THREE KEY FACTS: The Government’s ban on cellphones in schools began at the start of this term. In last month’s Budget $67 million was earmarked to transform how our children learn to read . A Ministerial Advisory Group report has recommended grammar and handwriting lessons, including cursive handwriting, in primary schools and called for every child to have their own desk and chair.
Simon Wilson is an award-winning senior writer covering politics, the climate crisis, transport, housing, urban design and social issues, with a focus on Auckland. He joined the Herald in 2018. OPINION Erica Stanford and Shane Reti shared a stage earlier this year, at the National Party’s northern region conference.
What they said couldn’t have been more contrasting. Stanford, the Minister of Education, ran through the interventions she’s making in the life of the classroom . At least an hour each of reading, writing and maths, a “knowledge-rich curriculum”, “evidence-based instruction”, twice-yearly testing using “existing testing tools”, all focused on producing a “workforce for the future”.
No mobile phones. And the structured literacy programme will be ready for action by 2025. Big list.
Stanford is the very model of a minister who spent her time in opposition training for the moment. She knows her subject. She knows what she wants and what the obstacles are and how to get past them.
And she’s not wasting a dead second in doing it. Her predecessors in the job, espe.
