Key teaching practices and indicators

Key teaching practices for the Bachelor of Education (EC) are practical aspects of teaching that beginning teachers should be able to do from their first day.

Teaching Council Aotearoa New Zealand Values, Code and Standards

  • Demonstrate understanding of Teaching Council Code of Professional Responsibility Values: Whakamana, Pono, Manaakitanga and Whanaungatanga.
  • Maintain confidentiality, trust and respect.
  • Meet professional requests appropriately.
  • Use professional language (i.e., avoids slang, provides accurate language models for children).
  • Use people’s names, pronounces them correctly.
  • Demonstrate respect for the diversity of the heritage, language, identity and culture of all children in their practicum setting.
  • Begin to reflect on their understandings of unconscious bias and racism in their own practice.
  • Dress appropriately.
  • Show understanding of appropriate professional boundaries with children and whānau.
  • Follow VUW ethical processes for gaining consent to access information from the professional practice centre (e.g., observations, copies of policies).
  • Follow centre policies, especially concerning children’s wellbeing and safety.
  • Beginning to reflect on their role as advocates for transformative education for tamariki and whānau, and for teachers and the profession.

Standard 1: Te Tiriti o Waitangi partnership ǀ Te Hononga Pātui i Raro o Te Tiriti o Waitangi

1.Recognise mana whenua and whānau, hapū and iwi knowledges, and affirm Māori children as Māori
2.Model the use of te reo, tikanga, and Mātauranga-a-iwi in all aspects of the programme

  • Demonstrate awareness of centre policies pertaining to Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
  • Increasingly incorporate elements of te reo and tikanga Māori into their own practices.
  • Participate in centre Te Tiriti based practices.
  • Model kaitiakitanga, respect and care for the environment and living things.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of local mana whenuatanga.
  • Demonstrate openness to hearing different perspectives and to valuing the knowledge and histories that children, teachers and whānau bring.
  • Beginning to make links between Te Whāriki and te Tiriti-led practices in their centre.

Standard 2: Professional Learning ǀ Akoranga Ngaiotanga

3.Provide evidence of ongoing critical reflection (including relating to role as a Treaty partner) that enhances learning and wellbeing for a ngā tamariki
4.Collaborate with colleagues in respectful, open and critical professional discussions

  • Beginning to reflect on how their life experiences influence their interactions with teachers, children and whānau in the centre.
  • Show initiative in seeking advice and guidance and respond to feedback, taking appropriate action.
  • Set and actively work to achieve personal professional practice goals.
  • Take opportunities to find out about individual children from teachers and parents/whānau.
  • Recognise and actively work to develop own content knowledge to support children’s interests.
  • Take opportunities to participate in discussions about Te Whāriki, children’s wellbeing and learning.

Standard 3: Professional Relationships ǀ Ngā Hononga Ngaio

5.Participate with children, their whānau and colleagues in respectful dialogue
6.Draw on the TCANZ values, code and standards to address a professional or ethical dilemma
7.Proactively apply strategies to meet professional responsibilities and enhance personal wellbeing
8.Actively foster respectful relationships, and listens carefully and responsively to children and whānau

  • Demonstrate communications skills that contribute to effective relationships.
  • Engage in warm, empathic, respectful and responsive interactions with children, families/whānau and colleagues.
  • Understand importance of, and work to develop relationships with all children who attend the immediate setting.
  • Demonstrate attunement towards and affirm children’s efforts.
  • Developing awareness of peer dynamics.
  • Demonstrate openness to different perspectives and to valuing the knowledge and histories that children, teachers and whānau bring.
  • Take up opportunities to become actively involved in the life of the centre and centre community.
  • Relate well to children, families/whānau and teachers from different cultural backgrounds.
  • Understand who to approach when/if professional concerns and/or personal wellbeing issues arise.
  • Communicate professionally with children, whānau and staff about what they have observed.

Standard 4: Learning Focused Culture ǀ He Ahurea Akoranga

9.Demonstrate in-depth understanding of individual children’s ways of being, knowing, doing and relating, and whanau contexts
10.Explore diverse ways of working with Pacific peoples in order to sustain children’s languages, cultures and identities
11.Draw on relevant resources, expertise and professional learning opportunities to respond inclusively to support children’s wellbeing, learning, growth and development
12.Develop pedagogical approaches that address the affordances of the physical, emotional and spiritual environments

  • Observe individual children before beginning interactions and consider their play, learning, and wellbeing.
  • Is beginning to consider and participate alongside children’s play intentions, aspirations, and concerns.
  • Describe to individual children sequences of events (what’s going to happen next for them/others/ the environment).
  • Interactions with children are founded on a credit-based perspective.
  • Interactions demonstrate awareness of diverse ways of working with children in order to sustain languages, culture, and identity.
  • Affirm individual children for taking chances, overcoming difficulties and persisting with solving problems.
  • Guide children’s interactions and behaviours with others in positive ways, including specific praise and encouragement and modelling positive interactive strategies.
  • Beginning to identify how the physical and digital environment impact on equity.

Standard 5: Design for Learning ǀ Te Hoahoa Akoranga

13.Carefully observe children’s interactions with people, places and things.
14.Intentionally draw on theory and research to inform analysis of observations, working in collaboration with teachers, whānau and children.
15.Provide a wide range of experiences that attune with and extend children’s interests.
16.Participate within a teaching team to critically draw upon theory, research evidence and the curriculum to inform pedagogical approaches.

  • Demonstrate understanding of the principles and strands of Te Whāriki.
  • Developing awareness of the holistic nature of children’s learning and development.
  • Seek information to help with understanding the centre context and community.
  • Request permission to view children’s portfolios in order understand children and their wellbeing and learning interests more deeply.
  • Begin to make connections between Te Whāriki and their own practices.
  • Use understandings of key pedagogical approaches to inform teaching interactions.
  • Understand the importance of observation as a foundation for understanding children’s wellbeing and learning.

Standard 6: Teaching ǀ Te Whakaakoranga

17.Work with children in ways that support their wellbeing, growth, learning and development
18.Maintain an awareness of the wider environment whilst working with a group or individual child
19.Work across the full range of the curriculum, engaging meaningfully with all children

  • Engage in reciprocal genuine conversations with children around their wellbeing, learning, and interests.
  • Provide adequate wait time for children to think and respond.
  • Use non-verbal communication effectively with children and begin to “read” children’s non-verbal communications.
  • Responses affirm and strengthen children’s ideas, and development of learning dispositions.
  • Model using a variety of culturally diverse resources to facilitate learning and play (e.g., books, play equipment, natural resources, internet) in a variety of domain areas.
  • Able to support children’s decision making, problem solving, wellbeing and creativity.
  • Identify opportunities for children to make choices.
  • Notice children on the periphery and invite them to participate.
  • Model specific interaction strategies to support children’s interactions with others.