36157 (2025). Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan to the Minister of Education

36157 (2025). Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan to the Minister of Education: Does the Minister intend that the new year 8 assessment tools will be consistent with previous assessment tools; if so, how will consistency be achieved?

Hon Erica Stanford: As per my announcement on 15 July 2025, the Ministry of Education is delivering a new ‘Student, Monitoring, Assessment and Report Tool’ (SMART) to help teachers monitor and respond to student progress and next steps in their learning (across Years 3-10 in reading, writing, maths and pānui, tuhituhi and pāngarau). SMART will help teachers give parents confidence in understanding their children’s progress, enabling them to support learning at home. It will also provide the Government with essential information to inform decisions on where to invest resources to accelerate student achievement. SMART will use up-to-date technology and be fully aligned with the National Curriculum, ensuring our education system is responsive to and supportive of the needs of all students across New Zealand. While SMART will replace e-asTTle (one existing assessment tool), I have already indicated that schools will continue to have choices about which tools they wish to use to support their twice-yearly assessment practice.