School Briefs: a Roadshow looking for purpose, ITE plans will take us backwards, Learning on Tap is on its way

Thank you Margaret STUART, Rana Hemi HUATA, and many others for tuning into my live video with Missy Morton and Jude MacArthur! Join me for my next live video in the app.

This roundtable discussion, organised by AEC and NZEI Te Riu Roa, brings together early childhood education spokespeople to examine the critical issues facing Early Childhood Education (ECE). Facilitated by Sarah Te One from the Child Rights Alliance and OMEP, the session focused on high stakes in the sector, including funding reviews, teacher pay parity, staffing ratios, privatisation impacts, and the bicultural curriculum of Te Whāriki. The event featured ECE spokespeople Jan Tinetti for Labour, Lawrence Xu-Nan for the Greens, and Naomi Pocock for The Opportunity Party (TOP). Following brief opening remarks on each party’s main priorities, the spokespeople addressed a series of quick-fire questions and community-submitted queries regarding cross-party consensus, the direction of ECE under the Coalition Government, and funding transparency. To unpack the discussion, former centre manager Allanah Clark shared her key takeaways on what was heard. The roundtable concluded with vital election reminders, encouraging viewers to check their enrolment details before the voting deadline and utilise policy scorecards to make an informed choice for tamariki and the ECE sector.

Join Dr. Sarah Aiono and Bevan Holloway for Episode 2 of Beyond the Headlines: Education, Evidence and Ideology. In tonight’s episode, Robyn Brown, Principal at Birchville School joins us to unpack the headlines around the NZCER Research Report on PAT results and learning data improvement. What do the findings from this report actually say? Can we claim that the government’s education reform has contributed to the reported shifts in progress? What is behind the headlines and what is fact and ideology?

New Zealand-produced resources for our New Zealand tamariki are fast becoming an endangered species. We have seen millions of dollars in contracts go to overseas publishers, often bypassing standard tendering processes. We’re a concerned group of educators with decades of experience working with New Zealand schools, and we have noted that currently the contract for the ongoing publication of the School Journal is only until June 2027. We are anxious that even if the Journal does continue, changes will be made that render this national taonga unrecognisable. What might we lose? What is it that makes the School Journal and associated publications, such as the Junior Journal and the Connected series so precious? Some key points are: * The School Journal development team brings together New Zealand writers, illustrators, subject specialists, educators, editors, and designers. Journals are carefully crafted to address the interests and learning needs of New Zealand students. No overseas publishers will have the same ability to authentically capture the unique languages, narratives, and cultural diversity of our nation. * The School Journal is renowned for the quality of its writing, with highly engaging instructional texts that are also used as models for writing. Contributors include some of New Zealand’s foremost writers, many of whom have launched their careers through writing for the journal. The variety of material within each issue of the Journal introduces students to a wide range of authors, styles, and genres, providing stepping stones to choices for wider personal reading. The School Journal and its accompanying teacher support material (TSM) are developed in accordance with international research about criteria for effective instructional design. These ensure, for example, that materials are engaging, have a clear instructional purpose, connect to students’ lives and prior knowledge, and are inclusive. * The School Journal is closely aligned with the New Zealand Curriculum, providing students with appropriate content and level of challenge to support their progress through the English learning area. The cross-curricular content within the School Journal also supports students to develop the disciplinary literacy and content knowledge they need beyond just the English learning area. * Critically, the School Journal remains, as it always has been, free to all New Zealand state schools. * Finally, the School Journal is highly adaptive, evolving from a traditional English-style reader in 1907 to today’s vital, culturally reflective, and bicultural educational resource. We like how these words in a history published by Archives New Zealand capture the essence of this amazing publication: The Journal has been a chameleon to the decades, but constants have been a local focus, a passionate long serving team of publishers and a focus on the child at the heart of every page. Read more in this brief paper about what it is that makes the School Journal and associated publications so precious. Are our worries justified? We would like to think that we are being over-anxious, but recent history tells us that precious things can be lost if we don’t pay attention. We know many other classroom resources are now being sourced from overseas and we do not want the School Journal to go the same way. At the moment the School Journal contract is to June 2027. We know it takes more than six months to produce a Journal so we are worried about what will happen after that. Want to get involved? Do you share our concerns about the future of the School Journal? Here are some ideas for action: * Follow us on Facebook * Watch this recording of Michele Whiting and Melanie Winthrop discussing our concerns, why they matter, and what we can all do about it. Remember that if you want to watch later, you can find it and other episodes on the AEC Substack. * Share your memories of the School Journal. Everything counts, even if it’s just sitting down with frie

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