This issue brings you a diverse range of articles related to the new curriculum. We began this focus in issue No. 3 in 2007 with a number of commentaries. This time we can provide insights from emerging research on implementation.

This article reports on the effectiveness of a small-scale study that focused on the on-site development and implementation of an observation and feedback cycle that enabled professional change in mathematics teaching.

It has long been known that families can have a significant effect on their children's achievement.  This is supported by a recent NZCER evaluation on the Home–School Partnership: Literacy programme. This article summarises the findings.

The family is one of the sites for literacy learning and that families vary both between themselves and according to culture. This article provides some suggestions with the aim of encouraging a successful sharing of information about literacy in home and school.

Can teachers themselves answer the questions they ask the children in their classrooms as part of instructional literacy programmes? This article explores the results of a Phonological Awareness Test administered to a sample of teachers in order to establish their personal phonological awareness understandings.

This article looks at ways of bridging the discontinuities young children experience between three settings: the home environment, the early childhood setting, and the new entrant classroom. It highlights the empowerment that occurs for children, families, and teachers in early childhood and school settings when children’s experiences at home are ...

The introduction this year of the draft key competencies (paralleling the five strands of Te Whāriki) brings an exciting new development to the early childhood as well as the primary and secondary sectors. This article discusses learning dispositions and their relation to the key competencies, and suggests three ways ...

The Parker Brothers' 1971 game of "Careers" may be light-hearted but the career decisions faced by young people leaving school today are no game.  Those decisions are considered more serious and seem more complex now.

Karen Vaughan discusses findings from the Prospects and Pathways study of young people moving into tertiary study and employment, and their bearing on ...

Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI) has been well received by many educators. Most of the literature on MI, however, concentrates on the primary school sector. This article considers the implications of MI for both primary and secondary sectors and suggests why the latter has been less responsive.

Why has the Curriculum Marautanga Project chosen the competencies of relating to others, managing self, participating and contributing, thinking, and using language, symbols, and texts?  Why now and what next?

This article overviews the background to the development of the key competencies, and looks at their connections with the previous ...