Ministry of Education: School Enrolment Policy
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What is the rolling enrolment system in New Zealand?
Hi and welcome to School Shorts with me, Melissa Chan-Green, journalist and mum of two with a passion for education. In this episode, we are speaking with Andy Jackson. He is the Head of Policy and Analysis with the Ministry of Education in New Zealand. He's going to respond to some questions and some concerns that were raised in the previous episode with Jo Knox, who had carried out a survey of teachers across New Zealand and particularly looking into the way New Zealand students are enrolled at new entrant levels. So this can mean that a student either goes into year zero or year one. It sometimes means that students will have maybe three terms at school before they begin year two, and other students, purely because of when they were born, might have an extra two or three terms more
than those students. So when they start year two, they're not only older, but they've had more time at school. Currently, there is a bit of flexibility in the way that schools can manage this, but many teachers in that survey had raised concerns about inequity and particularly with changes to curriculum, as to how each student can have the same amount of exposure in the classroom to meet the same amount of set criteria under the new curriculum. So here is Andy Jackson to answer some of those queries and concerns. Well, Andy, thank you so much for your time and for being with us. Can I just get you to explain what does your role entail?
Kia ora, Melissa. It's great to be here. Thank you. And yeah, so I'm the head of policy at the Ministry of Education. So what that means is we think about some of the big system level settings. And so in this context, for example, you know,
How does New Zealand's enrolment policy differ from cohort entry systems?
How long is it right for a child to be at school? At what point in their early childhood is it the right time for them to start school? So that's the kind of work that we do, and we do that right across the early childhood school and tertiary education sectors.
OK, so let's look at what the current policy is and why that has been set. So New Zealand has a rolling enrolment system. Probably if you can just start by explaining what that is and why New Zealand uses it.
Yeah, no problem. And I think what's really interesting about it is we're really unique in the world, actually, in having a system like this. So essentially what it means is it's about what's the age that your child has to be in order for them to be allowed to start school. And how does the school operate the process for having children start? So a rolling enrollment system, which we have, means that you can start your child at school from their fifth birthday and on any term date that the parent chooses between their fifth birthday and their sixth birthday. practice for a lot of people and my children have been at school for a little while now but I can remember the day when they sat there and they had the paper crown at kindy and the next morning you get up open your presents and you're off to school so it's really common in this country for people to start on their fifth birthday
You mentioned that we were unique in that. There have been other countries who had a rolling enrollment system, countries which we kind of compare to in terms of curriculum as well, thinking Australia and the UK. They have changed. Why have we continued on the rolling enrollment policy? And what is it about it that you think makes it work here when it doesn't work elsewhere?
Yeah, so most other countries have a form of what's called in the education jargon cohort entry, which means that you start school on a particular day along with a whole group of other children who'll be in the same class as you. England, for example, has a much more extreme version of that where everybody is expected to start on a single day right at the beginning of the school year.
What are the benefits of rolling enrolment for students?
They've actually found that that didn't work for some families whose children were born in the tail end of the school year right before that date. And so some of those families are actually able to start their children a year later if that's their choice.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the rolling enrolment system in New Zealand?
0:02–2:03
2
How does New Zealand's enrolment policy differ from cohort entry systems?
2:03–4:28
3
What are the benefits of rolling enrolment for students?
4:28–6:33
4
What concerns do teachers have about the current enrolment system?
6:33–8:50
5
How does the Ministry of Education address enrolment inequities?
8:50–11:17
6
What evidence supports the effectiveness of cohort entry?
11:17–14:13
7
How does curriculum change impact school enrolment policies?
14:13–16:35
8
What future changes might be considered for New Zealand's enrolment system?
16:35–24:37
Speakers
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