Vertical grouping in secondary schools usually involves a 'house' system, where the school population is divided into roughly equal cross-sections, and within each house are an equal number of smaller class-sized groups also composed of vertical cross-sections. These groups, called 'house groups' or 'tutor groups' are an alternative to, and have many of the functions of, the traditional 'form' groups, which are (horizontally) composed of age-peers.
set 1978 : no. 1
publisher:
NZCER Press
Contents
3
One of our more persistent beliefs is that New Zealand children have the best health standards in the world. But now, on all sides, evidence is accumulating that conditions for children and infants in this country are no longer what we would want them to be. One of the factors that seems to be critical is the nutritional aspect: the kinds and amount of food that our children eat. Dr Tom Fitzgerald, an educational anthropologist from the University of North Carolina, recently visited New Zealand to study the eating habits of New Zealand, particularly Polynesian, school children. For set he reports on what he found.
4
A.R. Luria, the great Soviet psychologist, died recently. Lurra and other members of the Moscow school of psychology developed a theory about the relationship between speech and behaviour which has been remarkably influential. Not everyone agrees with the Moscow school, of course, but Reg Marsh, a Professor of Education at Victoria University, is one of those who thinks that their ideas offer helpful explanations not usually provided by other perhaps more conventional treatments of the relationship between speech and behaviour.
5
The value of speaking with a regional accent is something which is subject to fashion: today, an accent tends to be valued as a mark of individuality in an increasingly mono-cultural and stereotyped world, and it is no longer the goal of an 'educated' person to 'get rid of his accent as quickly and decently as possible. Certainly we have come a long way from the time when Arnold Wall, writing about New Zealand English in the 1930s, had to remind himself that 'young students whose speech left much to be desired (nonetheless) died gloriously on Gallipoli'.
6
In 1973 the Department of University Extension, Massey University, commenced a 2 year part-time correspondence course leading to the award of certificates in early childhood education or early child development.
7
Once upon a time the animals decided they must do something decisive if they were ever to solve the problems created by the growing complexity of their society. They set up a working party and, in due course, the working party reported back that in their view, taking all circumstances into consideration, a school should be set up.
8
Specific learning disability (SLD) is one of the most discussed and studied topics in the field of educational psychology; at the same time, it is easily one of the most confused of questions, the quite voluminous literature (340 articles published in 1974 alone) providing little in the way of guidance to teachers, or anyone else, concerned with the problems of definition, identification and treatment.
9
Three short articles:
"In the real world you can't say cereal when you mean shampoo" by Virginia Makins
"Reading through the little screen" by Andree Brooks
"Can't read? Maybe they can't see" by Virginia Makins
10
In recent years there has been a veritable explosion in the range of instructional materials produced for classroom use: reading laboratories, spelling laboratories, study skill schemes, structured maths apparatus, science programmes, audio-visual packages, not to mention material for overhead projectors and listening posts. During the same time improvements have been made in the staple of teaching -the textbook. Today's texts are more carefully written, and cover a wider range of topics than previously. They are also designed to appeal more to children, and often incorporate principles intended to make them more effective instructional tools.
11
Family day-care (child-minding in private homes) is probably the most widespread form of day-care in New Zealand and it is possibly the one which has been with us the longest. It is not subject to official supervision (unless more than two children are being looked after) so nobody has really known how many children were being cared for in this way, for how long during the day, under what conditions or at what financial cost. Nor have we known why women choose to become child-minders.
12
Finding a way to predict a parent's potential for child abuse or neglect is now a real possibility. Researchers at the University of Washington, Seattle, have had encouraging success in developing reliable predictive measures. University of Washington researchers Mildred Disbrow, Hans Doerr, and Colleen Caulfield compared SS abusive and neglecting families (referred by Washington's Child Protective Service) with 54 nonabusing families, matching them for such characteristics as age of the child and parents, education and race of the mother, and whether there was one parent or two. They interviewed the parents to learn about their backgrounds, self-concepts, and family cohesiveness.
14
Advocates of progressive teaching methods claim that these foster the social and emotional development of children without in any way hindering their academic progress. Critics of the 'new' education on the other hand, equate 'progressive' with 'permissive', insist that levels of achievement are falling, and lay the blame for this firmly at the feet of curriculum innovators and progressive teachers.
A well-established research resource for teachers.
Recent research in early childhood education.
Discussion, commentary and information about curriculum.
"Pushing" the thinking in assessment in education research, policy and practice.