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.
School Lines Cutting the Mustard – or Swallowing the Custard? Wrong Systems? Wrong People? Lester Flockton lester.flockton@gmail.com Announcing the Tomorrow’s Schools reforms back in 1988, David Lange, Prime Minister and Minister of Education, famously quipped “Good people. Bad system.” when referring to the administration of education as it was prior to Tomorrow’s Schools. But the system […]
lester.flockton@gmail.com Teacher workload and its concomitant stressful effects problem. Primary educators are in a similar boat that has become on people’s lives, wellbeing, and work performance sits high in increasingly difficult to row. the line-up of issues that currently beset the profession. But stop! I do enjoy teaching, however the paper work is huge and […]
The Tomorrow’s Schools Taskforce consultation: What was that all about? Martin Thrupp Professor of Education at the University of Waikato The public meetings and submissions are over, the What could have caused these problems in the report and interviews and blogs and opinion pieces have all but ceased, consultation? Perhaps the reforming zeal of some […]
The challenge of thinking innovatively & restoratively . . . Helen Kinsey-Wightman Our CoL achievement challenges are approved and we have appointed our within school teachers – we have named them ‘manutaki’ after the lead birds in a formation. Their task is to mentor and support teachers in our school to refine their teaching practice […]
School Lines Rub-da-dub-dub. A hub or a snub? Lester Flockton lester.flockton@gmail.com We now have a report from a committee of nice people who have been able to independently give expression to their ideas, perspectives and biases around how our schooling system should be re-jigged amidst the now fashionable and often ill-informed knocking of Tomorrow’s Schools […]
General Manager Professional Services, Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand Initial Teacher Education (ITE) is one thing that most people in the sector have an opinion on, and rightly so. How we recruit, select and prepare teachers will shape our future profession, our education system and our communities. Back in July 2015, the then newly-appointed […]
As I write we are in the midst of an ERO review. Having heard from a number of effective school leaders recently about the damaging experience their recent review had been for staff, and particularly their leadership team, I had mentally set aside this column to reflect upon the trauma of education audits. Except that, […]
School Lines Why? The Limbics vs the Neocortecles Lester Flockton lester.flockton@gmail.com ‘Start with Why’ is the title of a global best seller and the Over the past decade or two, education and schools have been third most watched TED talk. The author and presenter is subjected to an almost constant stream of others’ bright ideas […]
Who are we looking after if we don’t look after ourselves? Helen Kinsey-Wightman At a social occasion recently I was speaking with a well respected primary school principal about the increase in high school students seeking support for anxiety within school and the lack of resources outside of school to support all but the most […]
School Lines Life after Death – but what kind of life? Changing something that was into something that is new – but how new? Lester Flockton lester.flockton@gmail.com The word ‘death’ conjures up dark and gloomy spectres of and achievement across the curricula, for students in the grim reaper. But in the context of this article […]
Valuing creativity over conformity Helen Kinsey-Wightman The importance of students being able to express their creativity has become very clear in my own experience in recent weeks. My eldest son goes to a boy’s high school where there is (as there should be) a strong emphasis on sport. Whilst he has always participated in team […]
lester.flockton@gmail.com Earlier this year, Chris Hipkins announced that the Government was to review the way our schools are led, managed, and interact with their communities. Unlike his predecessor, Hekia Parata, who misleadingly and untruthfully claimed that Tomorrow’s Schools hadn’t changed in 30 years, he correctly stated, Schools would no longer have to requisition things like […]
