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Teacher aide

16 May 2025

Can’t stop the fight: Linda Jordan on 25 years as a teacher aide 

After 25 years as a teacher aide, Linda Jordan has just reluctantly retired from her much-loved job. She’s a dedicated member of NZEI Te Riu Roa and travelled the country interviewing teacher aides to build a picture of the role for the pivotal pay equity claim. Anna Bracewell-Worrall finds out what she misses and how she feels about the Government’s abrupt changes to the equal pay act.

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9 May 2025

Teacher aides are ‘the glue that keeps a classroom humming’

Often supporting students one on one in the classroom, teacher aides are vital to ensuring tamariki get the extra support they need at school, but their funding is precarious at best. Ngāmotu-based writer Emma Hislop (Kāi Tahu) visited Avon School in Taranaki to hear from staff, parents and akōnga about the amazing mahi of teacher aides.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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15 Oct 2020

Spilling the beans

Ally Kemplen is a teacher aide at Newton Central School in Auckland. She shares her memories of her favourite year at school, before talking with the current principal.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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