by Rebecca Thomas My SMART data for my class of thirteen trauma-affected students tells me everything I need to know about this new (not new) NCEA replacement announcement. When you spend every day inside a real classroom with children whose lives do not fit inside assessment rubrics, phased expectations, attendance percentages, or national consistency measures, you start realising how little these systems actually understand about the future they are trying to control. The c

by ELV My Kids Taught Me This How do you make tamariki who don’t trust adults, learn to stay? When you split a trauma class that had bonded more deeply to each other than they ever had to the adults around them, the experiment begins. Monday Multiple roaming ākonga. In and out of rooms. Hands slapping together in loud “wassup” greetings every time a familiar face passed the window. Kids halfway through tasks suddenly pulled by the gravity of each other again. I spy the pack b

by ELV Supporting students is ‘wasteful spending’… until the country starts wondering why all its graduates left. Nicola Willis has now confirmed that 2026 will be the final year of the fees-free university scheme. Just like that. A scheme thousands of students planned their futures around is now being scrapped, after years of telling young people that relief would come at the end of their studies. And I genuinely cannot get over the hypocrisy of this Government anymore. We w

by ELV It is truly fascinating watching Erica Stanford attempt to simultaneously be: the calm listener, the unstoppable reformer, the misunderstood genius, the victim of “wild claims,” and the only adult brave enough to “fix” education… all before morning tea. Honestly, it’s becoming less Minister of Education and more Jekyll and Hyde Minister. One minute we are told: “We’re listening carefully to feedback.” The next: “People clearly haven’t even read the curriculum.” One min

by Rebecca Thomas I was staring at the stained artex ceiling of a tired 70s conference room, trying to gather something that looked like enthusiasm for my third Ministry PLD session of Term 2. But my default setting — the one that scans quietly for risk, for impact, for what this will mean for the tamariki sitting in front of me tomorrow — was already wide awake. Mentioning Australia in the first ten minutes wasn’t ideal. Not because Australia is the problem, but because we a

By Rebecca Thomas The Island We Taught On I don’t think people understand what has been lost, because what has been lost was never easily written down in the first place. It didn’t live in policy or frameworks or tidy progressions. It lived in the feeling of a day that unfolded the way learning is meant to — slow where it needed to be slow, expansive where it needed to be expansive, and always, always anchored in the lives of the tamariki in front of you. When I first came t

by Rebecca Thomas Ginny — will you listen? As the change of government begins to gather pace again, I’ll be honest — I feel uneasy. Many of us grew familiar with Willow-Jean Prime and the deliberate way she sought to stand alongside an exhausted workforce. She worked to understand it — not perfectly, but visibly. And now, we are left with Ginny Andersen. I don’t know her well. And maybe that’s part of the problem. Because from where I stand — I’m not yet convinced she fully

By Rebecca Thomas Herald News: Education leaders unite against curriculum shake-up, urge delay Oh my goodness… what a surprise. Surprised. Erica Stanford says she is “genuinely surprised” by claims from the sector — surprised about resourcing, surprised about pressure, surprised at the pushback. How can you be surprised… when the so-called “noisy” sector hasn’t exactly been whispering? All along this hasn’t been a quiet murmur tucked away in staffrooms between bells. Instead,

by ELV Prepare. Don’t panic. I have to say — I admire the consistency. For the past two years, we’ve watched a masterclass in how to create a crisis in our education system. Reading levels are dropping while writing isn’t where it should be. International comparisons get pulled out — PISA suddenly becomes dinner table conversation. It’s urgent our kids are failing. The education system is in trouble. Then comes the solution. Back to basics with structured approaches, an hour

by Rebecca Thomas Many of us watched the live proceedings of the Waitangi Tribunal this week. Not half-listening while the day moved on around us. But properly. The kind of listening you have to do that makes you stop what you’re doing. Although nothing shared was new, hearing it gathered — all at once, in one space — was deeply confronting. As kaiako, as leaders, as those who walk alongside our tamariki each day, we were not shocked. Because if you know your history, this st

