Recently Papamoa College won the Education Project award in the Registered Master Builders 2011 House of the Year and RMB Commercial Project Awards, in association with PlaceMakers.

A ground-breaking tool developed by Careers NZ is set to revolutionise the way we prepare secondary students for training, employment and life beyond school.

Smart teenagers across NZ are sending in their technology inventions for this yearís ETITO Bright Sparks Awards.
The 11th annual awards will shine the spotlight on the next generation of engineers and technology developers. The Bright Sparks Awards were launched by ETITO, the industry training organisation for the electrotechnology and telecommunications sector, to encourage young people to experience electronics directly through a project-based approach. 

PPTA says a move to place more social workers in primary schools is addressing at-risk children early in life is commendable but misses violence at secondary level.

The St Cuthbert’s College, Auckland U20 Senior A Team of Devon Hiley – Team Captain, Y12, Helena Jackson, Y12, Meghan Carroll, Y13, Elise Salt, Y12 and Danyela van der Sande, Y13 raced in the NZ Secondary Schools’ Team Time Trial Championships in Manawatu between 8-10 October 2011. They took out the Championship title and beat the existing record with a time of 26.02 minutes.

Young Enterprise Scheme students from St Cuthbert’s College in Auckland have developed a reusable snap and roll lunch bag that is stylish, eco-friendly and BPA free.
The bag is space saving, with a snap band down the spine allowing it to roll down when empty, washable, and can be used time and time again.

The University of Auckland is running free parenting programmes for parents of pre-teens and teenagers as part of a research study comparing the effectiveness of two parenting programmes.

A programme that gives secondary-school students hands-on experience of health careers to encourage them into the sector has taken the top prize in the EEO Trust Work & Life Awards 2011.

Hawke’s Bay District Health Board won the Supreme Award for Programme Incubator, which engages teenagers with health workers and the jobs they do in a bid to encourage them into the skill-short sector. Students of Maori and Pacific Island heritage are a particular focus, as the DHB wants to build a health workforce more representative of its community.

Comparing two job options just got a whole lot easier with the development of a new online tool by Careers NZ.

Careers NZ website content manager Bernie Burrell said young people are often faced with either too many or too few career choices and, as a result, they sometimes struggle with weighing up the options and information that’s out there.

Three St Cuthbert’s College students and one staff member succeeded at the NZ Poetry Society’s 2011 international poetry competition.

Year 12 student Maria Ji became first in the open junior section of the competition.

Maria won $200 for her poem My Friend Nick, which will be published in the NZPS 2011 anthology.

The Academic Colleges Group (ACG) was named Best High School at the international education industry’s event in London.

Kim Harase, AGC director of marketing, accepted the prestigious award at the Language Travel Magazine (LTM) star awards formal gala dinner attended by over 700 education providers and agents from around the world.

When a group of Macleans students sipped on their mochachinos in March this year, they wondered where all the excess waste of coffee grounds went.

Half a year later, the Year 13 team is making use of the grounds themselves – recycling them and turning coffee into soap.

Learning to become a leader is what Ashna Basu, a student at Queen Margaret College in Wellington, experienced when she spent the day with Rob Fyfe, chief executive officer of Air New Zealand.

The Year 12 student snagged one of the ten places in a nationwide competition, which asked students what difference they would make if they were Air NZ’s CEO for one day.

Votes from thousands of grateful students won StudyIt (www.studyit.org,nz) a record fourth victory in a row in the Net Guide’s People Choice Awards as Best Student Site.

StudyIt is a free, safe online support site developed and managed by CWA New Media (a business unit of Learning Media) that is used by more than 33,000 NCEA students.

One of the many milestones in life – and one that, for many, can’t come soon enough – is the obtaining of a driver’s license. NZers can start driving legally at an earlier age than most populations; but standards of driver training, among other reasons, mean that our young people are overrepresented in road accident statistics, with loss of control and inexperience listed among the top four causes of fatal crashes involving 15- to 24-year-old drivers.

Two NZ students have won bronze medals at a prestigious international computer programming competition held in Pattaya, Thailand.

The two were part of a four member team to represent NZ in the annual International Olympiad of Informatics (IOI).

Talented teenager Eden Tautali from St Cuthbert’s College in Auckland has wowed the jury at the National Schools Poetry Award for 2011 with a personal account of grief.

