Articles in ‘Education’

Parents naturally want their children to feel special – but showering them with praise can sometimes do more harm than good Tom Howarth When most of us think of personality disorders, we imagine them springing from difficult childhoods – abuse, neglect or harsh environments. But narcissism is different. A growing body of research suggests that children can develop narcissistic traits at the *other* extreme of upbringing: when they’re…

Parents across New Zealand want schools to obey the law, drop the Treaty obsession, and return to their core job of lifting literacy and maths, not trying to run government policy from the classroom. Some teachers, principals, and Boards of Trustees have become so fixated on Treaty politics that they’ve turned classrooms into ideological battlegrounds. This loud faction is driving this trend, pouring time, training hours, and school resources…

NewstalkZB’s Mike Hosking says the country witnessed an extraordinary education result this week, but almost the entirety of NZ’s mainstream media chose not to report it. He describes watching the Prime Minister and Education Minister announce the findings of a nationwide maths acceleration trial involving 1,500 Year 7 and 8 students who were more than a year behind in maths. Two models were tested. The intensive, in-person support model saw…

From his twelve years at Christchurch’s Burnside High School to now twelve months at Pukekohe High School, Principal Richard Barnett has been leading his school into its new chapter and is feeling positive about its successes and the future. As a new leader, Richard has been transparent about his plans and changes for the school that starts with looking at the legacy of the school especially as it approaches its 100th year. He says it’s a team…

Untangling Learning-to-Read Myths In the past ten years, educational research has brought much clarity to what does, and doesn’t, support a young child to learn to read and write well. Before we explore some essential tools to help your child with this process, let’s untangle some common myths that can inadvertently derail the process. MYTH 1: Children learn to read in the same way they learn to talk Talking is hard-wired into our DNA.…