Claire Amos

Source Let's get a few things straight first. Of course I am disappointed that we are losing a democratic means of voting on at least some of the council. Of course I am disappointed that we are moving from a Code of Ethics to a Code of Conduct. In fact I campaigned against these very things here and here . And whilst I understand that PPTA's ballot is a matter of principle and was voted on, I simply do not understand how it will change anything. Whether PPTA and members choose to "not accept nomination or appointment to the EDUCANZ council nor participate in the body’s consultation processes" or not does not change the fact that it will go ahead...regardless. 

I feel the need to begin this post with a few disclaimers: I am a passionate and committed PPTA member.  I am current a member of a NZ Teachers Council.  I am feeling genuinely stuck...between a rock and hard place.   As many of you will have seen, EDUCANZ announced that nominations are now open. Source: http://www.education.govt.nz/ This was followed (not unexpectedly) by an announcement from PPTA that a ballot would be held to determine whether they will be refusing to put up (or accept) nominations and whether they will be instructing members to do the same. Source: Radio NZ And of course I completely understand where PPTA is coming from. As one of the many who fought a number of the legislations that ended up in the Education Amendment Act 2015 I submitted a written submission and and presented an oral submission that clearly outline what I did and still do see as major flaws in this act. There are several issues with the act in relati...

As you may (or may not) know, one of the many and varied roles of the New Zealand Teachers Council is to approve and review all Initial Teacher Education programmes. It was during my first council meeting where a number of the new Masters ITE programmes were being approved that the question came to me (once again): Are the Graduating Teacher Standards future focused enough?? The reason I asked myself and others this, is that I felt the courses we were looking at could have offered more. It wasn't that they weren't rigorous and well thought out, it was just that they felt lacking, particularly in the 'future-focused skills' area. When I voiced these concerns the response I got was, that we couldn't demand the courses to include anything that wasn't demanded in the graduating teacher standards. On reading the standards more closely I am not so sure. Surely if you take the second point of Standard One "have pedagogical content knowledge appropriate to the l...

You can join my campaign page here to keep updated First up, why am I standing for the New Zealand Teachers Council? My reasons are two-fold.  The first being that I believe I would be a great addition to the New Zealand Teachers Council. I am passionate and well informed about educational issues and am constantly seeking ways that I can both support and challenge NZ educators to be future-focused, sharing and reflective as well as being recognised by the wider community as the hardworking professionals that they are. I believe New Zealand educators desire to be both supported through ongoing professional learning and rigorous appraisal systems and challenged to be adaptive experts who are expected (and supported) to evolve their practice constantly to ensure they are meeting the needs of all of their learners. I believe that if I were to be elected to the NZTC I will be a positive and passionate voice for secondary educators.