Literacy policy and pedagogy in Aotearoa New Zealand have a strong discursive heritage of traditional literacies, which emphasise code breaking and meaning making with linguistic codes and conventions over other possible modes of communication. In a rapidly evolving landscape where changes in communication technologies give birth to new literacies…

The issue of behaviour management is one that is consistently reported as a concern facing teachers in today's classrooms. This study, which surveyed 110 teachers of Year 1 to Year 4 students, examined the behaviour management training teacher respondents had received both pre-service and inservice, as well as the behaviour management strategies…

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…

A digital dilemma has emerged in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in which student teachers' (STs) confidence and competence to use actively digital pedagogy has been undermined by a mismatch between digital expectations and the reality of programme experience. This mismatch has a potentially negative impact on a ST's ability to develop confidence…

Whilst globally there has been a great deal of discussion and rhetoric regarding the state of physical education at the primary level, there is a paucity of evidence regarding teachers' perceptions of quality physical education in practice. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to explore and interpret primary school teachers' perceptions of…

While policy debate is often focused on the whole teaching profession, primary and secondary teachers differ in more ways than one. While all countries require teachers to have at least a bachelor degree to enter the profession in primary or lower secondary education, the structure and content of the programmes vary and are less geared towards…

This paper argues that process drama is a productive pedagogy with multiple affordances for multiliteracies. We describe an exploratory study in which two teachers from a rural New Zealand primary school used process drama pedagogy in the literacy programme. Analysis of the initial and exit teacher interviews, lesson transcripts and transcripts of…

Schools are now situated within a dominant public policy regime that is demanding compliance and standardisation, at a time when the achievement of success for all students demands a capacity at the school level to design and deliver an approach that embeds "an ongoing process of professional learning for teachers" (Caldwell, 2014, p.…

As part of a project exploring the use of challenging mathematical tasks, data from New Zealand teachers and their students were analysed to explore teachers' actions that encouraged students to persist. Rather than rescuing the students when they needed help, the teachers' actions included arranging for and encouraging students to work…

Background: In Aotearoa New Zealand, as it is internationally, there is a desire to ensure physical education is inclusive of all students regardless of their abilities. Yet, medical discourses associated with disability continue to position students who are perceived as not having the capacity to participate fully in traditional physical…

Current curriculum demands require primary teachers to teach about the Nature of Science; yet, few primary teachers have had opportunity to learn about science as a discipline. Prior schooling and vicarious experiences of science may shape their beliefs about science and, as a result, their science teaching. This qualitative study describes the…

Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) allows researchers to determine whether a research inventory elicits similar response patterns across samples. If statistical equivalence in responding is found, then scale score comparisons become possible and samples can be said to be from the same population. This paper illustrates the use of…

This paper identifies a range of positions and perspectives that impacted on New Zealand beginning primary (elementary) generalist teacher's preparedness to teach music in relation to: government policy, curriculum and Graduating Teacher Standards requirements; and teacher educators' and school principals' expectations of them. The complex web of…

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…

Primary teachers in New Zealand schools are required to teach dance education as part of a balanced classroom programme. This responsibility requires that teachers have positive beliefs about their own competence and capabilities to teach dance to achieve desired outcomes for their students. This article presents qualitative findings from a…