Claire Amos

It has been disappointing to see over the last couple of weeks that the education sector has become increasingly divided, with the unions and the associations coming out (for the most part) as adversaries against the Teaching Council and the fees increase announcement. I totally get teachers being upset about having to pay more, but the vitriol being thrown around online is massively disappointing from a sector who wears their professional status with pride. I think the thing that makes it most disappointing is that it simply doesn’t make sense. In order to uphold the sanctity and the status of the education sector in New Zealand we actually need both - we need the unions and we need the council and we need both to be independent and independently funded so as to ensure they function effectively. Both the unions and the council have an important part to play in ensuring that we have safe classrooms with competent teachers and teachers who are well protected, well supported and...

Introducing PPSTACK! The last few days (and weeks) has had me reflecting on many things: what did it expose in terms of social and digital divides; what did it expose in terms of school systems and leaders and their agility and agency; what have we learned from teaching and learning over lockdown, and what do we need to change moving forward so as to harness the opportunities and how do we ensure change we introduce is effective? Time and time again I found myself wondering what our recent experiences would have been like had the government of the day taken up the recommendations of Nikki Kaye's 21st Century Learning Reference Group? This was a group I was lucky to be part of back in 2013-2014 and as a group we came up with the report Future-Focused Learning Connected Communities which recommended the following: Commit to meeting the needs of 21st century learners Achieve equitable access to digital devices for every learner Invest in people and innovation Create fu...