Set: Open access articles for COVID-19 times

What an intense start to the school year. It has been breathtaking to witness the pace of education’s reponse to COVID-19. I have been especially struck by the caring, commitment, and professionalism demonstrated by teachers across Aotearoa.

Hats off to all teachers and whānau who have adopted and adapted to the new dance of learning. In my home two children began with empty dance cards, soon to be filled by their teachers, parents, friends on Zoom, and online options already in… Read more

COVID-19 relevance: Post-crisis / school closures

New Zealand has faced an unprecedented series of disaster events in recent years. The Canterbury earthquakes provided an opportunity to document the role that schools played in supporting their communities to respond to and recover from such events. It is important that we capture what we have learnt from these experiences to help other schools in the future. This article discusses the researcher’s experience of… Read more

COVID-19 relevance: Post-crisis / school closures

This article stems from a 2016 research project that examined the leadership experiences of 20 primary principals in greater Christchurch. The study was based on the belief that the nature of successful leadership needs to change in a post-disaster setting. The article focuses on what principals learned about leadership from these experiences, highlighting the stories of four participants. The findings indicate that… Read more

This article presents the thoughts of six teachers asked to reflect on their experiences planning for and delivering school-led learning from home opportunities during Aotearoa New Zealand’s COVID-19 Alert Levels 3 and 4 lockdown at the end of the first term and beginning of the second term 2020. What comes through is the efforts that these teachers made to keep connected with their students, the ways in which they prioritised student wellbeing ahead of formal learning, and the support that… Read more

COVID-19 relevance: Post-crisis / school closures

Christchurch-based science advisers Sabina Cleary and Carmen Kenton, from Kaha Education, talk about their experiences of supporting teachers during the COVID-19 lockdown. Insights from their eperiences during a previous crisis guided them during COVID-19. They share their thoughts about useful learning to take forward as school life resumes.

COVID-19 relevance: Engaging learning at home / cultural setting

As a result of COVID-19 and the government’s measures to control it, Term 2, 2020 began with New Zealand school students learning from home rather than at school. This article reports on the results of a survey that explored the experiences of some parents of Māori and Pasifika students during their first week of this school-led learning at home (Riwai-Couch et al., 2020). It uses some direct content… Read more

COVID-19 relevance: Post-crisis / school closures

A summary of Carol Mutch’s research into the role of schools in disaster response and recovery highlights the expectations that are placed on schools following a crisis. Her research shows that school staff undertake these extra demands willingly and conscientiously, despite the toll that it takes on their own health and wellbeing. In this article she first outlines the typical process that responses to a disaster or… Read more

COVID-19 relevance: Post-crisis / school closures

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted some traditional assessment practices and drawn attention to the range of evidence students produce in their day-to-day learning. In this edition of Assessment News, Charles Darr and Rosemary Hipkins argue that using this evidence to make sound summative judgements requires a robust understanding of what it means to make a valid judgement, along with a clear commitment to… Read more

School principals were required to engage in crisis leadership throughout New Zealand’s first COVID-19 Alert Level Four lockdown that began in March 2020. Eighteen school principals from a range of secondary schools were interviewed about their experiences and the findings of this study are discussed in relation to the leadership capability framework. This research reveals that principals acted with empathy in prioritising wellbeing over learning, demonstrated community responsiveness by… Read more

COVID-19 relevance: Wellbeing

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… Read more