Francesca Rudkin: The important thing is to do what's best for our children's education

I don't think any of us were hugely surprised to wake up this morning to the news that the latest PISA report shows that Kiwi kids aren't doing so well in maths, and to a lesser extent, science.  

PISA, or Programme for International Student Assessment, gives us a gauge on students’ maths, reading, and science literacy in every OECD country and in New Zealand. The report is based on assessing and surveying 4700 students aged 15, across 169 schools, and they did this test in term 3 of 2022.   

In the report released overnight there is a slice of positivity. I went looking for it folks! We still rank highly in the OECD for reading and science, but we're still in the middle for maths. So New Zealand's mean reading scores hasn't changed significantly over the 2012/2022 period, but it is lower than it was in 2009 and previous cycles. New Zealand's mean science score is similar to 2018, but lower than it was in 2015, and 2009, and 2006. Maths didn't fare so well, with New Zealand's main mathematics score significantly declining since 2018 and over the long term. Interestingly, there was a large learning loss globally in maths and reading. New Zealand has bucked the trend in reading. See, I'm just looking for all these little slices of positivity.  

So we haven't gone too far backwards over the last few years, but there is still plenty to worry about. Because our educational outcomes have been in decline over the last two decades and since we began being involved with this program, and basically it has got to stop.  

There are some obvious reasons for this. The PPTA is blaming Covid and our new Education Minister, Erica Stanford, is blaming the way we teach these subjects and at the end of the day, it's not one thing. As a parent you'll probably know this, Covid absolutely did not help.  

Interestingly, an Educational Review Office report found that only 19% of principals in 2023 believe their school has recovered from Covid-19 disruptions. Almost half of the 37% in 2021. There is also the approach to teaching, the way we teach, the classroom environment, that modern learning environment, resources and upskilling teachers – it all comes together to play a part, doesn't it? So yes, it is time to revert to the best approaches based on the best scientific evidence to teach our children.  

And this is where I do have some hope in what Erica Stanford is offering, saying that there be one hour of math reading and writing a day. I actually think that sort of statement is a bit pointless, because if you ask any teacher, they will tell you they're already doing that through various tasks and exercises. But teach these subjects better, with better approaches as Stanford is promising, and you never know, we could be away.  

So yes, let's get on with training teachers and structured literacy and introduce a new curriculum with clear expectations for what children are to be taught each year, that's good for both the child and the parent who's trying to work out where their kid is at and where they may need some help. When it comes to maths, we need to get back to basic mathematical knowledge and keep strategies simple, unless the child shows the need for a different approach.  

The only problem, of course, is that changes in the curriculum take time, and gosh, I understand the frustration that teachers will be feeling right now - we've only just finished changing the curriculum and now we're sort of back to square one, we're going to change it again. And even once these changes are made, it may take time to see the impact. So, we actually need to throw all the resources at we can to make these changes as quickly and nimbly as we can.  

PPTA Acting President Chris Abercrombie spoke to Early Edition this morning and he had some other solutions as to what was necessary to lift the academic performance of our children.  

“I think one of the key things to remember is there needs to be really good professional development to upskill teachers because the PISA’s testing them at 15 years old, so they've had a lot of education by that point. So, we need to make sure our professional development is there for our teachers to upskill them, particularly in the early stages of schooling.” 

“There needs to be more support for students with diverse needs. This is a really key example. You know, students who come from more advantaged backgrounds, we know do better than students from less advantaged backgrounds, so we need to put things in place to sort of limit that impact. We know education has become a political football. We've already got the new government talking about rewriting the curriculum that's just being rewritten.  And so those are big issues. To say that it creates disruption in the classroom, it creates disruption in the profession. Rewriting curriculum is a year's long process. It doesn't happen overnight. To then be told three years down the track you need to rewrite it again, it's just incredibly disruptive to the profession.” 

Totally understandable, right?  

But obviously if it is the best thing for our children, it has to be done. It actually doesn't matter which political party is delivering the change. We know the value of education, at the end of the day, the most important thing is that we do what is best for our children's education. 

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