Starting school is a major life event for all involved: children, families, preschool educators, and school staff. All groups engage in a range of activities designed to make the time of transition to school positive. Yet each group has different perceptions of, expectations for, and experiences with this transition. The ...

Six UK secondary schools investigated whole-class interactive teaching of mathematics, identified its key characteristics, and put it into effective use in their own classrooms.

The difficulties many students experience in learning to read frequently relate to a lack of strategies and confidence. Learning to read is readily accepted as one of the most complex behaviours we will ever strive to master. Reading underpins much of a student’s education, so experiencing difficulty in this area ...

The overlaps between the requirements of good research and good practice provide both a foundation and a rationale for the development of teachers as researchers. Viviane Robinson examines some of the challenges of creating a teacher culture in which research-based discussion and debate becomes an integral part of teacher professionalism ...

Teachers engaging in “learning talk” analyse, critique and challenge their current teaching practices to find and/or create more effective ways of teaching. Using three New Zealand studies, this article examines the effectiveness of “learning talk” in facilitating changes in teacher practices and beliefs, and in student achievement. It addresses the ...

Recent research on school improvement indicates that schools can lift student achievement by using achievement information to work out how to modify their programmes. Robertson Rd School worked collaboratively with researchers from the University of Auckland to design a new approach enabling teachers to make formative use of achievement data ...

Otahuhu College wanted to know how its teachers were coping with the inclusion of students with disabilities in their classrooms, and more specifically, how teachers interacted with such students. Results revealed that the practical demands of the classroom made it difficult for teachers to spend time with the mainstreamed students ...

East Tamaki School worked with researchers to learn about how teachers viewed the requirements on reporting to parents, and how parents understood what was written. Teachers experienced the same technical, ethical, and practical dilemmas as their local and international counterparts. They resolved these in ways that inadvertently sent mixed messages ...

The first issue of set: Research Information for Teachers heralds another year of stimulating professional reading. In this issue we examine some of the emerging developments in New Zealand education and discuss some of the key issues – the “breaking news” of education.

Research on teachers’ knowledge in science indicates that those confident in their subject knowledge can provide rich experiences in an integrated learning environment to support children’s exploration and inquiry. A learning story illustrates how children’s content-related dispositions towards scientific knowledge can be extended.