The first three stages of the Competent Children research project looked at the study children at ages 5, 6, and 8. This next stage measures their performance at age 10 when they were in their fifth school year.

Because the study has followed the children over five years it has been possible to look at the relationships of earlier experiences and resources to children's current competency levels.

Among these are ...

A summary of the main report Competent Children At 6: Families, Early Education, and Schools. This part of the Competent Children study revisits the original group of 300 children, aged 6, after they have been at school for a year. How have the children's competencies changed? This book describes and analyses variations and changes in children's cognitive, social, communicative, and problem-solving competencies. It also examines the impact that children's ...

What makes a competent 5-year-old? This book gives a summary of the research report - Competent Children at 5. It highlights the impact, shown in the research findings, of the children's family resources and early childhood experiences on the development of their cognitive, social, communicative, and problem-solving competencies. Thought-provoking and very readable.

See also the full Competent children at 5 report

The third stage of the Competent Children project looked at what might be making a difference to children's competency scores at age 8. The analysis included some things children experienced at this age, such as the type of school they went to, their out-of-school activities, and their reading at home. It also included some experiences from the time before they started school, and from the time they were 6, such ...

Guest editorial in Itirearea Issue no.1 February 2006, p.1 and p.5

Recent New Zealand research suggests that students choose science subjects at school believing that these will lead into further learning and work pathways.  But do students get enough information at school to help them to navigate these pathways?

This article discusses an initiative called 'The Business of Science' which aimed to provide Year 13 students in the Waikato region with information about the direction of New Zealand's economy, and the future ...

Looks at the challenges for students involved in moving from primary or intermediate schools to secondary schools.   Draws on research from the longitudinal Competent Children / Competent Learners research project, age 14 findings.

The full journal article published in:

Middle Schooling Review, (New Zealand Association for Intermediate and Middle Schooling) Issue 2, November 2006. p. 26-28

A summary of the research report – Competent Children at 12

Cathy Wylie

The Competent Children project, funded by the Ministry of Education and NZCER, follows a group of about 500 New Zealand children from near age 5, when they were in early childhood education, through until they leave school.

This book gives a detailed summary of the main findings from the report of the fifth stage of the ...

This paper explores some of the more disturbing aspects of research on what was, at the time, the only state-funded alternative secondary school in New Zealand.

Throughout the five years of research, New Zealand's school inspectorate, the Education Review Office, publicly released a series of highly critical reports on the school which resulted in it being closed down.

The paper discusses some of the theoretical, political, and ethical implications of ...

The introduction of the National Certificates of Educational Achievement (NCEA), as the key school-based components of New Zealand’s National Qualifications Framework (NQF) has been accompanied by controversy around a range of issues.

It seems that much of the debate has centred on surface level symptoms, and has not probed the deep underlying causes of the tensions.

In this article I locate the assessment changes of the NQF/NCEA within the “knowledge ...