New model aims to boost education success

NZEI Te Riu Roa and the Ministry of Education have agreed to boost children’s educational success through development of a new model of learning communities.

NZEI Te Riu Roa President Louise Green said the new model was an exciting educational development shaped by educators. It had come about because NZEI members had fought for a child-centred, workable model that would be responsive to local needs and could change over time.

The model will be flexible and responsive to children’s learning needs, and give communities themselves the ability to design the roles and resourcing required to meet the needs of their own students.

It includes teaching roles focused on better supporting children’s transition from ECE to school and from school to school – improving engagement with the community and boosting cultural competency.

A critical change from the January 2014 Investing in Educational Success ‘Community of Schools’ model to the new ‘Community of Learning’ model is its expansion to incorporate early childhood and potentially stretch up to tertiary education.

The agreement recommends that each Community of Learning determines its own leadership and teaching, collaboration and support functions that align with its achievement challenges, making the best use of its own and new resourcing. Some leadership and teaching roles and their functions will be required for all Communities of Learning; other functions may be particular to the community.

The model includes a leadership role and the recognition of a range of leadership expertise communities may require.

The model was agreed by the Ministry and NZEI after a joint working party of NZEI members and Ministry staff researched evidence from successful practice already occurring in schools and centres and looked at the international and national research literature.

NZEI will be taking the outcomes of the joint initiative to its members over the next three weeks. Following this consultation with members,

NZEI and the Ministry will then seek to negotiate changes to the collective agreements covering primary and area school principals and teachers to implement the key learnings from the working group.