The Year 13 student’s poem Nan addresses the death of her grandmother and the experience of speaking at her funeral.

The NZ secondary school team of Benjamin Bai, Richard Chou, Vicky Tai and Jack Zhou are returning home from Taiwan, bringing with them a hat-trick of medals won at the prestigious 22nd International Biology Olympiad.

Metro magazine has named a decile-one Catholic school for girls in South Auckland as the school most likely to improve its students’ academic performance.

In its annual Best Schools issue, Metro has named McAuley High School in Otahuhu at the top of its list.

A pioneering project looking at mobile devices and their impact on learning has led to a huge success for the students at Howick College in Auckland.

The school – in conjunction with Vodafone, Manzana, and Waikato University –  was selected by the MoE to undertake the M-Learning Capability (MLC) project.

The annual NZ Brain Bee Challenge with more than 150 participants from all over the North Island got underway last week at The University of Auckland.

The Year 11 students competed at the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences for the title in challenges consisting of both team and individual competitions.

How do you create a musical production for all ages to enjoy?

Put a bit of classic in it: Cats, a hint of childhood memories: Oliver, a touch of Jazz: Chicago, some twisting and turning 60’s: Grease, a modern day blockbuster: High School Musical, with some sing out loud: Mama Mia, and you have a show that combines the highlights of the past 90 years of Broadway musical shows which have changed us, moved us and had us up and dancing in the aisle.

NZ’s entrepreneurial future looks promising following the results of the regional heat of the FedEx/ Junior Achievement International Trade Challenge (ITC) held at Massey University’s Albany Campus.

Six finalists will represent NZ in Bangkok from August 24th to 26th, 2011 and will be competing for the Asia Pacific champions’ title alongside seven other Asia Pacific countries, and their 42 representatives.

Revising for school exams is not often considered fun or interactive, but innovative Auckland Grammar School students are using mobile phone technology to turn traditional study methods on their head.

As part of the Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme (YES), Auckland Grammar’s student company, escholar, took first place at the Auckland Central Business Presentation final.

Vodafone Warriors NRL reading captain Jerome Ropati, Jeremy Latimore, and Junior Warriors Nathaniel Peteru and Carlos Tuimavave swapped sports shoes for school shoes to host one of four League in Libraries school visits at Pakuranga Library last month.

Seven North Island primary school teachers are halfway through a teacher fellowship programme, which has taken them out of their classrooms and into the world of science and research.

The teachers are spending the first two terms of 2011 as Primary Science Teacher Fellows, under a scheme administered by the Royal Society of NZ and funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation.

Wellingtonian Michael Moore Jones, Year 12 student at Scots College, will be packing his bags in July for Singapore where he will attend an internet entrepreneur internship.

Michael has been selected as one of 30 young entrepreneurs aged 16 to 25 years from around the world to participate in the MyCube Digital Life Academy – a six-week internship programme that runs from July 4th to August 14th, 2011.

Two students from Albany Senior High School are the only New Zealand semi-finalists in the worldwide Google Science Fair.

Sixty projects were selected from a pool of over 7500 projects submitted. More than 10,000 students from around 90 countries participated.

International high school students come to New Zealand because of its world-leading education system and natural beauty – yeah right.

A growing number of students say New Zealand is their first choice to study because of its reputation to grow the best marijuana and its “legal weed” Kronic.

Sixteen-year-old Brazilian student Monica says 10 per cent of her decision to study in New Zealand was based on the fact that she wanted to try “the world’s best marijuana”.“Other students that visited New Zealand told me that I had to try it when I’m here,” she says. “It is no surprise that students smoke. When you google images of New Zealand in Brazil, you find only pictures of marijuana.”

Two St Cuthbert’s College students are the only girls chosen for the NZ teams competing in the international Biology and Chemistry Olympiads this year.

Vicky Tai will attend the Biology Olympiad in Taiwan and Jade Leung will attend the chemistry Olympiad in Turkey.

If you are teaching media studies at your school, let your students know about an upcoming Short Film Challenge organised by Youthtown.

Now in its eighth year, the challenge gives budding film makers and actors between 13 and 18 years of age the chance to showcase their talents, with awards for best film and best director up for grabs on premiere night.

During a geocaching hunt, GPS co-ordinates help the geocachers find household containers, known as geocaches, hidden somewhere in the great outdoors. When they find them, they register the find in a logbook and then share their experience with the geocaching community online.

