This article explores how schools and educators can create learning environments that foster the innate mana of students. Mana is a concept that comes from a Māori worldview and refers to a person’s sense of authority, influence, self-efficacy, purpose, pride, and belonging. The Mana Model contends that student thinking, behaviour ...

With the new National-led government now in office, we can expect changes to assessment policy for schools. Given the critical role assessment plays in schooling, it is important that any proposed policy shifts are carefully scrutinised. In this Assessment News column, we identify some possible proposals the new government may ...

For partnerships between non-Māori teachers and Māori parents in English-medium education to productively support student learning, parents must first associate positive feelings with three layered interaction types involving their child’s teacher. The first interaction type is the teacher with their teacher self; the second is teacher–student interaction; the final is ...

There is often a steady trajectory of curriculum change under the surface of developments that might seem arbitrary or inconsistent. This article traces the change from key competencies to science capabilities and, most recently, to enduring competencies. All these changes (and names) respond to increasing awareness of the challenges involved ...

In 2020, two teachers and seven students participated in an action research project that sought to improve the teaching and learning of fractions in a New Zealand primary school. This research revealed that the collaborative creation of hypothetical learning trajectories was beneficial to the teachers’ practice, content knowledge, and confidence ...

There is concern in Aotearoa New Zealand that Pacific students, families, and communities are underserved by schooling. Of note is the inability of education to encourage and equitably enable Pacific students to follow a successful journey into science. To shed light on this situation, this article presents the stories of ...

COVID-19 relevance: Decreasing inequities

This article responds to increasing school and cross-sector interest surrounding culturally responsive pedagogy and the multiple ways that it is being discussed and understood. We try to bring clarity to how we have come to understand this term both as grounded in cultural relationships and as ...

In this article we share how developing and following tikanga was integral to our enactment of mana ōrite in the local curriculum as we (tangata whenua and tangata Tiriti) collaborated on a Year 7 science unit: Plants, Place, and People. Our initial thinking as we approached this unit had been ...

This article addresses the pressing issue of food waste by focusing on the development of young adolescents’ food waste literacy. The concept of food waste literacy (FWL), defined as the literacy for the judicious use of food, encompasses knowledge, attitudes, values, and behaviours related to food waste. The article presents ...