set 2007: no. 1

As we bring you this first issue of set for 2007, a number of key issues for education have already emerged and as the year goes on we will bring you both research and informed comment on these and other issues.

The family is one of the sites for literacy learning and that families vary both between themselves and according to culture. This article provides some suggestions with the aim of encouraging a successful sharing of information about literacy in home and school.

This article reports on the ways in which effective teachers plan instructional tasks that provide diverse learners with opportunities to access and engage with important mathematical concepts and relationships.

This article summarises the main findings from a literature review exploring thinking skills in the early years (for children aged 3 to 7) and provides some practical recommendations for teachers seeking to further promote thinking skills in the early years.

This article proposes that if we want students to care about and for the environment they need to develop an understanding of the "big picture"—that is, how the separate elements of a system interact.

A small research project explaining students' understanding of the interconnectedness of the elements of a waterway is discussed.

This article presents evidence of the first activity in a sequence of history pedagogy Thinking About History that engaged learners in connecting to their pasts as a way into history.

A new series in which we ask a leading researcher to distil three key ideas from an aspect of their work over the years.

A review of school self-management across several research surveys and sources of data leads Cathy Wylie to recommend five measures to help support school boards of trustees.  

See also her full report: School governance in New Zealand—how is it working?

This article looks at restorative practices as a tool to reduce bullying in schools and emphasises the importance of healing broken relationships, particularly between students causing harm and their teachers and peers who are harmed.

This article shows that generating ngā ara whakamihi (praise pathways) through a context of praise enabled Māori students to feel safe and supported, both culturally and educationally, and that they were able to assimilate and then integrate the meaning of teacher praise.