Evidence from the longitudinal Competent Children project is provided which shows the continuing contribution of early childhood education to children's competencies at age 10.  Among the New Zealand sample, children had higher average scores if they had 3 or more years of early childhood education in general.  The quality of their final early childhood education centre, particularly related to teacher-child interaction, also continued to show enduring associations with children's performance.  ...

This article analyses school funding trends in New Zealand since the 1989 decentralisation of education administration to school level. It looks at the extent to which school funding became based on formulae linked to student numbers and characteristics. It concludes that by 1998, New Zealand could be seen as having a quasi-voucher system.

The full journal article is published in:
New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 34 (1), 1998. p ...

The Assessment Resource Banks (ARBs) are computerised banks of assessment material that are available on the Internet.  They are linked to the current New Zealand curriculum statements in mathematics, science, and English.  This paper introduces the ARBs.  It is followed by a description of the diagnostic potential of the ARBs.  The final part is an interactive discussion of the diagnostic dimension of a selection of resources from the mathematics ARB ...

There is growing recognition of the importance of helping children to develop an ability to think about biological and environmental issues in terms of systems interactions and impacts.

Several progressions have been published that suggest how their conceptual understandings may develop over time. However these are not necessarily as informative for teachers as for researchers or specialist resource developers, nor do they take account of ‘moment in time’ interactions between ...

The challenge of school leadership succession and supply is a pressing reality for many western countries at the present time as a large number of the 'baby boomer' principals retire within the next five years. 

In New Zealand there is a looming crisis over both supply and quality of future leaders. 

This paper explains why quality is such a problem, and looks at how the heritage of New Zealand's particular ...

This article examines the place of environmental education/education for sustainable development (EE/ESD) in the school curriculum. Despite international calls for EE/ESD to form the pillar of a re-oriented approach to school curriculum, teaching, and learning, in most schools the principles of EE/ESD are poorly understood, and it occupies a marginal place in curriculum and teaching practice.

This article considers the “place” of EE/ESD in the New Zealand curriculum, and the ...

How we use contexts and the part we expect them to play in conceptual learning and in engagement with learning may need to be rethought, Rosemary Hipkins explained at the Science Education Research Symposium (SERS) in November 2009.

Is there actually a problem with keeping students engaged? How do we know? (What is our evidence?) What do we do about it? Why should we change? (What could happen if we don’t?) ...

This article gives a brief summary of the main findings of the literature review, Can vouchers deliver better education?. It covers competition between schools, consumer choice, student achievement, and cost.

The full journal article is published in:
Institute of Policy Studies Policy Newsletter, n.55, 1998. p. 13-15

Meet the "confident explorers".  They are young people who are engaged in various forms of study, training and employment in their first three years out of school.  Their commitment to their various pathways can only be described as short-term, yet they have a strong sense of purpose.  It's just that it's not a purpose aligned to a particular job or vocation.  Rather, they think in terms of being a particular ...

This paper explores the potential for using narrative pedagogy to help students develop a sense of connectedness to the conceptual science they are learning, and through that to develop an ethic of caring, both for the natural environment, and for their own learning.

The full journal article published in:
School Science Review,  86 (315), 53-58.