Emotional literacy is at the heart of effective educational leadership. It supports organisational culture and change management, as well as teaching and learning outcomes. The research reported in this article was designed to help explain emotional literacy and its influence on school culture. Interviews with four primary school principals about…

All children in Aotearoa New Zealand have the right to enrol in and receive a quality, inclusive education. Despite this, a recent report by the Education Review Office (ERO, 2022), the government's external education evaluation agency, identified numerous ways in which disabled akonga are excluded from and within the education system. This…

While the terms student-centred and learner-centred are used to describe a range of neo-liberal educational policies and practices around the world, the meaning is not clearly defined. This limits its utility as a concept in policy, research and practice. This article applies abductive reasoning to explore how student-centred education is…

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…

This article illustrates how schooling Innovative Learning Environments (ILE) deploy a future-focused imaginary for a perfectly self-managing society. New building design, coupled with this imaginary, creates possibilities for new ecologies of practices in which there are reframed relationships and pedagogical opportunities. We use the theory of…

Effective school leadership is widely acknowledged as having a positive impact on student achievement. However, there appears to be no deliberate process to sustain New Zealand principals' effectiveness throughout their careers. This article discusses the views of current and former New Zealand secondary school principals about their complex role…

In inclusive education, Disability Studies is a framework that has been useful for identifying gaps in theory, in practice and the spaces in between. Disability Studies in Education also provides new spaces in which to manoeuvre, re-framing theory, reflecting on and (potentially) shifting practice in classrooms, schools, and national policies and…

This article speaks to classroom reality issues that may supersede any ideals, funding and expectations. We document a journey regarding the implementation of arts integration for six teachers in a small rural school in New Zealand. Arts Integration is a pedagogical approach to teaching and learning that employs arts activities to teach concepts…

A key features of the globalised environment of the twenty-first century is that populations across a range of societies have become more diverse in culture, heritage and identity. In turn, this has led to further emphasis on the teaching of cultural understanding in schools, as exemplified by the Australian Curriculum and their equivalents in…

School-based management (SBM) remains a "hot topic" in educational circles. This article explores the reality of SBM internationally. It focusses on the perceptions of selected Australian public secondary principals who reflect on the drivers and impediments affecting their capacity to lead school-based innovation. While broadly…

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…

The teacher workforce could be better prepared to cater to the learning needs of special needs students. The low percentage of teachers reporting a positive impact from their professional development signals that there is more to be done regarding the quality of the training offered in special needs education. Also, allocating more experienced and…

The importance of the principal's role in improving student learning outcomes has been acknowledged, however, there is global concern about the availability of appropriate professional learning for principals. This article explores the impact on host principals of a shadowing and mentoring intervention designed to prepare New Zealand aspiring…

Every 3 years the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) surveys principals, teachers, trustees, and parents at a random sample of English-medium primary schools to provide a national picture of what is happening in teaching and learning. This allows comparisons and tracking of how things change over time. This report presents many…

Examining practice, within education, is complex and never straightforward. It is not a surprise that when we conduct research, we discover new and contrary meanings. For the last 16 months we have been examining different means for supporting teaching and learning of the arts in primary schools. Our aim was to better understand how to teach the…