School attendance is exceeding pre-Covid levels for the first time. Parents are re-engaging with their children’s education in ways we haven’t seen in years.
These aren’t minor improvements. They’re the kind of shifts that change trajectories.
It’s been tough. The pandemic, inflation, and workforce shortages tested our resilience.
But while we’ve been focused on what’s broken, something remarkable has been happening in classrooms and clinics.
Evidence-based teaching is transforming how children learn. Funding reform is finally starting to reach healthcare front lines.
Education: Following the science, transforming lives
The introduction of structured literacy, evidence-based reading instruction, alongside a refreshed maths curriculum and one hour a day dedicated to each subject has transformed learning outcomes, and what I’m witnessing at home mirrors what teachers are reporting to the Education Review Office (ERO), New Zealand’s independent education evaluation agency: classrooms are calmer, more engaged, and full of those tiny “aha!” moments that only teachers and parents truly understand.
Ruth Shinoda, deputy chief executive of the Education Review Office and head of the Education Evaluation Centre, puts it plainly: “English and maths are critical for our students’ futures and for a long time we’ve been concerned that too many students are not where they need to be".
“The good news is there are promising signs this is changing.”
The data is quite simply extraordinary. In Term 1, just 36% of new entrants met or exceeded phonics expectations after 20 weeks of school. By Term 3, that figure jumped to 58%.
Even more remarkably, 43% of students exceeded expectations, double the earlier number.
But here’s where the story gets even better. The gains are closing equity gaps that have persisted for generations.
For Māori tamariki, those meeting or exceeding phonics expectations rose from 25% to 43% in a single year. That’s transformation. Pacific students showed identical gains, jumping from 27% to 43%.
When Māori and Pacific learners have historically been underserved, these numbers represent not just academic progress but a fundamental shift toward equity.
This is what happens when you follow the science, train teachers properly, and resource schools. Over 33,000 teachers, 80% of those teaching Years 0–8, have now been trained in structured literacy. That’s system-wide transformation, delivered at speed and scale.
Mathematics, engagement, and teacher implementation
The Government delivered more than a million maths textbooks, workbooks and guides to classrooms. But what makes this transformation truly remarkable is the genuine adoption and changed practice.
As a parent, I’ve seen these resources firsthand. They’re high quality, engaging, and designed in ways that make complex concepts accessible to young learners.
Nearly all schools report they’ve started teaching the refreshed English curriculum for Years 0-6 (98%) and refreshed maths for Years 0-8 (98%).
That’s a nationwide transformation. More than nine out of 10 teachers are teaching all components of English. More than eight in 10 are teaching all components of maths.
Most encouragingly, teachers aren’t just delivering new content with old methods. Now, 88% report they’ve changed how they teach English; 85% have changed how they teach maths.
Nearly all teachers, more than 97%, are using the evidence-backed teaching strategies that are part of the curriculum changes.
“ERO has found these promising signs are due to the hard work of schools across the country to change what they teach, how they teach, and how much they teach English and maths,” says Shinoda. “School leaders and teachers have put in a lot of time and effort.”
As one teacher told the Education Review Office: “The biggest change is the changes in expectations at different year levels. Things we have not taught before at Year 3, the children are now expected to know.”
Half of primary school teachers say their students’ English and maths have improved compared with last year.
But here’s what makes this data powerful, parents agree, and they’re specific: Three-quarters of parents report their child’s progress has improved in English (77%) and maths (75%) since one hour a day was implemented for each subject.
When teachers observe progress in classrooms and parents see it at home, you know something fundamental has shifted.
It’s not just test scores improving. Students are more engaged. Almost half of teachers (47%) report improved student engagement in English, and over half (56%) report improved engagement in maths.
Teachers consistently note that structured literacy approaches have improved attention and behaviour. When a child understands the text in front of them, when maths concepts click instead of confuse, the entire learning experience transforms.
Confidence builds. That “I can’t do this” feeling gives way to “I can do this”.
Māori students meeting phonics goals jumped from 25% to 43% in one year. Photo / 123RF
Parents stepping up: Attendance and home support
The transformation extends beyond what happens in classrooms to whether children show up in the first place. I was standing poolside on a Sunday morning, chatting with other parents while our kids played sports, and the conversation surprised me. We weren’t talking about scores or weekend plans; we were talking about school attendance. A few years ago, that would’ve been unthinkable. But the tone has shifted.
Parents are now comparing attendance rates, talking about catching up on missed learning, and taking pride in consistency. The idea that a child’s absence should be justified, really justified, is taking hold. We’ve collectively realised that every day at school matters. Not in a punitive way, but in a “this is how learning works” way.
