Journal article

Inclusive education within New Zealand requires teachers to meet the needs of all students, including those with high or very high needs. The use of the individual education plan (IEP) is one tool that can support inclusive practice in classrooms through the collaboration of those supporting the individual student. This article reports on a small, mixed-method study that explored how schools could support their teachers to achieve a sense of teacher agency when planning and implementing IEPs. Results suggest schools need to consider personal and contextual factors such as a teacher's self-efficacy and 'voice' within the process, opportunities to collaborate, professional learning and development opportunities, and time to engage in the process effectively.

Guided reading is an established and important approach in the pedagogical repertoire of teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand. Despite evidence suggesting that a strong foundation of literacy learning must be built before introducing guided reading, early initiation to this most intensive form of reading instruction has become commonplace. This study examined the guided reading practices of three exemplary literacy teachers working with small groups of the most recent new entrants in their classes. Finely nuanced descriptions and analyses of the teachers' professional knowledge, pedagogical approaches, and student outcomes have significant implications for early literacy learning and teaching.

This article reports on a teacher-led inquiry at Mt Roskill Primary School from 2016 to 2017. Teachers worked with a group of Pasifika and Māori students to develop a learning environment and use pedagogies inspired by the makerspace movement. Data on students’ engagement and achievement levels indicated positive development in the key competencies, practical skills, and learning behaviours of these students. Through student voice we discovered what learning strategies were of benefit to these students. We can now plan another cycle of inquiry to expand the makerspace to benefit other student groups in the school and to transfer the findings and teaching strategies learnt through the makerspace inquiry into mainstream classrooms.

This article presents findings from a study focusing on ako in mathematics teaching in one English-medium secondary school classroom. The participants were a Year 9 class (22 ākonga with varying ethnicities and mathematics achievement levels) and their non-Māori kaiako, the researcher. Data were generated through surveys, discussions between ākonga and their kaiako, and reflective notes. Results indicated that drawing on literature and empowering student voice in the shaping of how ako was enacted helped to increase motivation and achievement in mathematics learning. Classroom management also improved as relationships with ākonga and whānau, grounded in ākonga worlds, developed. This article provides examples of how other kaiako can richly reflect ako in their own classrooms.

This article responds to increasing school and cross-sector interest surrounding culturally responsive pedagogy and the multiple ways that it is being discussed and understood. We try to bring clarity to how we have come to understand this term both as grounded in cultural relationships and as responsive to the prior knowledge and experiences of the students themselves.

With the upcoming review of the National Certificates of Educational Achievement (NCEA) and the removal of National Standards, it is time to reconsider how we approach assessment. In this edition of Assessment News I argue that it is time to put assessment for learning (AfL) and the assessment-capable teacher and student “front and centre”. We need to move from a preoccupation with summative assessment to an approach that promotes the powerful and agentic learning that is meant to be the heart of our national curriculum.

In a time of environmental crisis we need a language to speak for nature. In our TLRI project Tuhia ki Te Ao—Write to the Natural World, we have been working with teachers to develop “3D literacy” practices responsive to both culture and environment and located in a rich language and ecology of place. This article will discuss vignettes from two teachers in two schools who experimented with creating ecological units of work for their English classes. The analysis of these vignettes leads to recommendations for how critical literacy can become eco-critical literacy.