.jpg)
The Government has officially ended the National Standards programme, meaning schools this year will no longer have to report on them annually.
"Parents will still receive reports at least twice a year on their child's progress and achievement in maths, reading and writing as well as across the curriculum areas. But this reporting will focus on children's progress, rather than measuring them against arbitrary National Standards.
The reports, written in plain English, will relate to where their child is at, at a given point, and the progress shift that has occurred, rather than being judged against others."
Minister of Education, Chris Hipkins
We worked closely with the Ministry of Education to design resources to support National Standards in schools, for example, the reading and writing level bubbles, national standards illustrations, and literacy and numeracy progressions.
We are excited to work with the Ministry on removing these resources and creating new, vibrant and exciting resources to support these changes in areas such as replacing national standards, making changes to the existing Communities of Learning│Kāhui Ako model, and implementing the Education (Update) Amendment Act 2017.
"We're working with the sector, parents, families and whanau to remove National Standards and Ngā Whanaketanga Rumaki Māori.
We want to focus on understanding children’s progress and achievement, across the whole curriculum, while not forgetting the importance of foundation skills of literacy and numeracy."
"Children need reading, writing and maths skills to access a rich, broad curriculum.Measuring a child’s progress, no matter how big or small, will allow teachers to focus more on how children are doing, day by day, and week by week. This means that, from their judgements and observation, teachers will be able to quickly change their teaching practice to suit children’s needs."
The Cabinet paper removing National Standards also ended plans to transfer responsibility for teachers' professional development to New Zealand's Education Council.
Hipkins planned to establish a "comprehensive education advisory service" to take oversee centrally-funded teacher training instead.
He said the council was primarily a regulatory body and "not really geared up" to manage professional development.
"They [the council] were saying it would be a stretch for them to do in the timeframe concerned anyway."
The previous government had planned to transfer $200 million of development programmes from the Ministry of Education to the Education Council over three years, starting in 2018.
New Zealand ranked 33rd out of 50 countries in the 2016 Progress in International Reading and Literacy Study (PIRLS), behind frontrunners Russia and Singapore and eight places lower than in 2011.
"[This] international report showed that since National Standards were introduced in 2010 reading levels of New Zealand children have dropped to their lowest level on record. It made sobering reading," Hipkins said.
"Today I am announcing that the Government has stopped National Standards and Ngā Whanaketanga Rumaki Māori and will instead focus on the progress and achievement of all children across the New Zealand Curriculum and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa."
Hipkins said the process of of compelling schools to report National Standards was "little more than a compliance exercise and was a major distraction to schools... There are better ways to build a nationwide picture."
