Judgements of the work of school principals may be formal through an appraisal process or informal from students, teachers, parents, and members of the community in which the school operates. This article focuses on New Zealand rural primary school principals' experiences of informal expectations--and judgements about whether they meet these…

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…

Schooling territories are bounded spaces where policies, bodies, practices, and discourses meet and collide. It is well documented in assessment literature that students who are active decision-makers understand their learning processes and have the necessary wherewithal to access support across schooling spaces. These spaces are co-produced…

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…

Significant funding is devoted across the world to transforming traditional classrooms into flexible learning environments. These efforts are often motivated by a desire to create learning spaces attuned to twenty-first century competencies, which involve learning how to communicate, collaborate, think creatively, and how to become critical users…

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…

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…

As arts educators, we are concerned that the teaching and learning of the arts is remaining static within New Zealand primary school classrooms. Despite acceptance of research promoting the importance of arts education for students; a clear and valued arts curriculum in New Zealand since 2000; and, UNESCO policy strongly advocating for the role of…

This article reports on a joint research project across two countries, Germany and New Zealand, where there have been relatively successful measures in curbing the spread of the COVID-19 virus, though using somewhat different strategies given the different contexts with Germany being situated in centre of Europe and New Zealand being an island…

School efforts to engage parents are posited to influence whether and how they are involved in their children's schooling. The authors examined educators' engagement efforts in beginning reading, their subjective evaluations of engagement practices, and beliefs about parent involvement, in two stratified samples of New Zealand elementary school…

Advances in learning approaches can enhance deeper levels of mathematical thinking and engagement through the use of new digital environments and technologies. The growing utilisation of portable digital devices in schools has meant there are enhanced tools to support mathematical learning and understandings. This article focused on those who work…

The rise of innovative learning environments, with multiple teachers and larger cohorts of students, can de-privatise practice as teachers have the opportunity to observe each other teaching. However, they also provide the opportunity for collaboratively planning and teaching, and engaging in reflective dialogue about specific pedagogical…

This article presents case study research into a New Zealand primary school enacting a very sophisticated whole school inquiry approach to enhance teacher classroom professionalism and practice. A culture of inquiry manifests as an ontological 'way of being' in this school community, in the daily professional interactions between the teachers and…

In this literature review, the authors examined three key areas that were chosen as relevant to the challenges faced by small rural schools, and collaborative practice between schools working in virtual learning environments in New Zealand. The first area was rural education, where definitions of rurality and the demographics and characteristics…

Teacher efficacy influences what and how they teach. This may be particularly important to consider in Aotearoa New Zealand contexts where primary classroom teachers teach health and physical education and use physical activity breaks with little training. It remains unclear how classroom teachers perceive this role and how to better support them.…