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Rodney schools are starting the year with a new assessment and reporting system aimed at giving parents clearer information about how their children are progressing, no matter what school they attend.
Minister of Education Erica Stanford said parents had long called for clearer, more detailed reporting on academic achievement.
“This new framework delivers that clarity,” she said. “It will help parents understand their child’s progress over time and to be active partners in their learning.”
Under the new reporting framework, parents of students in Years 0 to 10 will receive nationally consistent reporting across reading, writing and maths including:
• One of five clear progress markers describing learning progress
• An explanation of why that progress marker was chosen and how parents can suppor next learning steps
• Information on progress over time and attendance
• Information on phonics achievement and twice-yearly progress check-ins
Reporting on other learning areas, values and behaviour will continue as it did before.
“Many schools already provide strong reporting and may continue using their existing templates where these meet the new expectations,” Stanford said.
Another change is the introduction of twice-yearly progress check-ins for students from Years 3 to 8, supported by the new SMART progress monitoring tool.
“The SMART tool is a low-stakes, light-touch way to support consistent assessment. It’s not designed to replace teacher judgement.
“Teachers will continue to use their professional expertise, drawing on classroom work, observations and assessments. These tools support that judgement and help ensure parents receive clear, consistent information.
“The progress check-ins will align with mid-year and end-of-year reporting, helping parents see how their child is tracking across the year, not just at a single point in time.”
Mahurangi College deputy principal Liana Schischka said the new system wasn’t a big shift from the school’s current practice.
“Our reporting will look familiar in many ways, as we have always provided clear and detailed information about student progress at least twice a year. The big change is the language used, as achievement descriptors are being standardised across schools,” she said.
“In addition to this, parents might find the new reporting system more detailed and while we’ve always provided feedforward and areas to improve, the new system requires clear information including the reasons a particular descriptor has been selected, students’ strengths, next steps for learning, and ways families can support learning at home.”
Teacher judgements at the college will be based on a range of evidence, including classwork, observations and formative assessments, rather than relying on a single tool or assessment type.
“At this stage, the new descriptors apply only to reading, writing and mathematics. Other learning areas are not yet required to use the new language, and their curriculum areas are still being drafted,” Schischka said.
“We are carefully working through how to ensure consistency so we’re not reporting using different sets of language. Parents want a clear idea of how their students are progressing so it’s important we are consistent in our communication.
“While these proposed changes are great from a parent perspective, the college is also mindful of the workload this places on staff in these curriculum areas.
“There has been a significant amount of change placed on the sector over the last few years, as well as heading into the future, with potential changes to our qualification system.”
