School governance and management

Currently it is not mandatory for New Zealand high schools to have written policies on how they will respond to their pregnant and mothering students, despite education being a crucial factor in the later success of young mothers. This article explores existing barriers to, and supports for, pregnant and mothering students’ schooling engagement.

Pastoral care structures in New Zealand schools often include a role of dean. The dean’s responsibilities are often defined by schools to satisfy growing expectations of schools’ responsibilities for student wellbeing and achievement. This study explored the role of year-level deans within one state co-educational secondary school. Senior managers, deans, teachers, and students were interviewed, and deans completed a daily activity log. Findings indicate challenges exist for providing care for all students owing to the reactive nature of the role and unclear reporting lines.

School pastoral leaders have halved the use of suspension and exclusion from New Zealand schools in the last decade. This article offers community re-authoring of young people’s identity stories as a further support for reducing suspensions and exclusions. It demonstrates how developing new stories of “who I am and what is important to me” can lead to a marked reduction in troubling behaviours. The article highlights the importance of invited peers, teachers, family, and community members in exploring and maintaining alternative identity claims and changed behaviours.

How well is your school student management system (SMS) being used, by whom, and to do what? Principal and teacher responses to questions about this in the 2012 National Survey of Secondary Schools suggest this could be a fruitful area for schools to self-review.

In this article Cathy Wylie, a chief researcher at the New Zealand Council for Educational Research, provides an account of New Zealand’s education system from the introduction of self-managing schools under Tomorrow’s Schools through to the present day. Dr Wylie draws on her recent book Vital Connections to critically examine the assumptions and structures that have underpinned self-managing schools. Her book describes the many ways in which schools are disconnected from the Ministry of Education and from one another.