The "Special Education 2000" initiative (Ministry of Education, 1998) led to the creation of the role of Resource Teachers: Learning and Behaviour (RTLB). The role was designed to support inclusion, provide consistent service, and bring about improved outcomes for students with learning and behaviour difficulties and their teachers in…

This paper highlights reciprocal teaching as an inclusive instructional strategy that has been shown to improve reading comprehension and metacognitive skills. It provides a conceptual background to reciprocal teaching and examines its purpose, strengths and weaknesses. The notion of reciprocal teaching as an evidence-based practice is also…

The importance of educational practices based on evidence is well-supported in the literature, however barriers to their implementation in classrooms still exist. This paper examines the phenomenon of evidence-based practice in education highlighting enablers and barriers to their implementation with particular reference to RTLB practice.

This article examines the use of prompting as an evidence-based strategy to support children with autism to develop their language, communication and social interactions skills. The literature is reviewed using a three-ringed, evidence-based practice model to support evaluation of the use of prompting. The article outlines considerations about the…

Pasifika learners, along with Maori, continue to experience high disparities in New Zealand's education system. Furthermore, it is predicted that over the next few decades, the majority of students in New Zealand primary schools will be Maori and Pasifika. The implications for classroom teachers are enormous. In reviewing a range of…

Cultural diversity is growing in New Zealand and deserves to be celebrated for the richness and opportunities for understanding it brings to our lives. Culturally-responsive approaches to education accept diversity and enable students to draw on their unique cultural capital as a learning resource. The aim of this study was to contribute to the…

This article describes a project conducted with Year 12 English students. It was based on the model of "Teaching as Inquiry" (Ministry of Education, 2007) and aimed to develop students' self-efficacy in relation to their literature-response essay writing. Self-efficacy was measured using Bandura's (2006) self-efficacy scale and an intervention was…

In this study, qualitative evidence is collected--through classroom observations and teacher and student interviews--to study the effect of metacognition and the interaction between students' observable cognitive behaviour and the instructional task. This qualitative data is analysed to identify what factors support and improve students'…

This paper reports on a small action research project carried out by a Special Education Needs Coordinator (SENCO) in a small rural, full primary school in New Zealand. It focused on improving the literacy outcomes for Years 5-8 boys in the school by way of a boys'-only writing group. Results show that the boys'-only learning group had a positive…

This article describes the work undertaken by a cluster of Resource Teachers: Learning and Behaviour (RTLB) to ensure that annual effectiveness reviews were more than a compliance exercise but a genuine attempt to improve their service to schools, hence the title of this article of "Going Beyond Audit". Historically, the cluster had met the…

Resource Teachers: Learning and Behaviour (RTLB) are agents of change, charged with the responsibility to facilitate paradigm shift from traditional to inclusive models of educational theory and practice. With seven years experience in an RTLB role I have come to the realisation that if there is congruence between a practitioner's value and belief…

This article shares narratives, or learning-informed stories, of young gifted learners. The purpose of the article is to document exceptionalities of the youngest gifted learners, supporting advocacy, and to demonstrate the merit of narrative approaches to assessment. Narrative assessment, including learning stories, is particularly useful for…

Much has happened since nine teams across New Zealand engaged in a Ministry of Education-funded participatory action research project looking at effective practice for supporting children and young people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in education. Building on earlier discussions, the project ran from 2002 to 2004, and until now the story…

In this article I outline different elements of action research in an attempt to describe and define participatory action research (PAR). There is a lot more material available to readers these days, some of which I will refer you to in this article. I see my role here is to summarise enough of this material to help support your reading of the…

This article describes a participatory action research (PAR) project conducted in a large urban, co-educational secondary school. The project focused on two senior pupils with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who, seemingly as a result of feeling stressed or anxious, displayed behaviours that inhibited communication. Using questionnaires,…