New publications

Accomplishments noted in the the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development's 2011–2012 annual report include increased provision of kindergarten places for four-year-olds, under a national partnership with the Australian Government; greater participation of Aboriginal children and parents in maternal and child health services; introduction of greater autonomy for schools and principals; and collection and provision of new data on student performance. Adapted from Secretary's foreward. The full report is available online.

Learning to Teach positions the reader as a first-year teacher embarking on their new career. They work with 'Anna Jones', her class, and the other teachers around the fictional Lathner Primary School to help develop their ability to analyse scenarios, critically reflect on their own assumptions, and develop best teaching practices. This unique text examines the role of the teacher in fostering thoughtfulness and the ideal conditions for learning, and encourages students to critically reflect upon best practice. The new edition includes three new chapters in response to current Australian government initiatives. Adapted from publisher's description.

The review presents an aggregation and summary of recent academic literature on youth bullying and seeks to make scholarly work on this important topic more broadly accessible to a concerned public audience, including parents, caregivers, educators and practitioners. The document examines the online and offline contexts in which bullying occurs. Although the medium or means through which bullying takes place influence bullying dynamics, as previous research demonstrates, online and offline bullying are more similar than different. This dynamic is especially true as a result of the increasing convergence of technologies. Looking broadly at the commonalities as well as the differences between offline and online phenomena fosters greater understanding of the overall system of which each is a part and highlights both the off- and online experiences of young people – whose involvement is not typically limited to one end of the spectrum. Adapted from publisher's description. The full report is available online.

This paper places two decades of science curriculum reform in New Zealand in the context of international debate about the 'nature of science' (NOS) as a driver of change in the science curriculum. It briefly outlines the sorts of changes NOS was expected to achieve, why these changes were seen to be a good idea, and challenges faced by would-be reformers in other nations. Narrowing the focus to New Zealand's experiences, the paper then outlines in somewhat more detail the structure and scope of the reform-oriented 1993 science curriculum, and traces the evolution of this document into the science learning area of the 2007 New Zealand Curriculum (NZC). A high-level analysis of what has actually changed (or more specifically what has not) informs the more speculative final section. An 'effective' curriculum will be one that achieves the sorts of changes intended by the NOS reformers. Knowing what we know now about the impact of our two recent attempts at science curriculum reform, what should we do next and why? From Introduction. The full paper is available online.

This report is the second in the Evaluation at a Glance series. It is a synthesis of material from 15 national evaluations and reports of good practice published in the last four years that, taken together, reveal three key issues facing New Zealand's education system. The Education Review Office (ERO) believes that these issues, in particular, are hindering efforts to raise the achievement of New Zealand's lowest performing school students, the country's priority learners. The report considers aspects of practice that have been especially helpful in raising students' achievement and fostering their engagement in learning. Adapted from publisher's description.

Trusting What You’re Told opens a window into the moral reasoning of primary school vegetarians, the preschooler's ability to distinguish historical narrative from fiction, and the six-year-old's nuanced stance toward magic: skeptical, while still open to miracles. Paul Harris shares striking cross-cultural findings too, such as that children in religious communities in rural Central America resemble Bostonian children in being more confident about the existence of germs and oxygen than they are about souls and God. Adapted from publisher's description.