Many studies claim the importance of goal-setting for school improvement but few outline specific practices. This study highlights specific goal-setting practices associated with successful school improvement efforts. It reports on a 2-year collaborative research project, which closely examined three principals' goal-setting practices in the…

Early childhood teachers' professional learning and development (PLD) is a significant factor in the provision of quality early childhood education (ECE), yet gaining a full picture of PLD in the New Zealand ECE context is problematic. Information about government-funded PLD programmes is available through evaluations, however, teachers access PLD…

Around 600 schools have used the free, research-based Teaching, School and Leadership Practices (TSP) survey since it was first offered in 2017. This brief report is based on interviews with 10 principals who've used TSP three years in a row. The report shows the principals find it informs their own development and appraisal, identifies priorities…

All teachers require professional learning throughout their careers to ensure they are effective practitioners. This article reports on outcomes from a doctoral study that explored the impact of teachers transitioning between primary school year levels. The findings suggest that transition can have a significant impact on teachers' professional…

Dominant discourses on professional development for teachers internationally are increasingly geared to the priority of ensuring individual teachers are meeting prescribed standards-based performance benchmarks which we call "performativities" in this paper. While this intent is invariably played out in individualised performance…

Societal, governmental, and research expectations of universities in contemporary western society have led to increasing calls for teacher professionalism and accountability as well as research excellence and research-informed teaching. Consequently, demands on academic staff development continually emerge, which academics may view as oppressive.…

Postgraduate study provides teachers with opportunities to become critical consumers of research as well as generators of their own knowledge, enabling them to fulfil the mandate of teaching being a research informed and evidenced based profession (Robinson, 2003). This article pays attention to 18 practicing teachers' reasons for undertaking a…

The purposes of professional experience within initial teacher education programs are varied (Russell, 2005). However, there is limited literature explaining (a) university-based teacher educators' beliefs about its purposes and (b) how these purposes are reflected in practice. This study investigated these themes. A pragmatic mixed-method…

What is the evidence that teachers who return to learn more mathematics are better teachers? Over more than a decade we have been involved in six different projects giving teachers the opportunity to reengage with mathematics. We have returned to them to ask the teachers about the long-term impact and to give us examples. The result extends…

Within Aotearoa/New Zealand primary schools, External Providers (EPs) have steadily increased their influence on physical education. The purpose of this study was to explore and interpret classroom teachers' perspectives of EPs in their primary school. The research team obtained questionnaire responses from 487 classroom teachers from 133…

The importance of educational practices based on evidence is well-supported in the literature, however barriers to their implementation in classrooms still exist. This paper examines the phenomenon of evidence-based practice in education highlighting enablers and barriers to their implementation with particular reference to RTLB practice.

The author has worked as a language teacher, teacher educator, and second language acquisition (SLA) researcher for over forty years. During this time grammar has figured largely in his thinking, in part because it has traditionally been so central to language pedagogy and in part because he became fascinated with how the human mind grapples with…

This study examines the perceptions of teachers and other professionals of Team-Teach behaviour support training in New Zealand. Analysis of course evaluations, questionnaires, interviews and documents provide the findings. Comparisons are made with Team-Teach training in the UK and similarities and differences between New Zealand training…

This article presents a case study of a unique New Zealand professional development programme, Te Kotahitanga, for mainstream secondary school teachers. Findings discussed are drawn from an independent evaluation of the programme across 22 secondary schools. The professional development approach attempted to reposition the relationship between…

The way in which behaviour is perceived and managed by teachers can influence the classroom environment. The current study examined teachers' perceptions of the cause of school behavioural problems and the effectiveness of positive behavioural interventions. It also examined the level of formal training participants have received in behaviour…