Head of digital technology at Papatoetoe High School, Gerard Mac Manus, led a group keen to try out the technology at the PPTA professional conference in Wellington last month.

Toby Hendy from Katikati College and Lisa Craw from Otago Girls’ High School were selected by the Royal Society of NZ to attend the USA International Space Camp.

During their time at ISC, Toby and Lisa will be joined by over 150 like-minded students from 23 different countries. 

New Plymouth student Cervantee Wild of Sacred Heart Girls’ College will travel to Gallipoli with the NZ Defence contingent for Anzac Day after winning the national final ofThe National Bank RSA Cyril Bassett VC Speech Competition.

Cervantee will attend the Dawn Service at Anzac Cove, and will be the official NZ Youth Representative and recite The Ode at the NZ Service at Chunuk Bair.

The song of two Y10 Kristin students, Eleanor Lang and Stephanie Townsend, was chosen for the official Olympic Games CD in a London soundtrack competition.

The girls’ entry is one of four secondary school entries to be included on the ‘Anthem in Black’ CD which will be promoted by the NZ Olympic Committee during the build-up to the games.

Law student Andrea Kapeteni is a very special scholar. 

The former St Cuthbert’s College Deputy Head Girl learned recently that she has won an NZQA Scholarship after sitting their examination in Geography last year. The achievement puts Andrea in the top 3 per cent of students nationally. 

Raglan Area School is getting an energy boost from a new wind turbine installed on school grounds last month. 

The school was chosen by WEL Networks to participate in a residential wind generation trial funded by the WEL Energy Trust, which looks at the practicalities of small-scale wind technology. 

Auckland’s newest state school, Ormiston Senior College, was officially opened by the Prime Minister on March 3rd, 2011. 

The opening explained what students, their families, and the local and global communities should expect. 

The search is on for the best and most original poems from New Zealand’s young writers with the return of the National Schools Poetry Award. 

Year 12 and 13 secondary school students are asked to express themselves, during a time that for some has been one of grief and trauma. 

Auckland’s Diocesan School for Girls raised more than $14,000 for Christchurch’s earthquake victims today by holding a black and red mufti day.

Secondary principals are pleased to have reached a settlement for their collective agreement and hope the same flexibility and willingness to spend money will be shown for secondary teachers. 

NZ Secondary Principals’ council (NZSPC) chair, Julia Davidson, and Secondary Principals’ Association of NZ (SPANZ) president, Patrick Walsh, say the settlement represents a major step forward in terms of career structure by recognising the complexity of the secondary principal’s job. 

Teaching and learning NZ Sign Language (NZSL) will be much more fun and easy with the help of a new website launched by the MoE last month.

NZSL sits alongside English and Maori as an official language in NZ and is used by an estimated 29,000 Kiwis. While many of those are part of the deaf community, the MoE website, named Thumbs Up! An Introduction to NZ Sign Language, aims to increase the numbers of hearing students and teachers who know the language.

While most students spent their school holidays relaxing, 16 Year Nine students from around the country have been sweating over long lists of words. The students are contestants in the New Zealand Vegemite Spelling Bee Final, and are building up for the event, held in Wellington on Saturday 26th February, 2011.

From the 13th to the 20th of February, NZ students had the rare opportunity to witness some of the world’s best secondary school debaters as they toured the North Island as part of the Russell McVeagh International Schools’ Debating Tour 2011.

The tour was run by the NZ Schools’ Debating Council and worked its way from Wellington to Auckland via Palmerston North, Hawkes Bay, Rotorua, Hamilton and Whangarei. 

The new Ormiston Senior College in Auckland is the first school in New Zealand to achieve a 5 Green Star Education Design 2009 rating. 

“5 Green Star schools are the schools of the future,” says Karen Sewell, the Secretary for Education. “They improve the health and well being of the teachers and students in them, they decrease energy costs, and the environmental impact of the building is less.” 

Thanks to 40 students from Hurunui College in North Canterbury, three young great spotted kiwi were released into the Nina valley last Saturday.

Teacher, Tim Kelly, is as excited as his students. “It’s payday for these guys today, after three years of hard work and initiative,” he said.”Now that we have young birds in the valley, there is even more pressure on us to keep the kiwi killers out!”

With the beginning of the new school year, the collaboration of 13 West Auckland schools in the Waitakere Area Schooling Improvement Programme (WASIP) is set out to improve literacy levels among students.

