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Speaker 1: Real credibility issues for the Ministry of Education's new English curriculum.

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Speaker 1: It's been described as shambolic by the English Teachers Association,

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Speaker 1: who have walked away from work on the draft, saying

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Speaker 1: it's too complex and his unrealistic expectations of what teachers

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Speaker 1: can fit into a year. President of the English Teachers

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Speaker 1: Association pipt in and joins me, now, really appreciate your time, Thank.

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Speaker 2: You, my pleasure. Good morning. Hey.

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Speaker 1: What has this rewrite process been like?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, shambolic I think is a really good word for it.

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Speaker 2: It's been a long process so far. We had a

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Speaker 2: lot of stuff early last year that we were very

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Speaker 2: concerned about, had some conversations with the Ministry. I think

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Speaker 2: about September was our first lot of conversations with them,

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Speaker 2: and then radio silence until probably December November December, where

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Speaker 2: we were given a draft curriculum to have a look

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Speaker 2: at and to give feedback on in a nine day

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Speaker 2: period at the end of our school year beginning of

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Speaker 2: the holidays. So it's been all over the show. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Over the last few months, we've had a couple of

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Speaker 2: members that we put forward as people who would be

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Speaker 2: really good to help with feedback and consultation around the curriculum,

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Speaker 2: and yeah, the experience I've had has been really problematic

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Speaker 2: as well.

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Speaker 1: So how much extra are they trying to fit into

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Speaker 1: the curriculum compared to what's appropriate or manageable.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. At the moment. The document that we

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Speaker 2: first saw was one hundred and eleven pages, and after

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Speaker 2: our feedback that said, you know, this is it's just

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Speaker 2: it's too big, it's too long, it went up to

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Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty. What they're asking for teachers to

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Speaker 2: fit into a year is, you know, they have to

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Speaker 2: do one novel, a collection of poetry, a film, a

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Speaker 2: drama text, short texts, other visual, spoken, multimodal and digital texts,

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Speaker 2: along with writing oral presentations. And then they are expecting

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Speaker 2: students to engage meaningfully with all of these things. Well,

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Speaker 2: any good novel study could take somewhat five weeks, and

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Speaker 2: then if you're doing a film study, that's at least

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Speaker 2: five six weeks. Poetry could be that long. Writing, if

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Speaker 2: you're doing good writing, that will take a huge amount

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Speaker 2: of time over the course of the year. Then your

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Speaker 2: oral presentations. So it's a lot to fit into a

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Speaker 2: forty week year.

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Speaker 1: So what impact would that have on students and teachers.

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Speaker 1: If a curriculum dislike this is implemented, I think the.

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Speaker 2: Biggest issue will be that lack of really meaningful engagement.

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Speaker 2: If you're just tick boxing and trying to move on.

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Speaker 2: I guess one of the big issues is when you

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Speaker 2: look at fact that we're trying really hard to work

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Speaker 2: with students to get them up to the appropriate standard.

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Speaker 2: If it's like, look, guys are really sorry that we

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Speaker 2: haven't quite got you to where you need to be,

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Speaker 2: what we need to move on because we've got a

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Speaker 2: huge curriculum to cover, you know, their idea of leaving

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Speaker 2: students behind becomes increasingly concerning if we're trying to get

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Speaker 2: through everything. One of our recommendations is rather than each year,

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Speaker 2: that each phase covered those things and did it in

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Speaker 2: a really thoughtful, meaningful and deep way, to ensure that

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Speaker 2: our students are learning to read texts in a way

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Speaker 2: that allows them to look at them critically, to write

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Speaker 2: really well and write a range of things, and to

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Speaker 2: be really good communicators. So those are things that as

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Speaker 2: English teachers we constantly keep in the forefront of our

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Speaker 2: minds as being really important for our young people. But

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Speaker 2: the complexity of some of the statements within the curriculum

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Speaker 2: are just they would be really overwhelming, and we are

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Speaker 2: also needing to keep in mind that teachers will be

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Speaker 2: given a final draft in term four of this year

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Speaker 2: with a twenty twenty six implementation, so that's an incredibly

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Speaker 2: short time frame to ask people to get their heads

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Speaker 2: around one hundred and twenty pages potentially.

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Speaker 1: I thank you very much for your time. Gosh, you

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Speaker 1: know we really need to We're all hoping this works

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Speaker 1: for both teachers and students appreciate that. That was President

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Speaker 1: of the English Teachers Association, Pip Pretending. For more from

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Speaker 1: Early Edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live to News Talks

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