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Check out the apps I've created to support learning. They are free, and available on my website. There is one to support close reading.  It is focused on language features and their effects. It includes flashcards, and has a section that guides students in the writing of close reading paragraphs.  OPEN APP There is one for reflecting on learning. This guides the learner through a reflection process, with examples, and results in a learning story that can be saved as a PDF.  OPEN APP There is one to support learners who are stuck.  This focuses on the dispositional learning moves they can make. It is organised by eight subjects.  OPEN APP No tricks. No tracking. No log in. Full access.

There are so many things we, as educators, can agree on. Here is my go at that list: kids need to do  to learn; doing things with care means those things get done well, and this supports deep learning; it's hard to learn in a classroom that is chaotic; feeling comfortable, and even liking, those in the class helps learning; teachers, and the teaching they do, matters. When I think about my own practice, these are the guiding principles. But, and this is important, even within them there is scope for a variety of approaches and strategies to bring them to life. For those to work well, they must reflect who that teacher is. I remember a piece of advice I was given when I was first starting out as a teacher: go and observe as wide a range of teaching styles as possible, and then next lesson try and teach that way. Of course, this was back when there was less existential hyperbole about teaching approaches, and so it was accepted that variety was good and all had their pluses and minus...

This is the first Green I've read – why!?! I couldn't put it down, and so chewed through the 180 pages in a day. I found the control of narrative and characterisation superb, and the actual content – meddling American influence in Vietnam, in the late 1950s – prescient.  And when, late in the novel, our narrator, Fowler, says  He's a superior sort of journalist –– they call them diplomatic correspondents. He gets hold of an idea and then alters every situation to fit the idea I couldn't help thinking: this basically describes how people act on social media, screaming as they fit all things into their worldview. It is all very silly. However, there is are two problems with that statement, being 1) I too have fallen into that trap, long and often. And each time it, eventually, or even immediately, leaves me feeling empty, unloosed, and with a grating restlessness which I do not like, and 2) it is in itself quite possibly an example of the very issue it professes to diagno...

The Waitangi Tribunal has just released its Stage One interim report for the Education and Training Amendment Act (ETA) and Te Mātaiaho Urgent Inquiry.  It is solely focused on Minister Goldsmith’s reform work to downgrade the status of Te Tiriti in legislation. This came into scope because of the significant number of sections of the ETA that were included in this work. The findings are clear and damning. “We have found the Crown’s approach to the reforms has breached the treaty principles of partnership, active protection, and good government and caused prejudice to Māori. We recommend you correct course and immediately halt the advancement of the proposed amending legislation.” The report details how it came to that conclusion. Specifically, it found: The Crown did have a duty to engage meaningfully with Māori with regard to this issue. It did not. That despite having advice on how to develop a Treaty-compliant process, the Crown decided to pursue a course that was inconsistent ...

In response to questions put to her by Debbie Ngarewa Packer in the House today about the removal of Te Tiriti o Waitangi from the Education and Training Act, Erica Stanford made the following assertions: A process undertaken by Minister Goldsmith with regard to the Treaty Principles Bill came back with a conclusion that it was questionable for school boards to be delegated a core Crown duty — ie, to uphold their obligations under Te Tiriti. She took very seriously her requirement to uphold her core Crown duty to abide by the principles of the Treaty, and said “the core tenant of that is to raise Māori achievement”. Her Government has raised Māori achievement like no other, as proved by the early phonics data. The Delegation of Duty The Crown’s Duties in Education Phonics as Evidence I will deal with these assertions one by one. School boards are Crown entities, and so carry the authority of the Crown. The Waitangi Tribunal has found that there can be no delegation of authority without...

While it is usual for a Minister to be aware of the different iterations of a curriculum, it is unusual for a Minister to have input.  And yet, this is exactly what has happened with the English Years 7-13 curriculum. Has it happened with others? Erica Stanford, and her office, received a number of draft versions of this curriculum. This is typical. A Minister should be kept abreast of changes, including the rationale for them. But Stanford has reached beyond this process into atypical Ministerial actions.   We know, thanks to an  Education Report , that around 10 February 2025 Stanford's office requested changes to the version of the senior English curriculum sent to her in early February. What those changes were I have yet to find out, as Stanford has told me she has no record of them.  However, I have found out that Stanford also received copies of the draft senior English curriculum on 14 and 27 March. This is significant. In an   OIA response , Stanfor...

If there was ever any doubt about who was calling the shots regarding the curriculum rewrite, Michael Johnston made it clear on 4 April, 2024. Elizabeth Rata had had her curriculum writing team organised from 23 March, including the venue (Auckland Grammar). But they hadn't been able to get started because they needed Stanford to accept the MAG's report and recommendations, which doesn't happen until 5 April. So, there is a sense of frustration in Johnston's email on 4 April to Anya Pollock at the Ministry: "I’m at the NZ Initiative retreat … I understand that it’s the Ministry’s job to put together the writing groups, but they need to do so in consultation with key MAG members. In the case of subject English, that means Elizabeth." The next day, Stanford accepts the MAG's recommendations, while she is at the NZ Initiative retreat. Who is in charge here? This is a clear case of an advisory group exceeding its statutory authority and seizing control of a go...

Today, I had confirmation in an  OIA response  that Learning First, a education consultancy based in Collingwood, played a key role in the development of our national curriculum docs. They provided “insights” to help the Ministry with international benchmarking. Little more detail was provided, but I do wonder why our Ministry did not have that capability in-house, given the extensive curriculum develop process it has been going through for the last 5 years. And I do wonder about the procurement process here. Were the services of Ben Jensen’s company procured under urgency, as the maths textbooks were? It gets worse. When you visit Learning First’s  website , what you find is a small consultancy that has produced a few reports and offers programs for “teachers, school leaders, and system leaders”. Has our Minister signed up to a PLD course? It will not surprise you to learn that Learning First advocate for a knowledge-rich curriculum based in the science of learning. It i...

Amidst the propaganda blitz that Stanford has launched on the education sector, it might seem finicky for me to keep brining up issues around process. Surely, if Stanford’s arguments are right and a structured, knowledge-rich, assessment-driven system will solve the crisis she has diagnosed, then it really doesn’t matter how it’s put in place? In fact, given the urgency she has told us exists, isn’t it best to get the approach in place as fast as one can? – the ends justify the means. That is exactly the argument Ministry leaders have used in select committee. But what do you expect from those with power when they are making decisions that affect you and those you love? Do you expect them to listen to a wide range of evidence and experts? Do you expect them to engage with multiple perspectives? Do you expect them to follow proper processes? Because if you do expect these for yourself, you better defend them regardless of who is in office, and regardless of their policy programme. Stanf...

Just think, English teachers of Aotearoa New Zealand: there was a March 2025 version of the rewritten senior English curriculum that didn’t fully embrace Rata’s determination to “end decolonisation’s success”. That version instructed you to help students explore Aotearoa New Zealand perspectives, and said you must include Māori and Pacific authors in your teaching programme. But that version is not the one we saw . We were asked to consult on a version where the stipulation to include Māori and Pacific authors was erased, as was the word perspectives: instead, students are to understand Aotearoa New Zealand, not Aotearoa New Zealand perspectives. In their place, you were told you must teach Shakespeare and 19th century texts. Someone made these changes just before it went out for consultation. Who was it, and how aware was the Minister? What we do know is Elizabeth Rata was involved in writing the curriculum, and was so pleased with the final document that she wrote to the Minister in ...