Articles

This year Tararua College students have had some great success with their Big Bikkie project. The flexibility of the school curriculum helped these Tararua College students develop their skills and learning in a way very relevant to the world they will enter when they leave school.

Today’s job market brims with openings in every field from sound engineering and video post-production to fashion design and from coffee shop barista to teaching and plumbing. And today most people will not only change where they work more often than they did in the past, but will also change their occupation several times in their career.

There’s something in the Kiwi psyche that makes us fill with pride when we do well on the international stage. Think about Peter Jackson and King Kong, Michael Campbell and his sensational golfing achievements, Hayley Westenra’s musical success, fashion guru Karen Walker with her internationally renowned label and Chris Liddell, who moved from boss of Carter Holt Harvey to a top job in Microsoft.

In our schools, students from all ages, subjects and disciplines are taking on the rest of the world and making their mark.

The first years of a child’s life are packed with exciting discoveries.

Learning not only occurs rapidly but in ways that lay the foundations for learning over the rest of their lives.

Sunday 30 October is New Zealand’s sixth annual Children’s Day and throughout the country children, their families and whanau are celebrating and enjoying their day together.

World Teachers Day 5 October is an ideal time to think about those special people who supported our dreams and our interests and influenced us to become who we are today.

Your son or daughter’s school report is often a parent’s main window into their child’s school and education. But do parents and family find it easy to understand what those comments mean on school reports?

Each year some 55,000 children start school.

My work in New Zealand and my observations of other countries tell me we have an education system that is amongst the best in the world.

We live in an age where information is so central to what we all do.

Education is no different.

A big investment is being made in building a much stronger information base to everything that is happening in education.

Early childhood education is one of the busiest and most exciting areas involving the Ministry of Education at the moment.

Ask an adult what they remember about their school days, and it wouldn’t be uncommon to hear a story about a stand-out teacher who made a real mark on their life. We see these sorts of recollections in interviews with successful New Zealanders, and we often hear them from those who have since decided to become teachers.

These stories are very personal evidence of the difference a teacher can make to each and every student in our education system.