New government regulation around literacy have had little impact on local schools, who are all sitting well within guidelines already.
The new regulations, which came into effect for the start of the 2024 school year, mean schools and kura with students in Years 0-8 need to teach an average of one hour a day of reading, writing, and maths,
The change sets a clear expectation that all Year 0-8 students should receive regular, focused instruction in these core areas.
Teachers are encouraged to deliberately and purposefully dedicate time to teaching the core skills using techniques like investigations, collaborative learning, and games to engage students with their learning.
“For us, we have always prioritised reading, writing, and maths,” Wakefield School principal Freya Hogarth explains.
“After going through the information from the ministry, Wakefield School is well and truly meeting these targets.
“It’s about being age-appropriate, and this will look different in each class according to the age and stage of the students.
“Throughout the day, through a range of teaching methods, activities, investigations and games, our students’ reading, writing, and maths have an accumulative effective,” Freya says.
Education Minister Erica Stanford says these changes in the 100-day plan are the first steps in the coalition Government’s plan to lift student achievement.
“We have an aspirational target to get 80 per cent of our kids to curriculum by the time they finish intermediate, to set them up for success so they can live the life they want,” Erica says.
“We’re seeing that many schools are already doing this well, but this change is about having time dedicated to teaching reading, writing, and maths in a purposeful and deliberate way consistently across New Zealand.”
Richmond School’s deputy principal Ryan Higgins says the new changes have created very little change at Richmond School.
“This change has had little impact on us, but it has made us reflect on what we are doing in these three areas and how they link into the government requirements. We have good structures here that ensure our teachers and students are striving to meet these requirements,” he says.
“Our structure and timetabling allow us to adapt concepts of best practice into our reading, writing, and maths. We have great staff who are able to keep these subjects at the forefront of what we teach.”
