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Pip Tinning: NZ English Teachers Association President on teachers' response to the new curriculum rewrite · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Real credibility issues for the Ministry of Education's new English curriculum.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: It's been described as shambolic by the English Teachers Association,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: who have walked away from work on the draft, saying
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: it's too complex and his unrealistic expectations of what teachers
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: can fit into a year. President of the English Teachers
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Association pipt in and joins me, now, really appreciate your time, Thank.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: You, my pleasure. Good morning. Hey.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: What has this rewrite process been like?
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, shambolic I think is a really good word for it.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: It's been a long process so far. We had a
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: lot of stuff early last year that we were very
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: concerned about, had some conversations with the Ministry. I think
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: about September was our first lot of conversations with them,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: and then radio silence until probably December November December, where
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: we were given a draft curriculum to have a look
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: at and to give feedback on in a nine day
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: period at the end of our school year beginning of
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: the holidays. So it's been all over the show. Yeah.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Over the last few months, we've had a couple of
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: members that we put forward as people who would be
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: really good to help with feedback and consultation around the curriculum,
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: and yeah, the experience I've had has been really problematic
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: as well.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: So how much extra are they trying to fit into
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: the curriculum compared to what's appropriate or manageable.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. At the moment. The document that we
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: first saw was one hundred and eleven pages, and after
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: our feedback that said, you know, this is it's just
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: it's too big, it's too long, it went up to
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty. What they're asking for teachers to
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: fit into a year is, you know, they have to
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: do one novel, a collection of poetry, a film, a
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: drama text, short texts, other visual, spoken, multimodal and digital texts,
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: along with writing oral presentations. And then they are expecting
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: students to engage meaningfully with all of these things. Well,
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: any good novel study could take somewhat five weeks, and
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: then if you're doing a film study, that's at least
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: five six weeks. Poetry could be that long. Writing, if
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: you're doing good writing, that will take a huge amount
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: of time over the course of the year. Then your
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: oral presentations. So it's a lot to fit into a
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: forty week year.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: So what impact would that have on students and teachers.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: If a curriculum dislike this is implemented, I think the.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Biggest issue will be that lack of really meaningful engagement.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: If you're just tick boxing and trying to move on.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: I guess one of the big issues is when you
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: look at fact that we're trying really hard to work
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: with students to get them up to the appropriate standard.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: If it's like, look, guys are really sorry that we
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: haven't quite got you to where you need to be,
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: what we need to move on because we've got a
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: huge curriculum to cover, you know, their idea of leaving
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: students behind becomes increasingly concerning if we're trying to get
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: through everything. One of our recommendations is rather than each year,
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: that each phase covered those things and did it in
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: a really thoughtful, meaningful and deep way, to ensure that
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: our students are learning to read texts in a way
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: that allows them to look at them critically, to write
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: really well and write a range of things, and to
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: be really good communicators. So those are things that as
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: English teachers we constantly keep in the forefront of our
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: minds as being really important for our young people. But
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: the complexity of some of the statements within the curriculum
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: are just they would be really overwhelming, and we are
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: also needing to keep in mind that teachers will be
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: given a final draft in term four of this year
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: with a twenty twenty six implementation, so that's an incredibly
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: short time frame to ask people to get their heads
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: around one hundred and twenty pages potentially.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: I thank you very much for your time. Gosh, you
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: know we really need to We're all hoping this works
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: for both teachers and students appreciate that. That was President
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: of the English Teachers Association, Pip Pretending. For more from
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Early Edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live to News Talks
• 4:40
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• 4:44
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