Education (Charter Schools Curriculum) Amendment Bill 2015 (Member’s Bill)

Section 60A(1) of the Act provides that the Minister may publish by notice in the Gazette various kinds of national education guidelines which include (so far as relevant to this Bill):

• (a) national education goals (these are statements of desirable achievements by the school system, or by an element of the school system and statements of government policy objectives for the school system);

• (aa) foundation curriculum policy statements (these are statements of policy concerning teaching, learning, and assessment that are made for the purposes of underpinning and giving direction to the way in which curriculum and assessment responsibilities are to be managed in schools and to national curriculum statements and locally developed curriculum);

• (b) national curriculum statements (these are statements of (during the years of schooling) the areas of knowledge and understanding to be covered by students, the skills to be developed by student and desirable levels of knowledge, understanding, and skill, to be achieved by students);

Sponsor’s duties

A sponsor means a body approved by the Minister under Section 158B of the Act to operate a partnership school kura hourua.

Section 158G(b) provides, inter alia, that a sponsor of a partnership school kura hourua must:

“ensure that the school delivers a curriculum that is in line with any foundation curriculum policy statements published under Section 60A(1)(aa).”

Main Provisions

National curriculum standards to be followed

The Bill replaces the words quoted immediately above with “in accordance with any applicable national education guidelines published under section 60A(1)”. (Clause 4, amending Section 158G(b)).

1. Education (Charter Schools Curriculum) Amendment Bill, 2015 No 49-1, Explanatory note, General policy statement, p. 1. [back]