04/09/2026
We tautoko Whakaari Aotearoa’s posts. We also note the benefits from arts learning are richest when learning occurs IN the curriculum. Extra-curricular productions, talent shows and competitions (e.g. Showquest) are not a substitute for learning in the arts curriculum. Arts curriculum learning gives conscious attention to breadth, depth, diversity and cross-curricular learning. Ākonga explicitly learn HOW to explore and create, how to think creatively, how to collaborate and how to communicate in the arts.
The Ministry of Education’s post does seem disingenuous in the context of Minister Stanford’s ‘nice to have’ comments, collapsing Dance and Drama together, minimal learning time allocated for arts, and crippling funding cuts to the professional arts sector through Creative New Zealand.
Re-purposing funding from the scrapped Creatives in Schools programme towards high-quality in-depth resources, by expert arts teachers, to deliver the new arts curricula would be an easy way to restore some faith with teachers. Well trained and supported arts teachers are the most appropriately positioned to teach arts in schools.
