Posted 03/06/2009 at 8:23AM

Kim Cribb, Educating NZ’s Taranaki RoadSense Facilitator, recently completed an Advanced Driver course in Feilding.

Educating NZ arranges for facilitators to attend one of these courses as, in their roles’ promoting road safety education in their region, they do a significant amount of driving.

This photo was taken before the course began and Kim insists that the car was still in the same condition once she had completed the course. She was reluctant to give it back at the end of the day.

Posted 24/04/2009 at 8:27AM

Like a lot of you, we are very keen to find out more about the direction the new government will be setting for education. We are going to be running a regular update on government education policy so keep visiting our website for news.

Anne Tolley, the Minister of Education, has given some indication in a couple of speeches recently, and a few policy signals are starting to emerge:

• Government will introduce the Youth Guarantee, a trades training approach that will provide a range of alternative pathways for senior secondary school students. They are also looking to establish Trades Academies to support this policy.
• They will continue to fine tune NCEA including reviewing standards to ensure they align with the New Zealand Curriculum and fairly reflect achievement. They will also work to improve moderation of assessments. 
• The focus on improving outcomes for Maori students will continue making this a contract priority for School Support Services in 2009.
• School leadership will be strengthened with the release of Kiwi Leadership for Principals and the Professional Learning Plan to help address student behaviour issues and promote effective teaching.
• Bonding schemes will be introduced to help schools that have difficulty with staff recruitment and retention.
• Budgets will remain tight and the sector will have to make trade–offs to get resources for new initiatives.

There are still areas where we are waiting to see what the government’s intentions are. One in particular is around the contestability of professional development contracts. We at Educating NZ would like to see the government move towards a more contestable environment for professional development funding that will provide more choice and flexibility for schools in terms of where they can access support. There are many areas where a range of providers are well equipped to meet school needs if they are given better opportunity to access funding.

Posted 24/04/2009 at 8:19AM

1.  How many universities are there in New Zealand?
Answer: 8 (Auckland, AUT, Waikato, Massey, Victoria University of Wellington, Canterbury, Lincoln and Otago)

2.  As well as being an Associate Minister for Education, this person holds other Parliamentary roles, including Minister of Consumer Affairs and Associate Minister of Defence.  What is this person’s name?
Answer: Hon Heather Roy

3. What is the name of New Zealand’s oldest independent school?
Answer: Christ’s College (Canterbury, founded in 1850)

4. Who is the current Minister of Education and Minister for Tertiary Education?
Answer: Hon Anne Tolley

5. What do the letters “FTTE” stand for?
Answer: Full–Time Teacher Equivalent

Posted 24/04/2009 at 8:15AM

Educating NZ welcomes the following new staff members to our national and RoadSense teams:

Jane Armstrong joined Educating NZ in April 2009 as a project coordinator. Jane provides support and expertise to schools, and develops resources. She has a background in the education sector, previously working on a variety of educational websites.  Jane is a trained teacher with ten years experience working in primary schools in New Zealand. She has worked as an associate teacher for teaching students and participated in teacher education programmes.  Jane has held middle and senior management positions with a focus on ICT leadership in schools.  She has worked as an ICT facilitator for the ICTPD cluster.

David Bond joins us as the RoadSense facilitator for the Otago Region.  David brings a wealth of experience in the education sector, including several years in senior management.  Last year David won a 12-month Royal Society Fellowship where he studied marine science in Otago Harbour. A keen sportsman, David plays rugby, cricket, volleyball, squash and tennis, as well as holding a national title (Masters) in breaststroke swimming. He still finds time to be an active member of the Lions.

Vicki Davis joins us as project support officer. Vicki is a new kiwi, originally from the UK and moving permanently to New Zealand in 2007. Vicki’s role involves supporting the national team by drawing on her knowledge of human resource management, marketing and administration.

Posted 24/04/2009 at 8:12AM

The Retirement Commission has contracted Educating NZ to extend the successful piloting of a personal financial education framework for schools. The new phase involves developing web material for the Ministry of Education. They met recently in Wellington to begin to prepare content for the website based on their school pilot studies.

The online material will feature on the New Zealand Curriculum website and provide planning support with links to the curriculum. Case studies and video clips will also form part of this resource. The website will enable schools to integrate the teaching of financial literacy into their classroom programmes and to develop their students’ financial capability. Jane Armstrong is the Educating NZ project coordinator.

Pictured Lester Taylor (Retirement Commission), Marg Gillaly and David Murray (Educating NZ facilitators), and some of the teachers involved in the pilot from Auckland and Nelson.

Posted 16/04/2009 at 11:29AM

Kim Cribb, Educating NZ’s  RoadSense facilitator in Taranaki, held her first RoadSense cluster meeting last month. Kim is one of twelve national facilitators promoting road safety education in our primary schools.

Educating NZ has a contract with the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) to implement the RoadSense strategy. Each facilitator works with over twenty schools in their region on a two year contract, planning and implementing road safety initiatives unique to every school.

Our facilitators work closely with other stakeholders and agencies, for instance Police Education Officers, local Council personnel, sporting organisations and health boards to ensure New Zealand students are aware of road safety issues.