A week on, the school phone ban is (mostly) winning praise

Even if some students are now just texting on their laptops.

May 05, 2024

Mōrena, and welcome to The Bulletin for Monday, May 6.

In today’s edition: Inside the confusion as Auckland’s train network unexpectedly shut down, ‘Local Water Done Well’ makes its debut, and how much were political parties given in donations last year? But first, an update on the government’s phone ban.

A little introduction

Hello, before we get into things this morning I thought I’d introduce myself. I’m Stewart and I’m thrilled to be taking over The Bulletin. I’ve been an avid reader since day one, and a Spinoff staffer since 2020 – so hopefully you’ve stumbled upon my name across the site over the past few years. Things won’t look too different around here, so don’t freak out. I’ll be continuing to wrap the best journalism from around the country every morning, and I hope you’ll join me for the ride. If you need me, don’t hesitate to get in touch via thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz

It’s been a week since phones were forcibly banned at schools

Last August, in the heat of the election campaign, high schooler Caspar Levack argued on The Spinoff that National’s (then) proposed phone ban was going to be a terrible idea. “Ultimately, if the teacher thinks you are being distracted by your phone during class, they will tell you to turn it off,” he said. He argued social media companies were the real problem – they should be who the government goes after. “Properly regulating social media companies would be popular policy that makes the government look really good. Why not do that instead?”

Several months later, schools nationwide have been forced to ban phones (though many were already doing it since the start of the year). The arguments for and against have been widely traversed (here is an edition of The Bulletin from last year that lays it all out) and now schools must grapple with how to actually enforce the rules. So how are schools and educators finding the policy in practice? We asked a few.

A broadly positive move

Teachers who have public profiles via their involvement with teacher organisations or unions are of course just a small subsection of the education community, but they provided an interesting range of answers. Most told The Bulletin they had already noticed a positive impact from the phones away policy. Vaughan Couillault, president of the Secondary Principals' Association and principal of Papatoetoe High School, said the policy has “landed well” with the community and been followed by most students. “The aim was to reduce distraction to improve achievement and progress – it is too early to tell the impact at this point with regard to this, but feedback has been generally positive thus far,” he told me. Kaitaia College principal Louise Anaru agreed, having implemented the ban at the start of the year. “Parents are on board with the change. Some students are finding the change difficult. It will take time to learn these new behaviours for some and we will continue to put support in place to ensure successful implementation of the new policy.”

One Auckland student told RNZ last week that the ban was just adding to anxiety at school. If teachers haven’t managed to stop students from vaping in the classroom, “how are they supposed to stop phone usage?” John Gerritsen’s report also highlighted some cheeky comments from school students on Christopher Luxon’s TikTok videos. This piece from The Conversation looks at the global context for the ban, and is worth a read.

A ‘cracker’ of a policy

Azaria Howell at Newstalk ZB (paywalled) has the inside scoop on the official advice from the Ministry of Education to the government on implementing the ban. It warned that a full ban “may not be warranted” while the ministry’s schools policy general manager Jennifer Fraser said there was “mixed evidence” it would work at all.

But education minister Erica Stanford has called the first week of the scheme an overwhelming success. “Principals have been writing to me every day, telling me how wonderful it is to hear the noise in the playground,” she told The Bulletin. Some of those emails were supplied to us, with one principal telling Stanford the phone ban was a “cracker” of an initiative. “There’s something about having a nationwide edict that’s made it so much easier for us to shift the culture in schools,” they told Stanford. Labour’s Jan Tinetti, meanwhile, said the party had heard some schools struggling with enforcement of the rules. “A government-enforced ban takes this choice away from local communities who’ll know what works best for their students,” she told me.

ICYMI: The Spinoff’s Tara Ward takes a look at why parliament – the most unruly classroom of all – should perhaps ban phones next.

Just one small part of a wider education overhaul

Stanford has quickly emerged as one of the high achievers of the Luxon administration. Last week, as part of a pre-budget announcement, Stanford also confirmed that the government’s plans to mandate structured literacy would be coming into force at a cost of $67 million.

Some schools, 1News reported, have taken issue with the rate at which these changes have been pushed on schools. Along with phone bans and proposed changes to literacy, there’s the mandated hour of reading, writing and maths every day. There’s also the amorphous proposal to “restore balance to the Aotearoa New Zealand Histories curriculum”, which you can read more about here. On The Spinoff this morning, primary school teacher Jessie Moss argues that teachers don’t want the curriculum “balanced” and responds to comments Stanford made on RNZ last month.

