What Do Primary Teachers Want To Change? Class Sizes And Support Staff

More support staff, reduced class sizes and more time to work with individual students have emerged as the things primary teachers most want to change about their work.

The findings come from Primary school teachers’ perspectives from the 2024 National Survey | Uiuinga ā-Motu o ngā Kura, a regular report from the NZ Council for Educational Research (NZCER). Responses were collected in late 2024 from a nationally representative sample containing 639 teachers from 148 primary schools.

When asked what they would change about their work, 76% of teachers indicated they would want more support staff, compared to 64% in 2019 and 59% in 2016. This was followed by reduced class sizes (70%), more time to work with individual students (64%), reduced administration or paperwork (55%), and better pay (52%).

More support staff and smaller class sizes are longstanding issues for primary teachers, being two of the three most-selected things teachers would change about their work in the 2016 survey, again in 2019 and now in 2024.

NZCER also found a statistically significant relationship around teachers wanting better pay - nearly three-quarters of teachers with 5 or less years’ experience indicated that this is something they most want to see, compared to 45-49% of teachers with more experience.

When it came to PLD, teachers were also clear in what they wanted. The most-selected priorities for future PLD were effective teaching of mathematics (59%), using AI (53%), and effective teaching of structured literacy (46%), followed by PLD around providing mental health and wellbeing support (45%).

Primary school teachers’ perspectives from the 2024 National Survey | Uiuinga ā-Motu o ngā Kura is now available from the NZ Council for Educational Research.

© Scoop Media