Less than a quarter of Year 8 students have a writing ability that meets the Government benchmark, with just 24% at the expected standard and 61% of Year 8 students more than a year behind, according to alarming new data published today.
The baseline data collected in 2024 - prior to this year’s introduction of the new English curriculum and structured literacy supports - showed writing achievement declines as a child progresses through school.
Education Minister Erica Stanford cited this new data this morning as she launched a “writing action plan” dubbed “make it write” to improve flagging scores in New Zealand schools.
At Year 3, 41% of students are at the expected benchmark, this falls to 33% by Year 6 and just 24% in Year 8.
The data comes from the Curriculum Insights and Progress Study, established to monitor Year 3, 6 and 8 student progress against the refreshed New Zealand Curriculum. It is run by the University of Otago and the New Zealand Council for Educational Research.
“Writing is a critical skill for learning, thinking, and communicating. We’ve already mandated the teaching of at least an hour a day of the basics, we’ve mandated structured literacy and introduced a world-leading English curriculum,” Stanford said.
From Term 1 next year, a new “Writing Acceleration Tool” will be available to support 120,000 Years 6–8 students who are below expected writing levels and won’t have the benefit of structured literacy from Year 1.
“Teachers will be supported to deliver explicit teaching and will be able to monitor student progress in real time, adjusting how their teaching based on individual needs and responses to intervention,” Stanford said.
Stanford said every intermediate and secondary school will be funded to train their own structured literacy intervention teacher.
“This training will be tailored for older students and extends what is already available for those teaching in Years 0-6.
“As requested by the sector, teachers will gain the skills needed to work with small groups of students who need targeted support, using structured, evidence-based approaches,” Stanford said.
There will also be new handwriting teacher guidance which will support explicit teaching from Years 0–8, aligned with the refreshed English curriculum.
“This guidance will support cognitive development and memory retention at an early age, so students are fluent and confident when they write,” she said.
Stanford said the data out today shows “our maths results have stabilised, which is pleasing to see, but there is so much more to do”.
“So that’s why today I want to tell parents that when I see and when this Government sees results like this, like we did with mathematics, like we did with reading, we act.
“When we saw the poor reading results over many decades, that was our literacy guarantee at the election, and that’s all being rolled out with force this year.”
Stanford said New Zealand’s old literacy curriculum did not have an adequate “level of detail and left things to chance”.
But she denied claims that this generation is being “lost”.
“We’re making sure that teachers at high schools are trained in structured literacy. That’s the big gap. What we’ve got at the moment is not something I ever thought we would need to do to help a secondary school teacher teach a child to read.
“But that’s the gravity of where we’re at. And so we’re not shying away from it... we’re investing.”
The announcement comes as unionised secondary school teachers prepare to strike on Wednesday after negotiations with the Government broke down.
Stanford said the average secondary school teacher earns just over $100k, and disputed that the Government was gaslighting teachers over a prior $147,000 claims.
Her message to the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) was to please return to the table in good faith.
“You can’t negotiate when you’re sitting at the table by yourself, and that’s what we’ve found over the last little while.”
She said they have just had another round and they have recently seen some “good faith moves” from the PPTA, but would not go into detail any further.
“All I can say is there have been some more good faith moves on behalf of the PPTA which is really good to see.”
Stanford confirmed that te reo Māori would make up some of the Writing Action Plan.
Education appears to have led the Government’s agenda this month, with Stanford earlier revealing NCEA would be abolished and replaced with two new qualifications at Years 12 and 13.
The NCEA proposal, which is open for consultation until September before final decisions are made, represents the most significant update to secondary school assessments since NCEA was introduced more than two decades ago.
Under the new scheme, Year 11 students will face what is being called a “Foundational Skills Award” with a focus on literacy and numeracy. English and mathematics will be required subjects for students at this year level.
Year 12 and 13 students will seek to attain the New Zealand Certificate of Education (NZCE) and the New Zealand Advanced Certificate of Education (NZACE) respectively.
This will replace the current standards-based assessment system with a structured approach that requires students to take five subjects and pass at least four to receive the Year 12 and 13 certificates.
The assessments will have a clear “out of 100” marking system alongside A to E letter grades that the Government hopes will make sense to parents and students.
The Government will seek to implement the changes over the next five years alongside a refreshed curriculum. The Year 11 foundational award will be introduced from 2028, the Year 12 certificate in 2029, and the Year 13 certificate in 2030.
A discussion document about the change notes that the proposed moves do trade off some of the flexibility purposefully designed into NCEA “to address the credibility issues”.
“For example, there will be required subjects that students need to participate in at Year 11, and so schools will need to make sure students are doing these subjects. Students will also generally be required to take at least five subjects,” Stanford said earlier this month.
“Feedback is important to make sure the implications of reduced flexibility are understood, and so that the positive benefits of NCEA can be retained and strengthened.”
Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.