The ministry-supported programme involves low decile primary and intermediate schools who have been given facilitators by the MoE, i.e. literacy development officers, to support WASIP.

Kristin School’s head boy, Lewis Fry, has received a perfect score in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma.

Lewis gained the maximum possible total of 45 points in his IB Diploma, which is an exceptional result both nationally and internationally, and a feat that is only achieved by 0.2 per cent of IB students globally. 

Three high school students from Canterbury and Nelson have had the door to a world of scientific opportunity opened to them during a summer internship at the University of Canterbury.

Sarah Quinney (Garin College, Nelson), Sheetal Chand (Hillmorton High School) and Gina Kioa (Christchurch Girls High School) were among eight secondary school students nationwide awarded 2010/2011 MacDiarmid Discovery Awards.

Howick College in East Auckland has undergone a M-Learning Capability (MLC) pilot project, which aimed to highlight early evidence of how mobile devices may help re-define teaching and learning in the decade ahead.

Six New Zealand students with dreams of pursuing careers in environmental research have been given the chance to do this with the help of a BayerBoost scholarship grant.

The secondary school and tertiary students from Christchurch, Lincoln, Auckland, Whakatane and Wellington have each been granted financial assistance to undertake projects in their area of interest, under the guidance of a nominated host organisation.

Auckland schools and sports clubs are set to benefit from a $2.3 million injection of Kiwisport funding. Sport Auckland will be distributing this via contestable funding rounds over the next three years. The objectives are simple: More Kids, More Opportunities and Better Skills.

 The MoE approved the new NZ Virtual School Trades Academy (NZVS), which is due to open next February. The school will offer NCEA Level 1 and 2 learners the ability to achieve qualifications - such as NCEA and National Certificates - in a broad range of areas, including 3D Animation and Game Design, Aviation Studies and Horticulture.

 Ten national recipients of the NEiTA Foundation’s Excellence in Teaching and Leadership Awards were recently awarded grants worth $35,000 and crystal apples during ceremonies at their schools.

Last week, Microsoft NZ announced that Botany Downs Secondary College will be the country’s first school to be accepted to the global Microsoft Innovative Schools Programme. 

Botany Downs was chosen after a rigorous application process, and joins a global community of 80 schools in 46 countries. Over the next 12 months, Microsoft NZ will work with educational experts to assist staff and students through a process of whole-school transformation, aimed at creating a community focused on innovative teaching and learning practice. 

One of the country’s leading Maori secondary schools has launched a recruitment campaign in a bid to lift its student roll in 2011.

First established in 1928, Hato Petera College on Auckland’s North Shore is a co-educational Catholic boarding and day school.

 Together with King’s School and King’s College, St Cuthbert’s College held a celebration of their highly successful joint Endeavour Scholarship programme last week. 

The Endeavour Scholarship programme was established in 2001 and is specifically designed for students of Maori and Pasifika descent. 

 Art students from St Peter’s College, Botany Downs Secondary College, and Epsom Girls’ Grammar School in Auckland are exhibiting their work on the walls of Thrive, a new eating disorders service launched last month by leading recovery provider Challenge Trust.

 Claxton’s ‘Building Learning Power’ is one of the strategies St Cuthbert’s had identified as a way to develop its students’ ability to learn how to learn, so a personal visit by the man who developed it became a priority. 

His approach has been tried and tested in hundreds of primary and secondary schools. During his visit to the College on 28th October, 2010, he addressed the academic staff and ran a workshop with a selected group. 

The business skills of Auckland’s students took centre stage at the Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme (YES) regional finals for Auckland Central last week.

Little Steps, a student company from St Mary’s College, took out the top prize with their illustrated children’s book ‘Bert’s Big Day’, which targets obesity by encouraging a healthier diet.

“Manurewa Intermediate is motoring and moving on up” – principal Iain Taylor prefers catchy slogans like this because they sum up the journey ahead for the previously struggling decile one South Auckland school.

ACG Strathallan students Ashley Varney, Phoebe Cowdell-Murray and Hannah Senior beat 23 other Auckland schools to win the Junior Premier Grade Debating Competition last month. 

Both Ashley and Phoebe have also won places on the ‘Top Speaker List’ and will be receiving individual awards when the trophy is presented at the beginning of next term.

