Journal article

Competition appears to have become increasingly discouraged in educational settings in New Zealand in recent years, with a push towards “protecting” our children from being constantly compared with others or experiencing failure. This article reports on a study that explored the lived experiences of gifted and talented young people from low socioeconomic backgrounds. These young people reflect on the role that competition and their competitive natures played in their talent development.

An integrated curriculum has not been a strong tradition within secondary schools. However, since the promotion of curriculum integration in the 2007 New Zealand curriculum, a growing number of secondary schools have begun to implement programmes to promote curriculum integration. This article outlines key findings from recent research into four “early adopter” secondary schools.

This article describes findings from a study concerning students’ experiences of being in-role as atmospheric scientists and discusses how these experiences facilitated learning about the Nature of Science. Twenty-seven Years 5 and 6 children, their teacher—recently returned to the classroom after a teacher fellowship experience in a local crown science research institute—and teacher educators participated in a drama inquiry process over 4 half days.

The current schooling system finds it difficult to truly engage Pasifika learners and bring out their inner giftedness. While Pasifika giftedness is recognised by Pasifika parents, families, and communities, it is not overtly visible in schools. This article supports teachers and schools to explore the notion of Pasifika giftedness. Pasifika learners are gifted when aspects of their cultures are highlighted.

Summer learning loss suggests that that students’ learning achievement drops over the summer holidays when they are not at school, especially those from low socioeconomic backgrounds. The purpose of the studies reported was to investigate the effect summer learning loss has on student achievement in the New Zealand context and to determine whether encouraging Year 3 students from both low- and high-decile schools to read self-selected books over the summer helped stem the summer slide.

The science education team at the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) has designed two new online student surveys, one for Years 0–4 and one for Years 5–10. They have just been loaded onto NZCER’s test platform, where they are currently free to try out.

Currently it is not mandatory for New Zealand high schools to have written policies on how they will respond to their pregnant and mothering students, despite education being a crucial factor in the later success of young mothers. This article explores existing barriers to, and supports for, pregnant and mothering students’ schooling engagement.