Section
Commentary, critique, and advocacy from voices across the New Zealand education sector.
This section publishes opinion pieces on curriculum reform, education policy, equity, standardisation, political change, and the lived realities of school leadership. Contributors include principals, academics, sector commentators, and federation leadership writing in their own voice — not necessarily reflecting NZPF policy. Topics range from the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill to school culture, staff wellbeing, and the place of equity in curriculum design. Use this section to engage with the debates shaping education in Aotearoa, sharpen your own thinking on contested issues, and hear how colleagues are responding to the political and curricular pressures on schools.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Agency is, at least, two sided. I see it as the degree of freedom and opportunity – the “capability”, to use Martha Nussbaum’s term – you have as principal or tumuaki to act within your school community and in the schooling system as a whole. ‘At the time of writing’ (a necessary qualifier in this […]
The Google Doc that feels locked Imagine a Google Doc that holds your school’s curriculum and key priorities. In most schools, that document is alive. People copy it, comment on it, reshape it, and improve it. Some stay close to the original, others take it further, but the work gets better because professional judgement is […]
The summer break has a way of changing what we notice. When the relentless pace of school life finally eases – the meetings pause, the deadlines recede – space opens for a different kind of thinking. In one of those quieter moments, I found myself listening to Sir Scott Dixon talk about coming home to […]
In 2025, debates about the benefits or harms of our ‘once-in-a-generation’ classroom and system policy changes typically centred on competing claims of progress (by their proponents) or regress (by opponents). In such debates, progress is framed as inherently right and good, regress as inherently wrong and bad. Progress promises to take us ever closer to […]
Foreword from the President The Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill proposes a series of significant changes to the education system that encroach on our teachers’, principals’ and schools’ autonomy. This is not a collection of technical amendments. It is a fundamental reimagining of the relationship between government, educators, and communities; and it is […]
There is a diplomatic challenge that all tumuaki principals encounter from time to time during their ‘leadership of learning’ career. In essence, it is to balance one’s professional obligations as a senior schooling system public servant against those of a servant leader in one’s local education community. The challenge becomes most acute when government ministers, […]
I first became aware of the challenges of dealing with menopause in the workplace when I met Karen. She taught the new entrant class and was loved by kids and adults alike for her sense of humour and dedication to teaching. She was variously described as ‘hard case’ and a ‘bit of a dag’ and […]
In the USA, the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act aimed to hold teachers and schools accountable for their students’ outcomes by mandating standardised tests alongside high benchmark attainment standards. The American philosopher of education and former teacher and public schools curriculum developer, Nel Noddings, explained in the introduction to Happiness and Education in 2003, […]
Building Schools Where Background Doesn’t Dictate Destiny In Britain, I’m often introduced as the binman turned professor. It’s a story that surprises people, particularly in the country known for its rigid class system. But I share it wherever I speak with school and teacher leaders – because it speaks to a truth that sadly, applies […]
