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Going to school is critical for our children’s futures. The evidence is clear that every day of school matters, missing school leads to lower achievement.  In New Zealand, learners are expected to attend school every day the school is open. And yet many don’t. New Zealand has lower attendance than other countries and alarmingly attendance is falling.

While there are a range of factors that impact on attendance, our research shows that some are more important than others. This report sets out the drivers of attendance that have the biggest impact on whether learners go to school regularly. These include parents’ attitudes, learners’ attitudes, and how learners experience school.  

Going to school is critical for our children’s futures. The evidence is clear that every day of school matters – missing school leads to lower achievement. Aotearoa New Zealand has lower attendance than other countries and, alarmingly, attendance is falling. This short summary looks at some of the reasons why.

ERO has a comprehensive and fast-tracked work programme underway to understand the ongoing impact of Covid-19 on students, services and schools, and on teaching and learning in Aotearoa New Zealand in the English and Māori medium education sectors.

Early childhood education services had to quickly adapt to changing requirements and periods of uncertainty due to Covid-19 in 2020. ERO undertook work to understand how this affected early childhood education services. This report presents our findings on how Covid-19 impacted children, whānau and services, how services responded and what they learnt, and the challenges that services expect they might face in future alert level changes.

To understand what the challenges of Covid-19 were in 2020 and how schools responded, the Education Review Office spoke to schools and surveyed over 2500 principals and teachers across the country. This report presents our findings on how Covid-19 impacted students, teachers and schools, how schools responded and what they learnt, and the challenges schools expect they might face in future alert level changes.

As New Zealand’s schools become more diverse there is an exciting opportunity to look again at what we teach and how we teach. Many schools are already changing to embrace diverse ethnicities, but more change will be needed. This summary of our Long-Term Insights Briefing highlights options for change to make Aotearoa New Zealand a great place to learn for our children and young people from ethnic communities.

Quality early childhood education (ECE) affects how well disabled children do at school and in life – from academic achievement and earning potential, to health and wellbeing.

Quality early childhood education (ECE) affects how well all children do at school and in life – from academic achievement and earning potential to health and wellbeing. Quality ECE supports children to develop the social, emotional, communication, cognitive, and motor skills which enable them to thrive. This is particularly critical for disabled children as it sets the foundation for their future learning.

The Education Review Office (ERO), in partnership with the Human Rights Commission (HRC) and the Office for Disability Issues (ODI), looked at how well the education system is supporting disabled learners in schools. We found that we need to improve education for disabled learners so they can thrive. This report describes what we found and what is needed to significantly improve education for these priority learners.

Receiving a quality education, from early childhood education (ECE) through to secondary school, positively affects how well all children and young people do at school and in life – from academic achievement and earning potential to health and wellbeing. Education is even more critical for disabled learners. When disabled learners receive a quality, inclusive education they are more likely to achieve better outcomes, to complete secondary schooling and to go on to further study and employment.

Aotearoa New Zealand is becoming more ethnically diverse, and this is changing quickly. It is critical that education meets the needs of all our children. This report finds that many learners from ethnic communities are succeeding in education but encounter racism, isolation, and lack of cultural understanding. We must achieve significant change if Aotearoa New Zealand is to be a great place to learn for children and young people from ethnic communities.

This report explains strategies for supporting secondary students’ engagement during the Covid‑19 pandemic. These strategies include re-engaging students who present with wellbeing concerns or show signs of disengagement. The report also includes some innovative actions schools used to promote student engagement after the first lockdown in 2020.

Starting school is a major childhood event. It can be an exciting time for children and their families. But it is a big change, and so it can also be an uncertain time. A good start at school sets children up to succeed at school. We looked to see how changing to cohort entry impacts on children, their peers, and whānau, as well as their schools and early childhood education services.

This good practice report looks at how children’s cultures and languages can be reflected in everyday practice, supporting their learning and wellbeing. Drawn from home-based ECE settings, this new report is a collection of useful examples to inspire kaiako to grow their ability in culturally responsive teaching. 

This report is the companion report to Science in the Early Years: Early Childhood and Years 1-4. This report looks at, in more depth, good practice in science teaching and learning in English-Medium early childhood education. It presents examples of good practice of science in the curriculum, from eight services identified during their ERO reviews.

ERO looked at how education is meeting the needs of learners from ethnic communities and how schools can embrace increasing ethnic diversity. In this guide we share findings from our research, as well some practical things that school leaders and teachers can do to support better inclusion of learners from ethnic communities.

This guide draws on findings from ERO’s report Long Covid: Ongoing impacts of Covid-19 on schools and learning, providing what we learned from surveying principals, teachers, and learners in 2023.