Education and Training Act

Last year was an intense and busy year for us in education. We’ve all had to learn to work from home, become far too familiar with Zoom, and then get used to commuting to work again. All in the same year that saw the Education and Training Bill become an Act.

The Act was the biggest change in education legislation since the Education Act in 1989. This of course means we’re making changes to your SchoolDocs content. The first round of changes focused on areas that were changing immediately. These changes were mostly around inclusive education.

The release of the Education and Training Act closely coincided with the release of the refreshed Ka Hikitia and the Action Plan for Pacific Education. We used these and the Act as the basis of our updates to topics such as:

• Te Tiriti o Waitangi
• Inclusive Education
• Recognition of Cultural Diversity 
• Māori Educational Success (formerly Improving Educational Outcomes for Māori Students)

The changes we made not only cover legislative requirements but also reflect the Government’s commitments to improving educational outcomes and eliminating discrimination, while keeping the topics flexible to include your school-specific information. Check out the What’s New page on your SchoolDocs site (there's a link on your site’s Welcome page).

You can access the Model site from your Dashboard. This is where we show generic versions of our topics with the yellow highlighting that wording we can easily change. You can contact us at any time to make school-specific changes.

TKI has a fantastic resource with guidelines for helping students feel included. One consistent theme throughout these resources, and in the Ka Hikitia and Action Plan for Pacific Education, is building interdependent relationships with students and their whānau. The key to building this relationship is open and clear communication. Learners thrive in an environment where their background and identity is valued.

Future Education and Training Act updates

Another stated aim of the Education and Training Act was to consolidate the major Acts about education into one act. This means that many of the legislative requirements haven’t changed or have only had minor changes. We’ll be rolling out further changes to content as the new Act is implemented.

We’ve also been reviewing our Enrolment, Performance Management, and Appraisal topics as the next step in our updates.

Written by Chris Boyce.