by ELV Give this guy a medal...oh wait he already has one! For nearly two years we've been told New Zealand education has one big problem. Teachers just weren't teaching the right way. It was all too "balanced". Added to that, the curriculum was too vague and assessment wasn't rigorous enough. The science was being ignored. (Cue stamping feet and an exaggerated pout.) The solution, we were assured, was obvious. Rewrite the curriculum (several times over). Better still, get i

by ELV Sometimes an email from a stranger jogs your memory about all of the promises, the redirected funds and the wonderful things that were supposed to happen for children as a result of jobs being defunded and specialist services being dismantled. This particular email reminded me that reality doesn't seem to fit the story we've been told. Last year the Government asked us to trust them. They told us significant funding would be redirected into Learning Support, bringing e

by Rebecca Thomas Sometimes, when you've spent nearly thirty years in classrooms, you begin to wonder whether you're the one who's finally lost the plot. Every now and then, when every Ministry update celebrates another mandated resource. Another programme or assessment tool with a promise that this will finally fix education. Even stubborn teachers like me have moments where we quietly question ourselves. Have I missed something? Am I romanticising the past? Is this really w

by ELV This Friday, schools across New Zealand will finally receive the detailed SMART reports from Assessment Window One. (Assessments taken in April...we are now in June.) There's just one tiny problem. Teachers have already written the reports. They've been printed, sealed in envelopes and carried home in children's bags. Mid-year reports have gone home. Eight weeks of teaching, intervention, observation and assessment have happened since children sat the tests. So I found

by ELV 'On hold' I don't write this as a commentator. I write this as a SENCO. Every week I sit with whānau who place enormous trust in their child's school. They trust us to document their child's needs honestly, to advocate fiercely and to find our way through a system riddled with barriers right from the start. They trust that if we work hard enough, gather enough evidence and tell their child's story well enough, someone will truly listen. I think parents deserve to know

by Rebecca Thomas Eight months ago, we joked that if we were wrong, we'd buy Dr Ben Jensen a coffee and a muffin. Eight months later, headlines about Learning First, a trip to the Gold Coast and a $2 million curriculum contract have brought many of those same questions into the national spotlight. The new wave of headlines around Learning First's relationship with our Minister, after we first raised those questions eight months ago, has felt like another small sign that the

by Rebecca Thomas When the deeper you explain your reality, the further you seem to sink. I don't need to describe my community to those who have probably clicked on this link. You have followed my words for long enough to know our story. To be honest, the more I tell it, the more it feels like I am wading through quicksand while bystanders stroll past on solid ground. If I were religious, perhaps it would feel a little like the pūrākau of The Good Samaritan. The Good Samarit

by Rebecca Thomas The White Witch Retreats The first ever parent prosecuted for not sending their child to school didn't turn up to their court hearing. I can't help but smile at the poetry of it. I'm not saying this parent deserves a medal. But if somebody starts a Givealittle page to buy them Turkish delight and a hot chocolate, I'd probably chip in. Not because attendance isn't important. Simply because the universe occasionally delivers satire so perfect that the rest of

by Rebecca Thomas Always winter. Never wisdom. The thaw has begun. “Put an end to the new SMART Tool,” says Ginny Andersen. And I will admit it. That sentence helped me shed a layer of despair today. Just in case Joe Public isn’t sure teachers assess children every hour of every day I would like to paint you a picture. Teachers notice the child who can decode but not comprehend. The child who understands maths with equipment and tools and fingers, but freezes when it sits on

by Rebecca Thomas She's laser focused again! This week Erica Stanford proudly announced nearly 1,400 new teaching spaces have been funded nationwide since she became Minister. New classrooms and buildings. Ooh ahh — a boost for our economy, methinks. A secret handshake with Nicola. In fact, most investments in education come in the form of products, buildings, digital tools and pay-for-use assessments. Economy-boosting, not human support. At exactly the same time, schools acr

by Rebecca Thomas A once-settled class implodes While for readers of The Sunday Times and The Post, "Where is Everybody?" was just another story, to me and my community it was our story. The impact of teacher shortages has always been there, niggling away as we use LATs to plug the seeping holes, reduce our release time, and gift days owed to each other to those teachers drowning the most. Despite that, today we resorted to a reluctant class split for the day. This dreaded fl

by Rebecca Thomas Tuakana teaching Teina the feelings of the classroom Funny thing. School has become my shield. The ecosystem of a school has built a kind of natural armour around me. It protects me from the tug-of-war politics, Ministry battles and the blue glow of social media that follows me into the darkness. Facebook has become an algorithm of outrage. Racism. Bias. Power struggles. Endless declarations about who is right and who is wrong. Every day I scroll past posts

by Rebecca Thomas It's fair to say that today I felt slightly insane. "Insane" was how I replied to my cleaner when she asked how my day had been. Admittedly, I was coaching and mentoring a beginning teacher in the moment whilst they observed my reading lesson, whilst simultaneously having a trainee teacher observing me at the same time. Amongst all of this, my students were trying to cope with their teacher having side conversations about best practice with two humans at com

by Rebecca Thomas I will admit it. When I saw the latest honours list I felt uncomfortable. Perhaps even disappointed. Hey, maybe a little shocked. As I looked through the names, I found myself wondering what exactly we honour in education these days. Do we honour influence? Access to Ministerial ears? The ability to shape policy from afar? The power to decide what counts as knowledge and whose knowledge counts? The ability to mould governments and narratives? Because if that

Or perhaps more politely: A budget lovingly crafted for the boardroom enlightened. by Rebecca Thomas This is the childhood they survived. This is who we teach. I tried to keep the title polite. But the 2026 Education Budget is enough to make many real classroom teachers sit quietly at their desks after school wondering how our honest descriptions of real classrooms can continuously be ignored. Underneath the glossy headlines and million-dollar figures sits a very clear messag

by Rebecca Thomas Tetris gave me all the wrong pieces! Reporting to whānau using our newly acquired criteria has never felt so dull. Mid-year reports are due for the first time in the new Stanfordised format (that word is now in my online dictionary). And in almost thirty years of teaching I have found myself staring blankly at the screen feeling absolutely disconnected from the child I am supposedly writing about. Not because I do not know them. I actually know them deeply.

By Rebecca Thomas Teachers were never meant to be puppets What use is a knowledge rich, internationally benchmarked package when there are no humans left to teach it? On the typical Friday drive home a friend’s curious question got me thinking. Why don’t we have anyone applying for jobs at our school? This is the third set of job adverts this term and honestly, I don’t count two applications for three jobs in 2026 as a win anymore. At first I believed it was down to our commu

by Rebecca Thomas Exhausted, but this is necessary! I’m sitting here tonight absolutely knackered. Really exhausted. It’s not even Wednesday and I can’t begin to tell you how my day started with upturned chairs and tables and a brother and sister who have taken it upon themselves to try and help their severely autistic sister settle on a bus ride. This was before 9am. Taumata. I still haven’t mentally left today’s behaviour incidents, tomorrow’s meetings are already sitting i

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