The data backs that up. Every term since Term 1 2024 has recorded higher attendance than the year before, with Term 2 2025 marking the first time any term exceeded pre-Covid levels at 58.4% regular attendance. That’s not just recovery, but progress beyond where we were before the pandemic.
Even more encouraging, attitudes have shifted dramatically. Now, 73% of students think daily attendance is important, up from 67% in 2022.
Students in low socio-economic communities showed double the improvement in attitudes compared with their peers in higher socio-economic areas.
The Government’s $140 million investment in attendance services, and mandatory attendance management plans from Term 1 2026, are supporting this momentum toward the 2030 goal of 80% regular attendance nationwide.
But attendance is only part of the story. Parents are stepping up at home in ways that directly support classroom learning.
Nine in 10 parents report they know how to help their child with reading and writing (93%) and maths (89%).
More importantly, they’re actually doing it, 93% help with reading and writing, 85% with maths.
“These improvements are also a testament to parents,” notes Shinoda. “Nine out of 10 parents are helping their children at home reading, writing and maths, and this really helps.”
Parents are saying they want to know what content is being covered at school so they can supplement learning at home. While confidence is high for literacy support, parents are less confident helping with maths and would like more guidance. That’s parents asking for tools to help their kids succeed.
As a parent, I’d love to see more progress here. Basic things like a visible timetable and brief weekly updates on what’s being taught would help us better support our kids’ learning.
Knowing whether the class is focusing on division or multiplication makes a big difference at home. These aren’t big asks, and with AI, this kind of regular communication should be simple to introduce.
There’s also a bigger structural question worth examining. The principal at my daughter’s school recently shared attendance survey results showing that 28% of Term 3 absences were because of holidays, significantly higher than other times of the year.
For many immigrant families – and New Zealand is increasingly diverse – the current school calendar creates genuine challenges.
The two-week winter break doesn’t align with northern hemisphere summer, when extended family connections abroad are most practical.
The result? Families are choosing between maintaining cultural/family ties and meeting attendance expectations.
This isn’t about making attendance optional. It’s about acknowledging that our school calendar was designed for a different New Zealand and asking whether a longer Term 3 break, balanced by shorter breaks elsewhere, might better serve our increasingly multicultural society while still protecting the learning time we now know matters so much.
It’s a conversation worth having as we work toward that 80% regular attendance goal.
School attendance beats pre-Covid levels, fuelled by parent engagement. Photo / 123RF
Healthcare: From crisis to stability
While classrooms were being transformed, our healthcare system was facing its own reckoning. Two years ago, four out of five practices said their financial position was worsening. Clinics were closing. Communities were losing access to family doctors.
Today, the story looks remarkably different. The latest data from the General Practice Owners Association shows the sector is stabilising. Only one in five practices made a loss last year.
And critically, only one in four say things are getting worse, down from four out of five practices who said that two years ago. That’s a massive turnaround.
What that means: fewer clinic closures, more stability, more communities keeping access to their family doctor. Dr Angus Chambers, who chairs GenPro, says government recognition of the crisis and actual funding reform made a difference.
The 2025 Budget didn’t solve everything, but it started to fix how resources reach frontline care.
The improvement shows up in service delivery. Only 29% of practices have cut services, down from 54% two years ago. Four out of five clinics are now taking new patients again.
A healthcare system regaining its footing after years of strain changes everything for families who need consistent, accessible care.
Healthcare practices making losses dropped from 80% to just 20%. Photo / 123RF
What progress looks like
When my daughter comes home eager to show me her maths work, explaining the different strategies she used to solve a problem or lighting up because she finally understood fractions, not just memorising steps, but really getting it, I see something powerful.
That’s what progress looks like: not perfection, but making sense of complexity and moving forward anyway.
Step back for a moment, and it’s clear New Zealand is moving in the right direction. Kids are learning to read using methods that actually work.
Māori and Pacific students are making gains that close historical equity gaps. Healthcare practices are stabilising after years of crisis.
“Our findings reflect the great work of primary school teachers right across the country, and their work should be celebrated,” says Shinoda.
And she’s right. This is real progress, practical and evidence-based, the result of hard work, smart policy, and people who care deeply.
Yet you wouldn’t know it from the way we talk about ourselves. There’s a national comfort in pessimism, the tall poppy reflex, the “yeah, but …” that follows every bit of good news.
When we only focus on what’s broken, we lose sight of what’s being fixed. Progress is rarely perfect or fast, but direction matters. The green shoots are here. The early signs of spring are visible if we’re willing to look.
It’s time to balance our conversations: acknowledge the challenges, yes, but celebrate the wins with equal energy. That’s the New Zealand I see every day, in my daughter’s enthusiasm as she shows me her maths work, in the stability returning to our healthcare system, in parents stepping up at school gates and poolside conversations.
It’s time we talked about that New Zealand too, the one where progress is happening every day.
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