Set 2019: no. 1

English-medium schools often find successful engagement with their Māori hapori and whānau challenging. This article endeavours to provide guidance to schools wanting to successfully and authentically engage with their Māori hapori and whānau. It suggests that adopting the pōwhiri ritual as the foundation of their whānau engagement strategy can considerably improve attendance at their hui. This article provides a framework which recognises the autonomy of schools to utilise the expertise of… Read more

This article describes one aspect of an 2 year inquiry project (August 2016–July 2018) which brought together 18 experienced teachers from four Christchurch secondary schools as well as teachers in the University of Canterbury’s transition programme (Student Transitions and Engagement) to collaborate and share ideas about discipline-specific literacy as a means of preparing students for successful tertiary transitions. The teachers came from a range of disciplines including mathematics,… Read more

Ongoing research-practice conversations between teachers and researchers have identified a practical tension faced by teachers of upper primary/early secondary students whose progress has slowed. Teachers report that a researcher-led push to develop more sophisticated readings of complex texts results in less reading mileage, potentially impacting negatively on students’ skills. This article proposes a T-shaped model for literacy instruction to mitigate these risks. We posit the hypothesis… Read more

This article outlines research in which six primary teachers were interviewed and asked to discuss their ability to identify giftedness in a range of domains. Teachers seemed more likely to identify giftedness in domains in which they perceived themselves to have a higher level of content knowledge. This small-scale study suggests that variations in individual teachers’ content knowledge may determine which students are or are not identified as gifted in a particular domain. Furthermore,… Read more

This research study explores the notions of cultural concepts of giftedness and talent within a Samoan-specific context. The focus of this article is on Samoan teachers of children who were enrolled in a bilingual education setting. It presents the perspectives of Samoan teachers around Samoan giftedness and talent and how these perspectives might be nurtured through Samoan bilingual education. The strong connections between education, language, and culture are explored and discussed. This… Read more

There are currently very few resources available in New Zealand for teaching mental health education (within the Health and Physical Education learning area). Outside providers are, however, offering different programmes for sale to schools (in areas such as positive psychology, mindfulness, and growth mindset). These tend to be individualistic, not to mention expensive. NZCER Press has, however, just published a new comprehensive teaching resource to help teachers of Years 7–11 to structure… Read more

The website of the New Zealand Institute of Wellbeing & Resilience (NZIWR) states that it is dedicated to increasing wellbeing for communities and organisations in Aotearoa New Zealand. Within education, its mission is to build whole-school wellbeing. Set contacted NZIWR to help give our readers insight into the research underpinning its activities. Co-directors Denise Quinlan and Lucy Hone put forward their recommendations for how schools and individual teachers can work to improve… Read more

A sense of belonging and wellbeing at school influences educational and health outcomes. Here we widen the traditional focus of Assessment News to focus on the use of student wellbeing data in schools. We discuss the Wellbeing@School (W@S) toolkit that is freely available to support schools to self-review as they examine and monitor student wellbeing (including measures of bullying) from the perspectives of teachers and students. Key findings from national-level W@S data, plus other New… Read more