Curriculum Insights and Progress Study: Foundation Area - Writing 2024 Publications

Publication Details

This report estimates the writing achievement of Year 3, 6 and 8 students in English-medium state and state-integrated schools. Students were assessed in early Term 4 2024.

Author(s): The Educational Assessment Research Unit (EARU) at the University of Otago, and the New Zealand Council for Educational research (NZCER). Report for the Ministry of Education.

Date Published: August 2025

Key findings

  • Writing results from the Curriculum Insights and Progress Study are available for the first time with 41% of Year 3, 33% of Year 6 and 24% of Year 8 students meeting end-of-phase curriculum expectations.
  • Table 1 shows the percentage of students meeting end-of-phase curriculum expectations in writing at each year level for the 2024 assessments.
Table 1: Writing achievement level for Years 3, 6, and 8 (2024)
YearGroup At or above 95% confidence interval Less than one year behind 95% confidence interval More than one year behind 95% confidence interval
3 All 41% (38%, 44%) 20% (17%, 23%) 39% (36%, 42%)
6 All 33% (30%, 35%) 16% (14%, 19%) 51% (48%, 54%)
8 All 24% (21%, 27%) 15% (13%, 18%) 61% (58%, 64%)

Note: Percentages are rounded to whole numbers. Due to rounding, the totals may not equal 100%.

  • At each year level, relatively low proportions of students reached benchmark scores set to mark curriculum expectations. These proportions should be interpreted with care given the newness of the curriculum and the complexity of determining what students should be able to score under assessment conditions.
  • There has not been a significant change in students’ writing achievement since the last National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement (NMSSA) reports (reported in 2019).
  • The box plots in Figure 1 show the spread of student scores at each year level. The box represents the middle 50% of scores, with the line inside showing the median (middle score). The whiskers on either side show the range of scores outside the middle band.

Figure 1: Distribution of student achievement on the 2024 national writing assessment, by year level

Figure1: Distribution of student achievement on the 2024 national writing assessment, by year level

  • There was a wide spread of achievement at each year level. This was more marked at Year 6 and Year 8 than at Year 3.
  • Students at schools with fewer socio-economic barriers (as measured by the Equity Index, EQI), scored higher, on average, at all year levels.
  • At Years 6 and 8, the spread of scores was greater for students at schools with more socio-economic barriers.
  • At all levels, most students agreed that they liked writing and were confident as writers.

About the assessment

The writing assessment was designed to capture a holistic view of students’ writing capabilities. During the assessment, students at each year level were asked to write an extended response to a prompt in one of four genres: narrative, recount, persuasive, or explanation.

These genres were selected because they reflect the types of writing that ākonga in Aotearoa New Zealand typically encounter in school settings. Their inclusion was also supported by key curriculum documents—The New Zealand Curriculum (2007), the Literacy Learning Progressions, and the 2023 draft version of the English learning area of the New Zealand Curriculum.

Students’ responses to the prompts were scored using the e-asTTle writing rubric, which provides criteria for evaluating performance across seven elements: ideas, structure and language, organisation, vocabulary, sentence structure, punctuation, and spelling. This rubric supported continuity with previous NMSSA writing assessments, allowing for consistency in measurement and comparability over time.

The writing assessment included four stages: planning, writing, editing, and self-reflection.

The 2024 national writing assessment was administered in the first weeks of Term 4. Teachers in the sampled schools conducted the writing assessments using school devices, except for the Year 3 assessment, which was delivered using paper booklets provided to schools.

Selection was random from among state and state-integrated English-medium schools across New Zealand (69 at Year 3, 72 at Year 6, and 68 at Year 8). Between 1100-1500 students were assessed at each year level.

Tables 2-4 show what typical end-of-phase writing achievement looked like for Year 3, 6, and 8 students.

Table 2: What did end-of-phase writing look like for Year 3 students?
Writing at this level typically featured: Possible next steps for many Year 3 students included:
  • simple, relevant ideas, often listed in sequence
  • some use of appropriate text features, especially in recounts
  • simple, everyday language with a small range of precise words
  • reliance on simple sentence structures, with some extension
  • accurate punctuation at the beginnings and ends of sentences
  • correct spelling of personal and high-frequency words, with reasonable attempts at more difficult words and spelling patterns.
  • using consistent punctuation within longer sentences
  • expanding ideas with relevant detail
  • using compound and complex sentence structures
  • applying structure and language features across a range of text types and purposes.

Table 3: What did end-of-phase writing look like for Year 6 students?
Writing at this level typically featured: Possible next steps for many Year 6 students included:
  • ideas expressed with elaboration and detail, often beyond the immediate world of the writer
  • logically grouped ideas, with some attempts at constructing paragraphs
  • everyday language, with some adjectives and adverbs used to describe or add interest
  • varied sentence types and lengths, including some speech-like constructions
  • mostly correct sentence punctuation, along with a range of other punctuation
  • correct spelling of a growing range of words, with reasonable attempts at multisyllabic words.
  • using accurate punctuation to prevent run-on sentences and comma splices
  • using consistent purpose-specific structure and language features, such as correct tense and time connectives
  • using a variety of language devices to create mood, e.g. imagery
  • building speed, accuracy, and confidence when writing with digital tools.

Table 4: What did end-of-phase writing look like for Year 8 students?
Writing at this level typically featured: Possible next steps for many Year 8 students included:
  • relevant, complex, and sometimes abstract ideas that showed reflection
  • consistently appropriate text structures, e.g. persuasive writing with a logical sequence
  • purposefully chosen, precise, and vivid language
  • a range of sentence structures and lengths, including some extended constructions
  • some use of punctuation and sentence types for effect
  • reasonable attempts at spelling difficult, topic-specific words.
  • grouping and linking ideas logically, and composing well-structured paragraphs
  • writing in ways that are concise, purposeful, and engaging
  • selecting words, sentences, and language devices to write with impact
  • building speed, accuracy, and confidence when writing with digital tools.


More information is available on the University of Otago website Curriculum Insights and Progress Study.

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