Priority Outcome 2:

What are we seeking to achieve?

The New Zealand Curriculum, and Te Marautanga for Māori-medium education, provide the framework for what students need to learn during school in order to achieve their potential and participate fully in adult life. Literacy and numeracy skills are the foundation for continuing learning and provide access to other parts of the curriculum, for example, literacy and numeracy are needed to interpret and interrogate scientific concepts.

National and international studies show that some New Zealand children are not developing the requisite literacy and numeracy skills during primary school and are not progressing in line with their peers. There is a high proportion of Māori children, Pasifika children and children from poorer communities who are not developing these skills. Children with disabilities or special education needs are also less likely to achieve basic literacy and numeracy levels, or to progress at the same speed as their peers, but for many this is possible with the right support.

Principals and boards of trustees are responsible for the educational achievement of every student in their school. Teachers need to have the skills and tools required to address the needs of every child in developing literacy and numeracy skills and to see this as the key measure of their teaching success. Children who are behind their peers in literacy and numeracy development on entry to primary school can often catch up when the right support and teaching is provided.

Parents need to know what literacy and numeracy skills their child requires to continue their learning, what the school and teachers are doing to address any issues and how they as parents can provide support. Where students are not achieving, schools need to identify options to better support and engage those children.

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How will we demonstrate success in achieving this?

We will know we have achieved this when we see changes such as:

• every child making progress to reach National Standards, regardless of where they go to school, their ethnicity, if they have a disability or have special education needs
• teachers, principals and schools responding more quickly and effectively to the learning needs of students who are not achieving
• greater levels of understanding and participation among parents in working with the teacher and their child to support the child’s literacy and numeracy.

System indicators⁶:

• Reading literacy achievement in primary and senior secondary schooling.
• Mathematics achievement in primary, middle and senior secondary schooling.

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What will we do to achieve this?

Implementing National Standards:

The Ministry will implement National Standards in literacy and numeracy to describe what every child should be able to do by a particular age or year at school. This will include providing guidance for teachers on rates of progression so that every child can be assessed and recognised for progress, wherever they are in relation to the Standards.

Ministry performance will be measured by:

• National Standards being in place by 2010
• National Standards being assessed as good practice by international education professionals
• National Standards and guidance being used by schools and teachers.

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Supporting effective teaching:

The Ministry will support teachers to use a range of assessment tools to make an overall judgement of every child’s levels of literacy and numeracy against the National Standards. This will enable teachers to clearly identify and support students at risk of underachieving. Our special education services and resources will support students with disabilities or special education needs, and their teachers to develop education plans that set challenging goals in literacy and numeracy appropriate to each individual.

As part of a wider workforce strategy, the Ministry will work with teacher education providers to ensure that the skills required for effective literacy and numeracy teaching are an integral part of initial teacher education. We will target our teaching professional development resources to support literacy and numeracy teaching excellence. This will assist teachers to have the confidence and competence to adapt their teaching practices to meet the individual needs of students, ensuring that they are appropriately supported and challenged to achieve their potential.

Ministry performance will be measured by:

• teachers using a range of tools to assess against National Standards
• teachers’ feedback on their understanding of effective assessment practice
• reports from the Education Review Office (ERO) evaluating the use of assessment to inform teaching and learning
• data being available for schools to support teaching excellence
• the proportion of resources developed to support literacy and numeracy teaching, which are used by teachers
• feedback from principals on the capability of their staff in literacy and numeracy teaching following their participation in professional development
• effective use of individual education plans for children with special education needs.

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Ensuring parents are informed and involved:

The Ministry will implement the Government’s requirements that primary and intermediate schools report to parents in plain language on how their children are progressing against the National Standards, and compared with other children of the same age. Schools will be expected to identify every student’s strengths and weaknesses in literacy and numeracy, and to ensure that teachers, parents and specialists are clear about what they will do to help the child meet the National Standards. This will mean schools providing reports and developing relationships with parents that are relevant and appropriate to the needs of their communities.

Ministry performance will be measured by:

• clarity of reports to parents
• feedback from ERO about how well schools are reporting to parents.

⁶ We will use these indicators to identify change over time, and to identify the quality and effect of that change. Most recent status and historical trends in these indicators are available on the Ministry’s Education Counts website: www.educationcounts.govt.nz.