The Curriculum Voices Group was established by the Ministry of Education Curriculum team in 2020 to garner feedback on the NZ Curriculum Refresh. I was fortunate to go on the group as a representative of the New Zealand Pacifica Principals' Association and my role is to offer a Pacifica lens to the decision makers, giving feedback on drafts as they are presented, give input to discussion on what the curriculum needs in order for every New Zelander to see themselves in it. The group consisted of representatives from a very broad range of stakeholders in education from across New Zealand. In addition to all this, school principals in this group, also provide information and suggestions on how the new document might best be implemented across Aotearoa.
The group had been meeting 3-4 times per year up until mid 2023 when elections were about to happen. When the new government came into power, the group was shut down with a great deal of review and restructuring taking place at the Ministry of Education. The new Minister, Erica Stanford, established a Ministry Advisory Group to review where the review was 'at' and advise her on where to next to meet the expectations of the new government in terms of content and delivery. What has come out of this group's recommendations with the support of the Minister has been shared in draft with the public in the last month - with the draft Maths curriculum Years 0-8 and the draft English curriculum Years 0-6 (still can't understand why this curriculum hasn't been delivered 0-8?).
With the documents in draft form and with still more to do, the CVG has been re-established to once again provide a broad stakeholder lens over the changes and Tuesday 11 September was our first meeting back.
The meeting started with setting the scene, where we started in 2020 to where we got to in 2023 and the intentions of the group moving forward. We are not there to bring down the process, rather collaborate and lift it, to provide feedback and an outside voice to writers and decision makers on content, efficiency, practicality, design, implementation and achieving the purpose lifting the success for all ākonga.
The curriculum team shared what's changed and what hasn't so far in the development of the document since the new government has been in:
What's changed -
- A new set of design criteria
- The inclusion of the "Science of Learning" (knowledge of learning) with an emphasis on content not context.
- Year by Year detail focused on 'what to teach'.
- A bigger document that involves 'teaching methods' (putting the 'common practice model' within the document instead of sitting outside of it).
- Online access - it will not be distributed in hard copy because there is so much more detail in it.
What's the same:
- The Te Mātaiaho framework is still in place
- Understand, Know, Do is still the working model for delivery with a greater emphasis on the 'know'.
- There is still 8 learning areas.
- Gazetting to 2027 is still in place with an interim process for review throughout the timeframe - tweaking as we go to ensure it works.
- Phases remain in place with year to year detail sitting within them.
The Literacy writing team shared an outline of the draft so far. In the draft there is a clear explanation of the 'Science of Learning' which comes under Teaching Guidance. There is also the inclusion of teaching sequence and methods and a new area in Oral Language (which I'm pleased about). Much of the writing is critiqued by ERO who have identified 5 key areas of practice and supports. There was a whole lot more presented and discussed which I didn't quite capture here but I did raise the question along with representatives of students with special needs - who was at the table from foundation of writing this curriculum, with a Pacifica/Māori lens? What about the special needs lens? In my view there is still a glaring hole in the document lacking reference to ESOL students. There is much work to be done in this space so I'm hoping that the writers listen to feedback from consultation and that teachers/educators take the time to give strong feedback in these areas. There is over 100 pages in the document. It's cumbersome to manage in terms of being user friendly for teachers in their planning. Hopefully the website will have links (without it being a rabbit hole) to make it accessible and streamlined.
Following the literacy team, we then were informed about implementation from the Ministry team. The plan over time, the expectations and the intent behind managing change. There was much discussion around the room about the realities of managing change within the ever fluid school environment. Concerns were expressed for the rate of change, the narrowing of the curriculum, the decisions being made without in-depth consultation and collaboration with the sector. There is still parts of the system that haven't been considered in implementation, notably special needs schools/students, small schools, rural schools and representation of Pacific/Māori communities. How is the government going to support these areas to successfully navigate change and implementation?
All in all the day was enlightening and draining. There's a lot to think about. The table of people I sat with discussed in depth the changes taking place in the system at the moment. All agreed it is overwhelming and too fast. Theres too much to do, too much to cover and too much to take in.
In addition to curriculum change there is also changes to the education act section 127 which puts added pressure onto boards and reduce aspects of the human rights and Te Tiriti in the act.
Our table agreed to this one thing in particular - "If there is a 'crisis' in education...then provide "crisis" level interventions such as shutting schools for a half day every week for 'X' number of terms to ensure that implementation of these key documents and programmes of work are done properly, thoroughly and with fidelity." Of course the government wouldn't see this as necessary because of the cost to voters who would have to arrange child care during those hours. I often reflect on how seriously 'short term' foresight into implementation hampers the system hugely. Lay people can think 'how hard can it be?'. I understand that many people are in occupations that are stressful and all consuming. Those in the stressful occupations should walk in teachers shoes for a week to get a real picture of what the role entails. Teachers are a special breed. They wear more than one hat, they wear many. Time is precious and of the essence. It is NOT a 40 hour week, their job doesn't stop when they go home at night, they are not just educators, our content and environment is forever changing and evolving. We just need time to make sure we are keeping up and doing it right.
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