Latest issue
This issue of NZ Principal includes some heavy topics tackled head-on, alongside plenty of warmth, celebration, and excitement about the future. It’s a mix that reflects the job of a principal itself: serious one moment, absurd the next, but always hugely gratifying. In this term’s photo essay, Curating Classic Photos, PhotoLife Director Greg Chadderton delves […]
Every principal reading this will recognise the feeling. You’ve barely bedded in one change when the next one lands. A new curriculum document. A new assessment expectation. A new reporting requirement. A new timeline that someone decided was ‘achievable’ without ever standing in front of 30 children on a cold and wet Tuesday morning. Speaking […]
Newlands Primary is a school that is proud of its whakapapa and excited about its future. Celebrating 120 years in 2026, principal Shirley Porteous has marked the occasion with a new book, The History of Newlands Primary School. What started out as a “wee principal’s project” in 2020 transformed into a massive, multi-year endeavour that […]
In a quiet corner of Aotearoa on 10 July 2026, a principal, like many across the motu, stood at the edge of the school field as the final embers of the community Matariki hāngi faded into the night. Behind them, children laughed, whānau lingered, and staff packed up with a sense of calm satisfaction and […]
Our official curriculum is once again a site of major ideological differences in Aotearoa. We have been here before, of course — many times — but whether today’s political and curriculum policy actors have learned from our history of attempted curriculum reforms is another matter altogether. Let’s look into it. Many lessons from curriculum reform struggles of […]
This year’s Rural Teaching Principals Conference was held in late May in Auckland. Around 300 leaders from some of New Zealand’s smaller schools and kura delved into the unique issues these principals face while navigating the choppy seas of the current education environment. NZPF President Jason Miles – who started his principal career at View […]
It’s the conversation no school leader ever wants to have, but many principals and senior leaders at some point find themselves sitting alongside parents who have just lost a child. In my difficult conversations workshops, I stress the importance of using what I wrote about in Term 2 called the three Rs message. This is […]
Privacy is no longer a peripheral compliance issue for schools. With recent changes to the Privacy Act 2020 introducing new obligations around the indirect collection of personal information, PASL recommends boards and principals review their policies and procedures to ensure they are best placed to respond to information requirements. Privacy and official information act requests […]
We started the school year later than usual, so Term 1 was only eight weeks long and felt like a crazy sprint. Term 2 was 11 weeks and felt like a gruelling ultra marathon. A post on the Principal’s Facebook page asked if the wheels had been falling off for everyone towards the end of the […]
Emma Barnaby smiled as she watched Marcus negotiate the bike slalom course she had set up for the children on the back field. He could just reach the pedals on the bike that had been handed down to him from his older brother who had grown too big for it. “He was crawling at five […]
The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction By Meghan Cox Gurdon The Enchanted Hour highlights the transformative social, neurological, and emotional benefits of reading aloud within families. Backed by neuroscience and behavioural research, Meghan Cox Gurdon demonstrates how shared reading can be a remedy for modern digital distractions, […]
