Funding available
TESSOL qualification
Support for leadership
You may find these MoE resources useful
Pasifika Teacher Aide four-day and two-day professional development programmes including in-school visits
Pasifika Teacher Aide professional learning and development (PTAP) is specifically designed to help Pasifika bilingual teacher aides and any other teacher aide working alongside Pasifika learners in mainstream classrooms. The programme is focussed on approaches and methodologies to support these learners in their language and literacy development and encourage effective utilisation of their first language. Four-day programmes are offered to clusters of schools in the main centres, and two-day programmes are offered to clusters of schools in areas outside the main centres. The clusters consist of up to 10 schools with each school registering up to three teacher aides and one coordinating teacher per school.
Schools are targeted to participate in these programmes by the Ministry. A range of activities guide this process, including:
- a check of the number of ESOL funded students in a specific area
- consultation with Ministry ESOL verifiers, Pasifika advisors, SAFs, ECP advisors, and Regional Offices regarding the PLD needs of this targeted list of schools to confirm that they would benefit from Pasifika-focused professional development.
Following this process, principals from the targeted schools are then asked to complete a registration of interest faxback.
If you have any questions about this professional development, please contact Susan Gamble (09 632 9354).
English Language Assistants professional development programme
The MRIE team has a contract with Auckland UniServices for project director Dr Jannie van Hees to deliver the English Language Assistant (ELA) professional development programme and train selected regional facilitators to deliver the programme throughout New Zealand.
The ELA initiative provides training and professional development workshops for teacher aides/bilingual assistants currently working in schools providing English language support to new learners of English. This highly regarded programme has been delivered to over 300 schools since 2003 throughout New Zealand, and in 2014 is being offered to a cluster of schools in Auckland, Wellington, and Dunedin. It has been very positively received by the principals, teachers, and teacher aides who have participated in the programme, all of whom say it has had significant impact on school practices with individual and school wide benefits.
The training programme spans across three terms, consisting of an introductory meeting for principals and co-ordinating teachers, six full-day workshops, six in-school visits, six inter-workshop tasks for the trainee ELAs, and a final evaluation/graduation morning for participants, including a meeting of principals with the Ministry of Education programme manager.
Participant schools are targeted by the Ministry and invited to take part. Identification of potential participants are informed by:
- a check of the number of ESOL funded students in a specific area
- consultation with Ministry ESOL verifiers, SAFs, ECP advisors, Pasifika advisors, and Regional Offices regarding the PLD needs of this targeted list of schools to confirm that they would benefit from English language focussed professional development.
If you have any questions about this professional development, please contact Susan Gamble (09 632 9354).