set 1988 : no. 2

If any trend could be said to grow even as we watch, it would be the move away from what has been called 'social promotion': the current increase in policies that permit the retention of young children for a second year in a given grade. Some reformers have advocated promotion from grade to grade strictly on the basis of achievement rather than age or attendance. Some states and school districts have responded by instituting 'promotional gates' that swing open when pupils pass tests and slam… Read more

This item is about a major unfairness in the New Zealand school system. This unfairness persists year after year. It is built into the way in which young children are promoted out of the junior school. It is the fact that so many are held back or 'retained'. This practice continues to do damage to individual children, and to disadvantage Maori children and boys. Why have we heard so little about it?

•  We have been unaware of it.
• Decisions are made about promotion… Read more

White haired, white coated, mixing chemicals in a mad desire to rule the world - why does this stereotype exist, persist, and can it be changed in school?

Young people's judgements about social and ethical issues are influenced by developmental factors, by the demands of the context, by processing demands, and by the type of adult support that is available.

Teenagers have a lot to say for themselves but are not always heard. During 1987, I set out to find out how teenagers see their lives - what they worry about, what they like, what annoys them and what they think about the future.
I talked to about 300 teenagers over a period of five months and the results of those interviews have been turned into a book, to be published later this year or early 1989 by Allen and Unwin. This article draws together themes that reappear throughout the… Read more

The classroom time can be divided up into a series of location times, for example in an infant class, seat-work time, mat-time and out-door time. Teachers expect different behaviour from the children at different times because of the different locations and the work commonly performed in these locations. The following is about seat-work time.
Children desire to do some things that are not what the teacher requires. Some of these can be done without the teacher noticing and others… Read more

This article is about the stress you can experience in the face of disruptive and disobedient students. I shall briefly explain the different types of stress you may encounter and from my own experience in working with stressed teachers provide a way not only of understanding stress, but also of doing something about it.

This article describes a project which we hope gives some clear pointers to all teachers, and infant teachers in particular, about how
1. to gain and sustain the attention of pupils;
2. to pre-empt or forestall breakdowns in classroom order;
3. to redress breakdowns in order and attention once they have occurred.

The teacher who completes the daily attendance sheet, the school secretary who collates and enters the 'data' into registers or computers, the programmer who's ensured that the computer will collect and sift attendance and enrolment figures, the attendance counsellor, truant officer, or principal who acts (or fails to act) on the print-out's information, the administrators and planners who review, revise, and plan school programs using system-wide aggregate attendance data, all have two… Read more

Assessment in education serves several purposes. It can provide diagnoses of learning and teaching deficiencies. It can establish the level of achievement of a student or a group of students with reference to defined standards or with reference to the achievements of other students. It can indicate the areas in which learning and teaching are in need of improvement. It can provide the basis of an overall judgment of the quality of learning and teaching.