Our research

This case study explores the impact of the 2020 Covid-19 events on Māori learners in English-medium schools, and the response of leaders, schools and communities in the Bay of Plenty and East Coast regions.

This short guide is for early childhood education leaders and kaiako. It covers what we found from talking to services in 2020 about the impact of Covid-19, and shares strategies used by services to respond to the challenges they faced. It also sets out some actions that could be considered for continuing to support children, parents, whānau and staff in 2021.

Principals and school leaders have taken on a lot of responsibility during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Education Review Office interviewed principals and board chairs and surveyed 1777 principals across the country from May through to September 2020 to understand how they have responded. This summary highlights how those school leaders rose to the challenge.

In Aotearoa, Māori-medium education experienced significant disruption when the outbreak of Covid-19 forced kura to close their doors, and whānau and kaiako to adjust to home schooling and distance learning. Among the many challenges were access to technology and resources with Māori communities among the most affected.

ERO’s final report in the Te Whāriki series summarises the findings of previous reports and includes the last two focus areas for the curriculum – how services decide ‘what learning matters here’ and how well they were developing learning-focused partnerships with parents and whānau.

ERO is undertaking a series of evaluations on the implementation of Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga mō ngā mokopuna o Aotearoa. This report examines how prepared services are to implement Te Whāriki, including their engagement with professional learning and development, and determining 'what matters here' and next steps.

New Zealand schools have one of the highest rates of bullying among OECD member countries. In this evaluation, ERO looked at the extent to which schools were effectively working towards an environment in which students feel safe and free from bullying.

A companion report to this one, Bullying Prevention and Response: Student Voice focuses on ERO’s survey of students on their experience and understandings of bullying and effective bullying prevention and response.

In this evaluation, ERO wanted to find out how aware and confident leaders and kaiako in early learning services were as they began to work with the updated curriculum, Te Whāriki (2017).

High quality assessment and evaluation allows us to focus on student progress and outcomes at classroom, school and system levels.  It helps teachers, schools and systems to report on student achievement across points in time, and provide information for parents, trustees and the public about the quality of education. 

Working together to determine what the collaboration and teamwork looks like on a day-to-day basis has been a critical and continued focus of professional learning and team dialogue at Stonefields School.

This evaluation report illustrates the leadership domain of ERO’s School Evaluation Indicators in practice by:

These booklets have been written for everyone who parents a child - those who have care and responsibility for children attending a school. The booklets include questions you can ask, as well as general information that you may find useful. Click on the booklet to read and download.

Your child's education is an overview of education in New Zealand, from early childhood education through to secondary school. The information and questions are a useful insight into what education looks like in New Zealand and the opportunities available to your child.

Effective Teaching - What's happening in my child's classroom? gives parents an insight into teaching practice and includes questions parents can use when discussing their child's progress with the school.

ERO guides for parents have been written for everyone who parents a child - those who have care and responsibility for children attending a school. The booklets include questions you can ask, as well as general information that you may find useful. Click on the booklet to read and download. 

This evaluation looks at the Ako Panuku programme, which is funded by the Ministry of Education for Māori secondary/kura teachers. ERO conducted an online survey of all teachers involved in the programme and also visited a number of schools and kura. Our findings show that a high proportion of teachers found the programme to be highly effective or effective for them. Ako Panuku has had positive outcomes for participants and their students.

This 2007 ERO report is to help parents make an informed decision about selecting an early childhood service to suit them and their children. It identifies types of early childhood services and ways in which parents can help their child settle into a service.