to you.
Speaker 9 (25:42):
Good morning.
Speaker 8 (25:44):
Hello.
Speaker 9 (25:44):
You've got a question, Yes, so do I. I'm an
early charted center owner and I have been quite concerned
for some time now as we've sort of engaged with
some new entrance teachers about the lack of school that
and you five year olds have got when they come
out of early childhood into the primary school sector, and
(26:06):
it's been a bit of a concern. So we at
our center, we've actually engaged primary ex primary school teacher
to help work with their teachers to help them with
this new structure of literacy and making sure we're preparing
our children well enough so when they go to school
that they're not going to feel incompetent or not have
the skills, or the teachers not starting right at the
(26:29):
beginning with them. So my question is, because I know
there's a lot of early childhood centers out there that
aren't doing any sort of early literacy or neuiracy. So
is there anything going to be put in place to
help up school early childhood centers to help our younger
children when they go into this primary sector.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Firstly, it does make sense. Can I say thank you
so much for what you've done and by employing that
teacher to get your little wei ones ready for school,
that's just amazing And it's one of the things I've
been I've been looking we are considering is the fact
that we've got so many five year olds who are
turning up to school who have the oral language of
(27:13):
a two year old and they have been to e C.
Many of them haven't as well. You know, they can't
hold a pen, they are unable to sit on a
mat and take instruction. They're not ready for school. And
we spend you know, the government spends a lot of
money on early childhood education. And what are the expectations
we should have? And it sounds Megan like you know
(27:33):
exactly what they are. But what I guess the question
for us and what we're looking at is what is
the expectation we should have as a government of five
year olds who are entering school when they've come out
of ECE, that they should be able to recognize their name,
understand that letters make sounds, hold a book up the
right way, take their jumper off, have a conversation with
an adult to ask what they need. That they're toilet trained.
(27:56):
So there's a number of expectations and so that's my
starting point of looking at Okay, what are the expectations
that we should put back on ECE centers. And then
and the next question is does it how does it
fit into the curriculum into t FDIK and I think
that it probably does all fit in there. And then
your question that is then what do you need to
help get those young people or there's young New Zealanders
(28:20):
up to where they need to be. And so that's
something that we will consider. But we've done quite a
bit already. So there's you have seen COR forty fucker Pie,
which is the literacy and numerousy tool that is now
in early childhood centers. We launched that last year and
also in this year's budget there was a significant amount
of money for early literacy, the Enriched program, which is
(28:41):
helping early learning centers to understand how to have rich
interactions and conversations and illicit responses from young people to
build their oral language. There's quite a bit going on,
but there's certainly more to do, and we're thinking about
what school readiness looks like. What are your expectations of parents. Well,
that's a good question. My expectation of parents and it's
(29:03):
the easiest and most simple thing they can do is
to speak to their children. And it sound like that
sounds like an odd thing to say, but all of
the research shows right from when they're a baby eye
contact so that they are looking into your eyes and
you are speaking to them, and then when they are
old enough to respond, that you're eliciting a response that
builds rich oral early language. And that is the most
(29:27):
important thing anyone can do. And it's free and it's simple,
and it doesn't take long every day to build their
oral language, they will be successful at school in literacy
and in numeracy, their social and motional regulation will be better.
But in the age of devices and screens, kids are
being served or young three four year olds are being
(29:51):
served words, but they're not eliciting a response, so they're
not talking, and that's the most important thing. Parents can do.
And my plea to parents are everywhere. If you've got
a toddler is elicit a response from them and talk
to your children. All the research shows how important it is.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
News talk, said big Man. We're almost at the end, Sasha,
quick question from you.
Speaker 6 (30:12):
Yes, I know, we haven't got much time, just quickly.
I've got one kid who's been through n CEA and
one child still in the system. And whilst they understand
how the credits for sort of very everyday things you know,
are probably not hitting the bill the actual core subjects.
I think you know what components of NCAA will carry
(30:34):
through to the next system. Are we going to go
strictly to an exam only program? Because I have found
for my kids the fact that they can plan out,
you know, a group working activity, internal assessments as well
as an external assessment. It's kind of a really great
package and it gets them to sort of work through
(30:54):
the process all year round.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
Yep.
Speaker 6 (30:57):
And I just wonder which components will kind of be
kept I guess, yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Yeah, no, And you're absolutely right, we don't want to
be moving to an exam owner lee situation, and that
was floated by a few principles I saw out there,
but we took the best aspects of NCA, and one
of those is being children being able to show what
they know and can do during the year in internal assessment,
so there will be a combination. I think the key
(31:22):
thing that was missing before though, was they could all
skip exams and there will be the requirement to do
if the subject suits it, an exam, but it will
only be a component of a much broader package of
internal assessments, so they can do all of these rich
learning tasks during the year, so that will be kept.
Vocational pathways have being kept. We're not scaling, so if
(31:44):
you pass, you pass. But I also I think that
the key misunderstanding that I think parents grapple with I
certainly did before I became the minister, was that core
subjects are not core subjects across the country. So you
might find you know, you're doing English, but in one
school you're doing two English standards and in another school
you're doing all four, in another school you might doing three,
(32:05):
so it's it's not consistent and it's not deep rich
learning in each core subject area. So that's one of
the key changes of the proposal is that English will
be a written curriculum that every school will follow, and
every student will learn the same curriculum in all of
the deep rich learning within that curriculum area and be
assessed against it. And that's the key change of this
(32:28):
whole proposal to set kids up for success neurodivergency.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
A lot of questions from parents of neurodivergency worried that
their kids will be left behind.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
Something we've also been thinking carefully about because there are
more and more children that are showing signs of ADHD
or autism or other dyslexia, dyspraxi. I mean, there's a
lot of things and we have to make sure that
they are set up for success. Part of our reform
package is structural literacy structured maths, which was designed for
dyslexic children and neurodiverse children. But when you're looking at NCA,
(33:00):
we are also making sure that it's flexible, so that
there is internals and externals, and when they are having
to sit exams, that there are special assessment conditions. We
already have special assessment conditions so reader writer's extra time.
There's a whole lot of things that we offer to
give young people with neurodiversity success in their exams, twenty
(33:22):
percent of them use those special assessment conditions. I've already
tasked n ZQA with finding out what is gold standard
best in practice around the entire world. What more can
we do to make sure that if we are saying
that an examination will be part of a big package
of internals and externals, that we're setting these kids up
for success too.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Yeah, I think the teacher aids what are we doing there.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
We've just announced the biggest learning support package in a
generation at this budget, seven hundred and fifty million dollars
of a lot of that is into teacher aides, into
learning support more ores, which is your very high needs children.
So there is a huge package. She'll be an extra
two million teacher aid hours by twenty twenty eight, so
(34:06):
huge amount of resource going in there.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
So we could have done three hours with you. I
think I'll come back. I know it's hard for you.
I know you're busy, but I think our listeners are
our callers would our parents, our grandparents, our teachers would
love to hear more from you. And you know how
to answer a question, which is great
Speaker 1 (34:26):
For more from Kerry Wooden Mornings listen live to news
talks it'd be from nine am weekdays, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio
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