Concerns Over Curriculum Changes
PPTA Te Wehengarua president Chris Abercrombie says the recently released draft English curriculum, which introduces several key changes across all year levels, is “out of touch” and doesn’t align with the realities of secondary education in 2025.
“Its focus on cursive writing at Year 8, for example, shows a complete lack of understanding of the challenges of secondary teaching and the extent to which teachers have to work to engage and motivate students and manage an ever-increasing range of abilities and behaviours,” he says.
“Similarly, making Shakespeare and authors from the 1800s compulsory. Does this actually reflect what the teaching profession considers would be best for the students that they teach?”
Chris Abercrombie adds that shifting away from a curriculum underpinned by Te Tiriti o Waitangi was a significant step backward.
NZATE Withdraws from Curriculum Work
In February, the New Zealand Association of Teachers of English (NZATE) withdrew from work on the draft, labelling the Ministry of Education as unreliable. Abercrombie described this as “extremely concerning.”
“Due to the unreliability of the Ministry of Education, the ad hoc directives they seem to be issued with, and the increasing concern that NZATE will be represented as agreeing to what is being developed, we have decided to step back from working with the MOE at this time,” the association said in a letter to its members.
“The process for the development of a revised curriculum continues to be of concern to NZATE. We began working with the MOE as a way to advocate for English teachers and to give feedback, which we hope will be useful. However, what has happened is a line-by-line rewriting of a document in order to make it ‘palatable’.”
Disconnect from Classroom Realities
“If the draft curriculum has been written outside of the frameworks developed by the profession, and the curriculum writers are not listening to the subject association that represents the profession, then we have to question what connection it has to the reality of the classroom,” Abercrombie says.
“If there is no link between the curriculum and reality, then it will not be delivered or received well, resulting in more students being disengaged and more teachers leaving the profession. Good curriculum needs the input of the subject specialist teachers who are on the ground delivering it.”
Call for Feedback
Chris Abercrombie urged all English teachers, school leaders, and the community to provide feedback on this. “We will be watching to see whether the Ministry of Education responds to that feedback.”
The Ministry of Education has opened a consultation period from March 31 to June 13, 2025, inviting feedback from educators, experts, and the public to refine the curriculum content. The finalised curriculum is scheduled for release in Term 4, 2025, with mandatory implementation beginning at the start of 2026.
