Francesca Rudkin: Are Erica Stanford's reporting changes a step in the right direction?

Well, congratulations to all the parents out there of school-age children - most returned to school last week, only then to be home again for the long weekend. Anyway, as of tomorrow, there’s a sense the year begins proper now and we can all get on with 2026. I am no longer a parent of school children, and to be honest I find that a relief. Getting your child educated isn’t always straight forward. But if I was, I would be pleased with Education Minister Erica Stanford’s announcement this week about changes to reporting a child’s progress in primary and intermediate schools.  As a parent who had to suffer through the pointless student led conference era whereby your child would present you with a curated collection of their recent work - this is welcome news. Not only did the student led system not provide a parent with any practical information as to how their child was progressing, or what they could do to help, but it replaced valuable one-on-one time a parent could’ve had with a teacher getting those details with something a parent could pop in and do at the beginning or end of the day on their own anyway. The one thing that was drilled into me as a parent of a new entrant was that we’re all in this together. Your child’s learning success doesn’t just come down to a competent teacher, preferably in a single classroom with adequate teacher aid support - it requires parents to participate in and take responsibility for their child’s education.  But if you don’t have a clear understanding of where your child is at, whether they’re thriving or quietly struggling, and probably more importantly, knowing how you can help them along, then we’re not really all in it together. We’re all just floundering. These early years are critical for establishing foundational literacy and numeracy skills - if you struggle during these years you’re more likely to continue to struggle. The use of 5 clear progress markers to describe your child’s learning progress has taken a bit of flak for being, shall we say, a little too sophisticated, but it comes with an explanation of why a progress marker was chosen, so I’m sure parents will get their heads around it. More importantly, it comes with information for how parents can support the next learning steps, and will be followed up with twice-yearly progress check-ins for students in Years 3-8 which will allow parents to see progress over the year.  None of this is intended to add pressure or judgement on children, or undermine the student voice. But if it provides the better clarity and more detailed reporting on academic achievement that Stanford promises it does, then it’s another step in the right direction to provide students with the support they need to flourish.  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.