by ELV I’ve been sent screenshots from Auckland group pages this week. Feeds that suddenly have a lot to say about our schools, our teachers, and our people. If you look at what is happening up north to Mayor Moko Tepania this event is not isolated. It is not random. And it is not harmless. It is social media being used to shape perception. FNDC Mayor Moko has been victimised. And I am proud he has stood up to the kind of rhetoric that leans into division, into race, into che

by ELV From our Minister's mouth Why is it acceptable for our Minister of Education to accuse the profession of “fudging numbers” — while reshaping the narrative herself? Because that’s what happened this week. On Mike Hosking Breakfast, the Minister dismissed concern about the SMART tool as: “a bumbling attempt at some kind of weird political hit job” She accused the sector — including the Aotearoa Educators Collective and Liam Rutherford — of “fudging the numbers.” That’s

by Rebecca Thomas I don’t usually buy into the Mad Max, end-of-oil, dystopian futures people throw around. I’ve never been one to spiral on that stuff. There’s always been too much right in front of me — kids, classrooms, behaviour, kai, the real mahi — to sit around imagining collapse. But something about last night made me dwell on what might become, or what is actually coming. Maybe it was the clip my son sent . Maybe it was just having a rare pocket of space to actually

by Rebecca Thomas SMART tool — where am I at? Apparently 1,057 schools have signed up. Roughly half the country. I imagine most of those will be School A ( see previous post ) — the ones who will make it work because they always do. The ones who will align, adapt, and absorb whatever lands on their desks without needing to ask too many questions. But not all sign-ups tell the same story. And little did Erica Stanford know, some of us didn’t sign up because we believed in it.

For a school that says “yes” — Te Tai Tokerau by Rebecca Thomas We are looking for a Year 5–6 kaiako. A team leader. This is not a glossy type of job ad. To be honest, I don’t think teaching is, anymore. I also have no doubt this advert in our current teacher shortage could fit more than just our kura as I write this. There are no stock images of smiling children with sharpened pencils and perfectly displayed learning intentions on our website. Nothing you might see on polish

by ELV “It’s important that we get the reform of secondary school qualifications right… we will continue to engage with the sector.” That’s what Erica Stanford says . Engage. Please stop using that word, Erica. The sector did engage when you made the last dumb announcement. We wrote submissions and signed petitions. We spoke passionately. We warned. We wrote letters. We implored her not to rush this. We said “stop” — don’t dismantle a system, it just needs repair. And what ha

by Rebecca Thomas Hoops Being a SENCO, Erica — do you even know what that is? And if you do… what does it mean to you? “I didn’t ask for this.” My son’s favourite line — delivered with absolute conviction — came the day we discovered his homework tucked neatly into the curtain by the front door. A masterstroke, really… insulation meets avoidance. When your brain runs on an ADHD current, sometimes the quickest solution isn’t doing the task — it’s relocating the problem. As adu

by Rebecca Thomas Term 2 is coming. And with it, a new way of being seen. A colour-coded system. Designed, we are told, to bring clarity. But clarity for who? Because for those of us already ostracised by society — already excluded from funding, from support, from the quiet benefits others don’t even realise they have — this doesn’t feel like clarity. It feels like exposure. It feels like a colour-coded league table for communities who have already been measured, judged, and

by Rebecca Thomas Just under three weeks remain until the end of Term 1. Recently I listened as Claire Amos and Liam Rutherford described the landscape and mood of educators in their communities. As they spoke, I immediately wanted to join the kōrero and write a comment. But my comment was too long, my kōrero too disjointed. I needed time to think. There is an apathy growing in the sector. Not the careless kind people sometimes accuse teachers of. Not indifference. Something

by Rebecca Thomas Oh Minister, Minister — where art thou dignity, Minister? The whole sector — minus the government’s own echo chamber — already knows what Erica really thinks of teachers. We’ve seen it in the tone, the speeches, the little barbs tossed into interviews. We’ve heard it between the lines every time teachers dare to say that supporting children properly might require… well… support. And heaven forbid we mention Te Tiriti while we’re at it. Because apparently sta