set 2002: no. 1

It is exciting to be looking ahead to another stimulating year in the life of set: Research Information for Teachers. This year brings two new features, as well as an improved pricing structure.

A substantial number of teachers working in Auckland’s poor urban primary schools are highly successful in their practice. They have an expertise that takes children to their academic and personal potential, and they achieve success in a way that does not alienate children from their diverse home contexts. Case study research focusing on nine such teachers has found that a combination of 11 attitudes and beliefs is integral to all their pedagogies.

Over the past 6 years, the National Education Monitoring Project has monitored the educational achievement and attitudes of Year 4 and 8 students in New Zealand schools, covering 15 curriculum areas. This article presents accumulated evidence from these assessments on the relationship between school size and student achievement at these Year levels.

Supportive friendships and relationships at school contribute to children’s quality of life as well as their learning. There are some concerns that students with disabilities may be isolated, lonely and have few friends at school, even when they have always been taught in the mainstream. This article explores a range of friendship and relationship themes described by three students with disabilities and their families, and looks at some of the ways in which schools can support or create… Read more

To identify the specific needs of students with respect to literacy in the content areas, 21 students from Years 9-13 were interviewed about their views of themselves as readers and writers, and how their skills affected their learning. While a number of students identified themselves as competent, many felt that they lacked the motivation and skill to use written text effectively. In the light of this data, the authors advocate the need for the inclusion of strategic literacy instruction… Read more

The quantity and pace of current learning agendas for staff development mean that time is seriously limited for teachers to share ideas and concerns about their classroom practices. Eight teachers using a quality learning circle approach show how their learning is enhanced through opportunities for structured, focused and regular talk with one another. This approach demonstrates teacher enthusiasm, commitment, and ownership of very successful learning journeys, using the National Education… Read more

Keith Ballard argues that the commitment to individualism and to a commercial market model has implications for our working lives. The ideological belief that we are primarily motivated by self-interest carries with it the implication that we are not to be trusted, but need “incentives” to make us work. Relationships must be contractual and written down. Engagement with others thus becomes a technical matter. This context has redefined what it means to be a teacher.

Two strengths of the ARBs are their links to national curriculum statements and the range and control they give teachers and schools over what is to be assessed. They include a set of 96 writing resources for English, covering poetic and transactional writing. In view of positive feedback from ARB users, it has become apparent that schools can use the scoring guides when there is a need to make levels-based assessment of their own poetic and/or transactional writing tasks.

In a study based on a survey of Year 11 students, boys reported a higher level of negative writing satisfaction and less writing enjoyment in the English classroom than girls did. Boys and girls preferred different writing genres. While students did not see writing as inherently gender-biased, they did seem aware of differential outcomes in how boys’ and girls’ writing was regarded and valued by others. There was also a clear indication that boys’ writing styles were not the ones preferred… Read more

How can research findings can be used to develop specific teaching approaches? This UK article concentrates on the potential of shared and guided writing for improving syntactical structure and grammatical awareness within particular genres, especially in the 7–13 age-range.