And we could all do with a little more optimism. We are heading into summer, that hopeful time of year when everything feels possible.
On a personal note, I am counting down the days until Ikea opens (yes, I will own my Swedish bias).
Costco has announced a second store and the entry of other global brands signals something important too: international companies are prepared to invest in New Zealand because they see stability, opportunity and long-term potential.
The Official Cash Rate has also come down again and we have our new Reserve Bank governor Anna Breman joining us (Sweden strikes again, much to my delight).
There are signs of a broader shift too. Business confidence jumped another nine points in November, the highest level in 11 years, according to the latest ANZ Business Outlook survey.
“Things are looking up!” said ANZ chief economist Sharon Zollner.
“Out of a hole, admittedly,” she added, noting that base effects matter when asking whether things will go up or down from here. But even with that caveat, something has clearly shifted.
Outgoing Reserve Bank governor Christian Hawkesby echoed this sentiment in his final week in the role.
Pointing to signs of real momentum across the economy, he put it plainly: “There’s a whole host of small indicators that collectively give us confidence that we are not waiting for a recovery, it is happening right now.”
It was a reminder that while the past few years have been difficult, the underlying direction is improving.
But the real bright spot is what is happening in our schools. Two major reports have landed in the past fortnight: the Education Review Office’s independent evaluation of the Phones Away for the Day policy and the results from the Year 7 and 8 maths acceleration trial.
Together, they tell a story we do not hear often enough. When we follow the evidence and back teachers with the right tools, New Zealand’s education system can deliver remarkable gains.
Since Covid, we have talked ourselves into a certain national heaviness.
It has become easier to dwell on what is broken than to acknowledge what is improving. I understand why.
The pandemic was brutal for students, teachers and whānau. But if we stay stuck in that mindset, we risk missing the green shoots that are now appearing.
And these green shoots matter far beyond the classroom.
Phones away: The data is clear
When the phone ban was first announced, many had questions. Would schools enforce it? Would students comply? Would it actually help? But the ERO review answers all those questions and the results are far stronger than most expected.
Eight in 10 secondary teachers say removing phones has improved students’ focus.
Nearly two-thirds say achievement has lifted. Ruth Shinoda, who heads ERO’s Education Evaluation Centre, puts it simply: “ERO has found that removing cellphones from the classroom has had a really positive impact on students’ learning”.
Behaviour, too, has improved. Over three-quarters of secondary teachers report better behaviour. Two-thirds of school leaders say bullying has decreased. Teachers describe students actually talking to each other at break time again instead of disappearing into their screens.
This pattern is not unique to New Zealand. Speaking recently on the One Young Mind podcast alongside Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Jonathan Haidt described what is happening in US schools that have implemented phone bans.
In states that went phone free for the entire school day, bell to bell, the results have been spectacular. “We hear laughter in the hallways again, it used to be silent,” Haidt explained.
But the finding that caught everyone’s attention was this: “We always hear huge drops in discipline problems and especially violence. Because why would you beat the hell out of someone if you can’t take a video and put it online? Fights plummet. There’s much less violence in schools now.”
Haidt’s observation cuts to something profound about how social media has warped teenage behaviour. When the performative element disappears, much of the motivation for violence evaporates.
And there was one more surprise: libraries are reporting that students are walking through their doors again and taking out books.
The equity story we cannot ignore
Here is the part that should have been front-page news this past week: the benefits are strongest in low-decile communities.
Almost seven in 10 secondary school leaders in low socio-economic areas say academic achievement has improved, compared with four in 10 in high-decile schools.
For bullying and mental health, the gains are even more pronounced. It showed 80% of schools in low socio-economic communities report bullying has decreased, compared with 44% in high-decile areas.
When phones disappear, the playing field becomes far more level.
Compliance still matters
Of course, there is always a “yeah but” and we are very fond of those in New Zealand. The weakest point is compliance in Year 12 and 13, where fewer than four in 10 students consistently follow the rules.
The review is clear about one thing: consistent enforcement works. When schools apply the rules firmly and fairly, student compliance doubles.
And here is the uncomfortable truth. The top reason students break the rules is to stay connected with their family. Three in five secondary school rule-breakers say this. When parents resist the rules, their children are almost twice as likely to ignore them.
There is one more gap to close. Smartwatches. A smartwatch is not a simple timepiece, it is a phone on the wrist delivering the same alerts and interruptions we have worked hard to remove. Allowing smartwatches while banning phones undermines the entire policy.
If we want to protect students’ attention, smartwatches need to be included in the ban. The evidence is clear and the policy should reflect it.
Schools that enforce phone-free, bell-to-bell days are seeing major improvements in focus, behaviour, bullying and achievement. Those that do not are letting their students down.
