Judy Gill: The Bar was Lowered — and a Third of Boys Still Failed

How ERO reporting allows primary schools to escape academic scrutiny and why low parent expectations mean it goes largely unchallenged

When an Education Review Office (ERO) report describes students as “not yet achieving,” “priority learners,” or “requiring acceleration,” it is avoiding a simpler truth: some children are failing to meet basic academic expectations.

Achievement is reported only as the percentage who meet expectations. What is missing is any direct reference to those who do not. Parents are left to pause, subtract, and ask the obvious question: what about the children who didn’t achieve?

This euphemistic framing avoids naming failure and makes underachievement easy to overlook.

In mainstream primary schools, close to a third of boys can be below expected writing standards, yet that failure is rarely named as such. Instead, it is softened through reassuring language that implies progress rather than deficit. This linguistic reframing is one of the key reasons primary school academic failure escapes scrutiny.

The ERO report for Te Huruhi Primary School can be read in full here:²

https://tehuruhi.school.nz/ero-report/

A brief chronology

• 1988–1989 — Tomorrow’s Schools reforms are introduced and the Education Review Office (ERO) is established, shifting schools to a self-managing model reviewed through periodic external reports.

• 1989–2017 — ERO operates alongside nationally defined expectations, with some degree of clarity and comparability in primary achievement reporting.

• 2018 — National Standards for reading, writing, and mathematics are removed, eliminating clear national benchmarks and ushering in narrative, non-comparable reporting.

When the bar was lowered

The decisive change came in 2018, when National Standards were abolished. Until that point, primary schools were required to report student achievement against clear, nationally consistent benchmarks, allowing parents to see how many children were below, at, or above expected levels.

Once those standards were removed, achievement reporting became school-designed, narrative, and largely non-comparable. Underachievement did not disappear, but it became easier to rename, easier to soften, and harder to see.

The statistic that matters

There is no publicly available data showing how many boys leave primary school below expected writing standards.

That is the problem.

It is not just that the bar was lowered — it is that the public can no longer see where it is, and parents are given no clear way to compare one primary school with another.

Why primary outcomes escape scrutiny

Comparable national statistics for children leaving primary school are no longer available. Since the removal of National Standards in 2018, there is no consistent public reporting showing how many Year 6 students are below, at, or above expected levels in reading, writing, and mathematics.

As a result, primary school outcomes escape scrutiny. Underachievement remains largely invisible at the point where early intervention would matter most, only resurfacing later in secondary statistics.

This is particularly relevant on Waiheke Island, where Waiheke High School is a Year 7–13 secondary school (formerly Forms 1–7) and directly inherits students from local primary schools. When gaps appear at secondary level, they are carried forward, not newly created.

National context

Education commentator Alwyn Poole’s analysis of New Zealand school-leavers’ outcomes shows that only 35% of boys leave school with University Entrance, compared with 46% of girls — a gap that reflects foundational literacy and numeracy weaknesses that emerge long before secondary school.¹

The bottom line

Primary schools escape academic scrutiny because:

• the measuring stick was removed in 2018

• failure is softened and reframed in ERO reporting

• euphemistic language obscures non-achievement

• parents are trained to accept the new terminology

• meaningful choice is constrained early

It is apt that they are no longer called teachers: since 2018, instruction has given way to indoctrination, and parents have only belatedly begun to notice.

References

¹ Poole, Alwyn.
The Academic Outcomes of Matched Girls vs Boys Schools in New Zealand.
Analysis of New Zealand school-leavers’ University Entrance data.

² Education Review Office (ERO).
Te Huruhi Primary School — Te Ara Huarau | School Evaluation Report.
October 2023.
https://tehuruhi.school.nz/ero-report/

³ Poole, Alwyn.
Why Boys Are Failing in New Zealand Schools.
Substack commentary and analysis of boys’ outcomes using NCEA and University Entrance data.

⁴ Auckland Schools Discussion Group (Facebook).
Parent discussion forum on primary and secondary schools across Auckland.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/752994986788507/

Judy Gill BSc, DipTchg, is a parent, former teacher, and a staunch advocate for secular education.