Finally, if you’re wondering what high schooler Caspar Levack makes of the plan now it’s in force? He’s still not convinced. “It's not surprising that the ingenuity of students avoiding work has provided no shortage of ways to avoid the new phone ban, for example people are just texting on their laptop now,” he says.

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Aucklanders avoid mega water bill hike, settle for smaller hike

Yesterday saw prime minister Christopher Luxon standing alongside Auckland mayor Wayne Brown. The pair, along with local government minister Simeon Brown, were announcing that a projected 25.8% water rates hike for the city had been avoided. Instead, ratepayers can expect a 7.2% increase to their water bills. As Interest’s Dan Brunskill explains, the plan involves financially separating Watercare from council as part of the Local Water Done Well scheme (the government’s not-quite-three waters plan unveiled in the election campaign). “Auckland Council would retain control of the entity, in that it can still appoint its leaders and set the remit, but it would not be able to contribute to its costs,” writes Brunskill. Labour’s Kieran McAnulty says his party’s ~~three waters~~ affordable water reforms would still have been cheaper. “[Rates] would have only increased by 2% if [the government] followed through with affordable water.” The eyes of mayors nationwide are now focused on Auckland, reports RNZ’s Anneke Smith today, as smaller councils consider how Local Water Done Well might work for them.

Meanwhile, sticking with National, Newsroom’s Sam Sachdeva reports on National’s mainland conference – and the interesting framing of the government’s election victory.

Another allegation levelled at Julie Anne Genter

The horror week for the Greens (Duncan Greive writes on that here) continued over the weekend, with a further allegation emerging about embattled senior MP Julie Anne Genter. Stuff’s Anna Whyte has spoken to a business owner who claimed she was grabbed by Genter. The senior Green MP has gone to ground after her dramatic outburst in parliament last week. Nicola Cranfield said she saw Genter in public last year and wanted to discuss something. “I thought maybe she doesn't hear stories on the ground. Maybe everything's filtered through and that could be useful information for her and that was when she grabbed my arm and gave it quite a strong shake,” Cranfield said. Two weeks ago, Cranfield, a vocal opponent to (the now-cancelled) Let’s Get Wellington Moving, told the Herald she was closing her business over the possible removal of cars from the capital’s Golden Mile.

How much was donated to political parties in 2023?

If you are a political nerd like me, you’ll have been all over this on Friday afternoon. But for those who missed it, the Electoral Commission released the annual political donation returns for 2023. All donations over $5,000 must be disclosed. It shows, as Bridie Witton and Kelly Dennett of Stuff reported, that National raised over $10m in election year, more than double the $4.7m pulled in by Labour. Together, National and Act received $14.64m in donations, while Labour and the Greens raised just over $8m. The highest individual donation was $500,000 to National from Warren Lewis (NBR has more on that here, behind the paywall) while Act scooped up $100,000 from rich-lister Graeme Hart. One specific donation caught my eye – Taupō Pak‘nSave gave National over $10,000 (and did not respond to my request for more info).

New Gone By Lunchtime: Luxon's mojo machine misfires

The honeymoon is over before it began for PM Luxon and the National Party. A new poll reveals an unimpressed, uninspired voter base. Is it policy issues, coalition management or just a gloomy economic landscape that has our national mojo in a nosedive?

Click and Collect

Is Winston Peters reluctant to trim MFAT?
I watched The Idea of You over the weekend on Prime Video. Then I read this Time Magazine piece about fanfic and women’s art.
Behind the scenes at council as Auckland’s train network shut down several times in February.
Christopher Luxon sat down for a chat with Sky News over the weekend, pledging a reset of Ardern-era foreign policy. The Herald’s Shayne Currie recently wrote about the possible arrival of Murdoch media on our shores (paywalled).
I’ve written before about bus lanes and the unholy number of fines they trigger. Stuff has details about K Road’s new bus lane and how much money it’s raking in, while Newshub focuses on Queen Street.
Feeling clever? Click here to play 1Q, Aotearoa’s newest, shortest daily quiz.

Right now on The Spinoff

Hayden Donnell on the fast track legislation and how our national bird has caused an economic crisis that only the coalition government can fix. Tara Ward walks us through the cast for Married at First Sight NZ. Dame Susan Devoy reveals her guilty telly pleasure for My Life in TV. And Hera Lindsay Bird ranks and reviews Dunedin’s secondhand bookshops.

That’s day one down, thanks for reading. I’ll be back tomorrow. Enjoy your Monday (and if you’re at school reading this on your phone, well, stop).

Got some feedback about The Bulletin, or anything in the news? Get in touch with me at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz.

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