Every school in New Zealand should be phone free and smartwatch free during school hours. The policy is working. Now we need universal implementation.
But implementation does not rest with schools alone.
Parents: We are the problem
The research makes an uncomfortable truth crystal clear: parents are the main reason students break phone rules during school hours.
Last week, our son’s school made front-page news in the Herald when a fire broke out on the grounds. My husband and I saw the headlines. He carries a Safe Surfer phone, essentially a dumb smartphone with limited functionality.
And we resisted calling him. Not because we were unconcerned, but because we respect his school and trust that if he needed us, he would call. Instead, we waited for the school to communicate with us and it did.
Why are parents calling? The reasons follow familiar patterns: “just checking in” during break time, co-ordinating after-school pick-ups, reminding children about appointments, responding to morning texts that should have been dealt with before school and anxiety-driven check-ins that could wait until the end of the school day.
Here is what we need to remember: schools can communicate directly with students when genuinely necessary. Teachers can pull a child out of class for urgent family matters.
Schools have functioning phone systems. And if all else fails, a quick email connects parents and students within minutes.
Our constant accessibility is not protecting our children. It is undermining their ability to develop independence, focus and self-regulation during the school day.
As for our teenager, he came home, shrugged and said “it wasn’t a big deal”. The day carried on as normal. He added, with teenage exasperation, that the only thing causing any real anxiety among his friends was the headline in the paper, not the fire.
If we want schools to enforce phone bans effectively, we need to model the boundary-setting we are asking of our teenagers. We cannot expect teenagers to set boundaries that adults refuse to set themselves.
The maths acceleration trial: Evidence that stopped me mid-sentence
While phones were being removed from classrooms, something else was happening and the results are extraordinary. More than 100 schools took part in a rigorous maths acceleration trial for Year 7 and 8 students who had fallen behind.
Students received small-group sessions four times a week for 12 weeks. The in-person model produced results so significant that I had to reread them. Students made the equivalent of two years’ progress in only 12 weeks.
Typically, students make about 25–30 points of progress on the E-AsTTle scale in a year. The control group improved by 27.76 points. The in-person tutoring group improved by 54.16.
They did not just catch up. They accelerated at a rate we rarely see in education, all in 12 weeks!
Equity gains across every group
Perhaps the most powerful finding is this: gender, ethnicity and socio-economic background had minimal impact on the benefits students received. The programme worked for everyone.
This is what effective, evidence-based policy looks like. It lifts students regardless of where they begin and without widening gaps. Engagement was strongest with in-person tutoring. Students built rapport with their tutors. They arrived motivated, confident and, for many, more hopeful about maths than they had been in years.
And now it is scaling. More than 300 schools have been approved to run these programmes next year, reaching nearly 13,000 students.
Behind every data point is a child whose day-to-day experience has changed. A Year 9 student who can finally focus. A Year 7 student who felt two years behind in maths and now sees they can catch up. A student who feels safer because bullying has decreased. A teacher who spends more time teaching and less time managing digital distractions.
These are not abstract policy discussions. These are real shifts in real classrooms.
The pattern is clear and it matters beyond education
When you step back, a bigger picture emerges. Structured literacy is lifting reading. One hour a day dedicated to reading, writing and maths is raising achievement. Phone bans are calming classrooms. Targeted tutoring is closing learning gaps.
These reforms follow the evidence, are implemented seriously and are designed around what young people actually need. And this matters for far more than education policy. It matters for how we think about ourselves as a country.
Breaking our post-Covid pessimism
New Zealand has developed a habit of defaulting to pessimism, a reflex that has only hardened since Covid. We amplify problems and bury progress, yet the evidence tells a different story.
Ram raids have fallen sharply, 308 in 2023 and only 79 from January to September this year. Consumer confidence is edging back. Business investment is lifting.
The OCR is coming down. Ikea is arriving and Costco has confirmed a second site. These are not small signals; they show major international companies see New Zealand as a market worth investing in.
The same momentum is clear in education. Reforms are taking hold, youth crime is dropping and the Phones Away for the Day policy is changing behaviour.
When my daughter comes home excited to show me a new maths strategy or my son describes the lunchtime conversations now that phones are out of sight, I see those green shoots. When the data mirrors what parents and teachers are experiencing, I see a country shifting in the right direction.
The story we tell ourselves matters. If we look only for what is broken, we miss what is working. Progress is not perfection, but the steady accumulation of improvements that make life better for children, families and communities.
New Zealand education is delivering results. Our communities are becoming safer. International companies are investing in our future.
Good news is not naive. It is factual and evidence based. The momentum is here. Now we need the confidence to recognise it and the determination to build on it.
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