This study investigated the practices involved in the transition to school for children with a range of special education needs. Certain factors emerged as most important for a successful transition, including good ongoing communication and collaboration between families and schools. Teachers’ use of differentiation practices was also beneficial. The article ...

This article critiques a recent professional development course for history teachers that explored how students could use memorials and heritage sites to engage with the concept of significance and how this could contribute to them developing expertise in historical thinking. The course challenged teachers to consider historical significance in terms ...

That students find working on multimodal texts engaging isn’t surprising—but what would be surprising is if that spilled over into increased engagement and achievement with traditional print texts. This is exactly what the author of this article found in an exploratory e-learning research project. Here she discusses this finding and ...

This article describes one primary school’s approach to countering the “summer drop” in reading achievement. By the deliberate sharing of strategies to support reading at home during the holidays through a “summer reading contract”, Clayton Park School has successfully reduced the drop in reading achievement over the summer, including for ...

It has been suggested that focusing on the metacognitive skills secondary students need to make informed decisions about literacy challenges they encounter is a central element in raising literacy achievement. However, it is also recognised that struggling students are often not metacognitively skilful and are reluctant to use skills once ...

The literature about 21st century learning argues that we need to think differently about education. Rather than simply “knowing about” things, we want students to be able to do new things with what they know. If this is the case, we need to make sure students are provided with opportunities ...

When their funds of knowledge and experiences from home and the community are connected to their school learning, students' learning is supported. In this study teachers used "home learning books" to invite contributions from home into science teaching and learning in the classroom. The flow of knowledge between home and ...

The first year of teaching is a critical stage in a teacher's professional life. Many beginning teachers are employed in short-term positions, but we know very little about how employment status affects first-year teachers' feelings of self-confidence, or their attitudes towards their second year of teaching. This article explores these ...

What supports students to develop their conceptual understanding? Taking part in focus groups helped the Years 9 and 10 Māori and Pasifika students in this study to focus on understanding the concepts underpinning social studies units, rather than the content. Discussions between students in the focus groups resulted in the ...

This study explored whether using process drama to teach social studies would engage Year 10 Pasifika boys at a secondary school in Auckland. The author describes how, while in role, students used their existing knowledge and experiences to explore and develop new knowledge, and how process drama addressed the goals ...