Support staff

26 Aug 2024

Let’s celebrate the learning support staff of Aotearoa

One in five children and young people need extra support for their learning. Whether it’s teacher aides, classroom and ECE centre teachers, specialist roles including RTLBs, SENCOs/LSCs or school leaders, almost all professionals in education connect on a daily basis with unmet need in learning support. Here, we profile a range of NZEI Te Riu Roa members working as learning support specialists, as part of the inaugural Learning Support Awareness Day, intended to raise awareness of the gaps between learning support need and provision.

15 Aug 2024

Advice to your past self: reflections from Mt Cook School

AKO visited Mt Cook School in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington to talk to five NZEI Te Riu Roa members. We heard their reflections on their careers in education and the changes they’ve witnessed over time, and then asked them one powerful question: what advice would you give your past self starting out in the profession, knowing what you know now?

18 Jul 2024

Inclusive education – let’s talk about OCD

When obsessive compulsive disorder is misunderstood, students and staff living with OCD are alienated from classrooms — how do educators create more inclusive learning environments for all? A psychologist, a teacher living with OCD, a student and his mum share their perspectives.

20 Jun 2024

Nurture, emotional regulation and neuroscience: laying the foundation for tamariki to learn

Some tamariki come to school carrying invisible backpacks. Glenview School and Papanui High share the invaluable role learning assistants and support staff play in ensuring all children can feel safe to learn.

Summer 202322 Feb 2023

Learning for life

Professional learning and development (PLD) is a critical part of practice for all educators. But how do they ensure their ongoing learning has the best impact for ākonga? These personal stories showcase some outstanding PLD experiences that benefit students, educators and whole communities.

Autumn 202218 Mar 2022

History can hurt

In interviews with practitioners Ako asks how kaiako can prepare for difficult conversations in the classroom that might arise when teaching Aotearoa New Zealand’s histories.

Covid-19 202019 Jun 2020

Member memories: Rural Manawatū schools

NZEI Te Riu Roa member Kylie Parry, a teacher aide and librarian at St Mary’s School in Carterton, reminisces about her time at Rangiwahia School, a rural school in Manawatū that opened in 1895 and closed for good in 2013.

Covid-19 20201 May 2020

Q & A with teacher aide Linda Jordan

AKO chats with Linda Jordan, a teacher aide and team leader at James Cook High School in Manurewa, about the challenges of lockdown and technology and the profound importance of being supportive and understanding.

Covid-19 202022 Apr 2020

Crochet and jam, PPE and showers: living with an essential worker during the lockdown

A mother-daughter pair of NZEI Te Riu Roa members talk about what it’s been like in lockdown – with one of them being an essential worker and the other high-risk.

Summer 202021 Feb 2020

Sign language and support systems

The landscape of Deaf education in New Zealand has changed a lot over the last 20 years. We look at the options now available to deaf children who are starting primary school.

Summer 202021 Feb 2020

To literacy and beyond

School librarians talk about how they serve the varied needs of their communities.

Books, Hamilton, Language, Librarians, Literacy, Michelle Simms, School libraries, Summer 2020, Support staff, Te Totara Primary School, Video19 Feb 2020

To literacy and beyond: Te Totara School

Michelle Simms, the librarian at Te Totara Primary School, talks about some of the ways she supports literacy at the school.

Winter 201910 Sep 2019

The community of kapa haka

For nearly a decade, Kapapapanui School in Waikanae has been using kapa haka as a way of building community in and around the school – and the benefits have been extraordinary for both Māori and non-Māori students.

Winter 201925 Jul 2019

Building bridges: from community to ECE to primary

The importance of whānau and community doesn’t lessen just because a child starts school, but it can be hard for educators to maintain these strong connections once a child leaves early childhood education. Jane Blaikie and Jane Arthur talk to educators across the country about the challenges they face when trying to build bridges between the child and their community.

Summer 201928 Jan 2019

Fully integrated

One of the most important things for children with additional needs to be able to access the curricula and to thrive at school is having huge support behind them. That includes from the school and whānau communities and from school leaders, support staff, teachers and itinerant staff.

Winter 201827 Jul 2018

Understanding, recognising and knowing

Across the country, teachers report that there are more children with high learning needs and the resources and funding to help these children are over-stretched. Education professionals talk here about how they deliver the curriculum to children with learning needs.

Winter 201827 Jul 2018

We are all in this waka together

Janice Jones, deputy principal at Karori West Normal School, says the most important thing about being a truly inclusive school, in which every child thrives, is that the whole school is in the waka together.