This paper draws on the insights gained from documenting the journeys undertaken by six Normal Schools as they integrated the new Key Competencies (KCs) framework from the draft revised curriculum into their teaching and learning programmes.

This paper discusses some of the challenges the schools faced. The issues explored include:

• creating a shared understanding of the KCs between staff and students
• creating space to foreground the KCs
• findings ways to ...

This NZARE conference paper summarises the results of a small-scale, exploratory study which was designed to include around 6 families from each of 5 ethnic groups (Cook Islands, Niue, Samoan, Tokelauan, and Tongan).

The intention was to provide an account of the experiences of children, parents, and teachers focusing on language and other aspects of children's move from Pacific Islands early childhood centres into English-language primary schools.

Paper presented at ...

Teaching approaches which support the development of students’ “critical thinking” skills, and the use of socioscientific contexts for learning, have both been advocated as necessary and desirable directions for secondary school science education.

In 2004 we were asked to evaluate a teaching resource, distributed to all New Zealand secondary schools, which aimed to support both these approaches at Year 10 level.

We found low levels of uptake and use of ...

Developing a sense of agency as a learner is at the heart of Self-Regulated Learning (SLR).  If students in mathematics are going to become self-regulated learners they need to be confronted with opportunities that allow them to reveal their thinking and to observe and emulate the thinking of others.  In what follows we begin by introducing SRL and exploring its connection with mathematics education.

In our small-scale classroom study, two ...

This paper draws from a background paper prepared for the Ministry of Education: School-based curriculum development: Principles, processes, and practices.

The term "school-based curriculum development" (SBCD) had great currency in 1970s and 1980s educational literature. However, in many countries the term dropped out of use during the late 1980s/early 1990s.

In the 1970s and 1980s, SBCD was seen as a solution to many of the problems of school ...

This paper arose out of the presenter's ongoing research into understanding how schools develop and become effective, as well as from their case studies of 10 NZ schools.  It also outlines recent government policy changes and their possible effects on school improvement.

Paper presented at the New Zealand Association for Research in Education (NZARE) conference, Palmerston North, 5-8 December 2002.

The New Zealand Council for Educational Research provides a Test Advisory Service to its clients.  The service provides information and advice on issues related to assessment to a range of test users from business, educational, health, vocational, and other settings.  Data about this group and their information needs have been gathered only in a fragmentary and ad hoc manner.  The present survey intended to obtain information about the practices and ...

Between June 2002 and June 2003 a Ministry of Education research project was undertaken to investigate current practice and future possibilities for environmental education (EE) policy and practice in New Zealand schools. The research included three components: a review of New Zealand and international literature in EE, a survey of nearly 200 schools involved in EE, and case studies of environmental education practices in eight primary, intermediate and secondary schools ...

Paper prepared for the International Symposium on Creation of Schools for the 21st Century, Tokyo, Japan, 12 March 2002.
Outline of the New Zealand experience

Parental and community involvement in schools - opportunities

and challenges for school change

Paper prepared for the International Symposium on Creation of Schools

for the 21^st Century

Tokyo, 12 March 2002.

Robyn Baker

Director

New Zealand Council for Educational Research ...

The development of teachers’ knowledge and understandings about effective classroom assessment strategies depends on the roles played by initial teacher education (ITE) providers, the employing schools, tutor teachers and other colleagues. For beginning teachers this is learning to satisfy professional, school and systemic needs to improve learning outcomes for children. Many teachers are currently overwhelmed by the demands of classroom assessment. This makes the induction of beginning teachers in classroom ...