NZCER has run a National Survey of Primary Schools regularly since 1989, with the last survey of primary school teachers taking place in 2019. This enables us to monitor trends over time and assess teacher sentiment about key issues facing the sector. 

This report presents findings from a survey of 639 teachers from 148 schools. The responses are nationally representative by School Equity Index groups and broadly representative by area and region. The report presents the findings in each of the six survey domains alongside a section on teachers’ working experiences and future plans.

He kitenga | Findings

 

Teaching and learning

  • Half of the teachers reported insufficient support to teach students with learning support needs. This includes neurodivergent students and students with a disability, learning difficulties, physical or mental health needs, or behaviour issues. Other findings in this report confirm that teachers want more support to teach students with learning support needs. The most selected thing that teachers would like to change about their work is having more support staff.

  • Nearly half (46%) of the teachers reported using AI tools in their teaching. The most common use of AI was to develop learning materials (85% of teachers who use AI reported this use). Lack of AI knowledge and training was the biggest barrier preventing teachers from integrating AI into their practice (74% of non-users reported this). While many teachers were positive about AI, uncertainty remained, especially among those without experience. 

  • Most teachers adopted explicit and intentional practices in the teaching of literacy either daily or several times a week. Most teachers supported cultural diversity through their literacy programme, but fewer than half (45%) reported understanding how to support students’ home languages. Additionally, most teachers (70%) reported teaching students who are learning English as an additional language. Over half (57%) of these teachers are confident about catering for English language learners, but a third said they did not have access to sufficient support for them.

  • More than two-thirds of the teachers expected moderate to major climate impacts in their students’ lifetimes. Half of the teachers (51%) were confident to address climate change issues in their classroom programme.

Curriculum and assessment 

  • Nearly all (93%) teachers made good use of formative assessment practices and most (78%) used the results from standardised tools to inform their teaching. Use of assessments that reflect students’ lived experiences and cultural heritage was not widespread.

  • Half (53%) of the teachers indicated that curriculum changes were going in the right direction and 37% were neutral. Non-Māori teachers showed higher levels of agreement (55%) than kaiako Māori (39%), while kaiako Māori were more likely to express disagreement (22%, compared with just 8% of non-Māori teachers). This may highlight a need for deeper engagement with Māori voices in the development and implementation of curriculum changes.

  • Around half of the teachers felt confident in teaching the updated English (50%), and mathematics and statistics (49%) learning areas. This is echoed by teachers’ professional learning and development (PLD) needs: 59% of teachers selected “effective teaching of mathematics” and 46% selected “effective teaching of structured literacy” (both ranked among the top three priorities). Our survey findings provide an important early snapshot of teacher confidence in implementing the updated curriculum before widespread professional development had taken place.

  • Nearly all teachers (96%) indicated that learning Aotearoa New Zealand’s histories is important, and three-quarters (76%) enjoy teaching the curriculum content.

Inclusion

  • More teachers felt equipped to teach about cultural diversity and diversity of abilities than religious diversity or diversity in gender identity or sexual orientation. Overall, patterns point to a decline in the proportion of teachers feeling equipped to teach students about diversity, compared with 2019. 

  • Most teachers were positive about their school culture and support for diversity and inclusion, although fewer (57%) of the teachers felt they had school-wide support to understand and address biases they may have as teachers.

Wellbeing

  • Since 2013, teachers’ views on job enjoyment, workload, and morale have remained relatively stable. In 2024, job enjoyment continued to be high, with 90% of teachers indicating that they enjoyed their work. Most teachers (75%) indicated that their overall morale was good and that they received the support they needed inside the school to do their job effectively. 

  • Workload concerns and work-related stress remained, but since 2016 the proportion of teachers working more than 11 additional hours a week has decreased. 

  • Most teachers (just over 70%) indicated that school-wide approaches for addressing unwanted behaviours (bullying, racist or discriminatory behaviour) were clear, but fewer (61%) were positive about their effectiveness. 

  • Compared with 2019, more teachers (82%, compared with 68%) had experienced student behaviour that caused serious disruption to their teaching. 

Support and resourcing 

  • Compared with 2019, fewer teachers reported opportunities to explore the ideas and theory underpinning new approaches (55%, down from 65% in 2019) and engage with teachers in other schools (35%, down from 46% in 2019).

  • More teachers than in 2019 said that PLD provided practical help with tikanga Māori, te reo Māori, and teaching ākonga Māori. The increases from 2019 in support to both learn and teach te reo Māori are likely to be attributable to Te Ahu o Te Reo Māori, which was launched the same year. Fewer than half of the teachers reported that PLD had provided practical help for teaching Pacific students.

  • The most-selected PLD priorities for teachers are effective teaching of mathematics (chosen by 59% of teachers), using AI (53%), and effective teaching of structured literacy (46%), followed by PLD around providing mental health and wellbeing support (45%).

Teachers’ working experience and future plans

  • The most-selected changes to their work that teachers would like were more support staff (selected by 76% of teachers) and smaller class sizes (selected by 70% of teachers), both up from 64% in 2019 and 59% in 2016. 

  • Perceptions of availability of career progression opportunities has declined. Just under half (49%) of the teachers believed they could progress their careers within their current school, down from 58% in 2019, though this figure remains above the 43% reported in 2016. Just over half (54%) of the teachers felt that career progression opportunities existed for them within education beyond their schools, down from 66% in 2019. 

  • Interest in leadership development and professional growth has increased since 2019. In the next 5 years, more teachers plan to develop leadership skills (40%, up from 23% in 2019), take on leadership roles with management units (23%, up from 16% in 2019), and increase their level of responsibility within teaching (22%, up from 14% in 2019). 

  • Just under one-fifth of teachers expressed interest in becoming a principal in the future.

 

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