In this issue:

• “Every teacher has to come on board for our Māori students”: He wero mō ngā kaiarahi wāhanga ako—the challenge for curriculum leaders
• Improving engagement and achievement for Year 11 Māori and Pasifika students
• Developing collaborative connections between schools and Māori communities
• English-medium schools engaging whānau: Building relationships, creating spaces
• Reconsidering home learning in the digital learning environment: The perspectives of parents, students, and teachers
• Student portfolios: Do they have a purpose?
• Does National Standards reporting help parents to understand their children’s learning?
• Engagement with learning

In this issue:

• Transitions from early childhood education to primary school
• Fostering peer learning during the transition to school
• Leading change with digital technologies in education
• Transforming outdoor education in the primary school
• Towards a culturally responsive and place-conscious theory of history teaching
• How ambitious is “ambitious mathematics teaching”?
• Using multiplication and division contexts with young
• children to develop part–whole thinking
• A new era for PAT: Mathematics

In this issue: 

• Preparing students for the transition to tertiary learning
• The successful inclusion of pregnant and mothering students in New Zealand schools
• Solving summer slide
• Connecting like-minded learners through flexible grouping
• Pasifika Transformers—more than meets the eye
• “Let’s all hold hands and cross the line together!”: Competition and gifted learners
• Investing in the pretend: A drama inquiry process to support learning about the nature of science
• Curriculum integration in New Zealand secondary schools: Lessons learned from four “early adopter” schools
• Science Engagement Survey: A new tool for primary science

In this issue:​

• Te reo Māori in classrooms: Current policy, future practice
• Classroom interaction and language learning
• Language and learning about linear scale: Talking the walk
• Primary students’ perceptions of good teachers
• New identity stories: An alternative to suspension and exclusion from school
• How we care for students: Pastoral care and the role of the dean
• Developing learning partnerships through Mantle of the Expert at NCEA Drama Level 2
• Developing historical empathy: Showing progress
• Computer-administered vs paper-and-pencil tests: Is there a difference?

In this issue:

• Inviting innovation: Leading meaningful change in schools
• “A degree of latitude”: Thinking historically and making holistic judgements about internally assessed NCEA course work
• The shortage of students studying languages for NCEA Level 3
• Creating a new pathway for learning using education for sustainability
• Early warning systems in schools: Tracking and monitoring students’ progress using NCEA achievement data
• Using selected NCEA standards to profile senior students’ subject-area literacy
• “It means everything doesn’t it?” Interpretations of Māori students achieving and enjoying educational success “as Māori”
• What makes it science? Primary teacher practices that support learning about science
• Valuing assessment
• Assessment for learning, online tasks, and the new Assessment Resource Banks

In this issue:

• An interview with Keri Facer  
• Reo and mātauranga Māori revitalisation: Learning visions for the future
• “Ah the serenity ...”: Absurd ideas about educational futures  
• Sharpening New Zealand’s future focus: A scenaric stance
• Transforming New Zealand schools as knowledge-building communities: From theory to practice
• Rethinking subject English for the knowledge age
• “The problem with the future is that it keeps turning into the present”: Preparing your students for their critically multiliterate future today

And

• Four images of the future
• Copiers do not collaborate
• A librarian’s take on the future of learning
• Book review: Learning Futures  

In this issue:

• Are they ready to teach? Judging student teachers’ practice  
• Implementing e-network-supported inquiry learning in science  
• What is a social inquiry? Crafting questions that lead to deeper knowledge about society and citizenship  
• In their wor[l]ds: Embarking on appreciative inquiry to enhance student learning  
• Children’s views about geometry tasks in Māori-medium schools: Meeting Ngā Whanaketanga Rumaki Māori pāngarau (National Standards in mathematics)  
• Successful transitions from early intervention to school-age special-education services  
• Competencies or capabilities: What’s in a name?  
• Teaching as inquiry and the Hawthorne effect  
• PAT: Punctuation and Grammar—a new resource to support literacy  

This issue of set highlights the importance of deeply knowing one’s students and also knowing oneself as teacher. It stimulates an array of questions about student and teacher identity. Who are your students? How are they connected to the people and places around them? What has real meaning in their lives and how do they go about making meaning? Where are the points of connection between your life and the lives of your students? How do you personally relate to the material you teach? How do you learn more about yourself through your teaching and how might you make this reflexivity explicit to your students? Embedded in these questions is an acknowledgement of the critical relationship between identity and learning.

A basic teaching premise is that knowing your learners will enable you to tailor your teaching and thus enhance learning. In other words a better grasp of students’ identities provides a means to support their learning. Central to this issue is a reminder that exploring students’ identities is also a goal for learning.

The focus section looks at students’ linguistic and cultural diversity, and, in particular, English-language learners.

This issue of set begins by taking a well-grounded, practice-informed look at conditions that support teachers to be learners when they inquire into their practice. Learning on the job can be demanding, but ultimately very satisfying for teachers if it leads to positive changes for their students. The importance of strong leadership is emphasised, with a focus on “walking the talk” by being an active inquirer yourself—reading teachers, for example, benefit by being active readers themselves. A focus of this issue is integrated learning and student inquiry. Beyond these areas, other articles explore various important aspects of students’ learning in addition to the more usual cognitive focus. These include: values identified in the New Zealand Curriculum; what “respect” might look like in a senior secondary mathematics classroom environment; and how one small group of teachers’ thinking about “Pasifika values” actually contributed to their students being under-served, rather than contributing to keeping them engaged and achieving as intended.