Announcing a new range of Macmillan education ebooks

Macmillan Education is pleased to launch a range of 55 Macmillan Readers and Macmillan Books for Teachers titles for the iBookstore platform, opening a flexible new range of English learning materials for use on iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

Thirty-four greater Wellington region year 12 and 13 school students attended a workshop on the laws of war recently.

The Reserve Bank has announced that Kristin School from Auckland is the national winner of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand 2010 Monetary Policy Challenge (MPC).
Tauranga Boys’ College was placed second and Scots College from Wellington came third.

“Young people are using Facebook and Twitter all the time. They’re putting a lot of personal information out there and online.
Faced with the challenges of living in today’s digital world, we wanted to find out what young people’s take on privacy was. So, we got together a group of secondary school students to find out.

The business skills of secondary school students took centre stage recently at an annual Auckland Trade Fair impressing three Auckland mayors. 
More than 250 students from across Auckland sold products and services produced by their own student companies as part of the nationwide Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme (YES).

The effects of sad and traumatic events earlier this year among high school students were echoed in a recent Victoria University report. Author, Dr Nathan McCluskey, from the Roy McKenzie Centre for the Study of Families, commented that it “...was recognised that students were struggling to deal with a range of transitional stresses and traumas irrespective of socio-economic status. In this sense, the ‘teenage condition’ was no respecter of decile.”
The pointed and timely statement came from a review of the Ministry of Health funded Travellers programme, run by children and young people’s charity Skylight.

An innovative hay feeding bag and an automatic screen cleaner took a clean sweep at the Young Innovator Awards (YiA) in Tauranga late last month.
Jonathan Kent from Tauranga Boys’ College won the Senior Category with his Automatic Screen Cleaner concept and Savana Woodcock of Katikati College won the junior category with her Handy Hay Bag.

New Zealand senior secondary and tertiary level students have until the end of September to get their applications in for the 2010 BayerBoost environmental scholarships.
The scholarship scheme is funded by Bayer NZ Ltd and administered by the Royal Society of NZ.
It aims to provide financial assistance to students undertaking environmental research projects during their summer break.

New Zealand’s team for the 2010 International Olympiad in Informatics has arrived in Canada for the 2010 competition. Team Members Logan Glasson (Burnside High School), Jamie McCloskey (Unlimited Paenga Tawhiti), Boris Pfahringer (University of Waikato)  and Tony Sun (Christ’s College) attended an intensive pre-departure training camp hosted by the University of Auckland prior to leaving.

Chicken-flavoured ice cream and Recycling bins no match for winds. These are just two of the science projects produced by students in the annual National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA), Wellington Regional Science and Technology Fair, to be held at Victoria University of Wellington, 25th-28th August, 2010.

The Department of Mathematics at The University of Auckland and NZ Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (NZIMA) are delighted to have assisted six secondary school students to the best ever result for NZ in the 51st International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) held in Kazakhstan last month.
The students, who competed as individuals in a field of almost 600 students from 98 countries, all came home with medals and their combined scores saw NZ ranked 29th overall.

Applications for the Mike Pero Mortgages Foundation, which opened in May, have been coming in steadily, and Mike Pero Mortgages chief executive Shaun Riley says they still want more.

High achieving students believe making a special connection with at least one teacher was crucial to their scholarship success, Victoria University PhD research has found.

Last month’s Budget announcements are adding a fiscal blowtorch to state secondary schools in the greater Waikato region.

Spokesperson for the Central North Island Secondary Principals Association (CNISPA) Clive Hamill commented that over half of the principals at a recent regional meeting were planning for budget deficits for this year and the Budget announcement of an additional four per cent in resourcing for 2011 gave them little comfort.

Howick College, in conjunction with Vodafone, and Waikato University has been selected by the MoE, to undertake a pioneering project looking at mobile devices, and their impact on learning.

A Manukau youth campus aimed at helping teenagers who are not currently engaged in education officially opened on 18th June, to mark the beginning of a new era in youth education under the government’s Youth Guarantee policy.

Three tertiary education scholarships, two worth $5000 and one worth $2500, are being offered again this year by the Mike Pero Mortgages Foundation, for students planning their first year of tertiary study in 2011.

Career Services has launched a new, free on-line tool designed to help students and job seekers explore career ideas through an interactive questionnaire.

NZ’s first tertiary high school, the School of Secondary-Tertiary Studies, was officially opened on Friday, 21st May, 2010, by Anne Tolley, minister of education and the Steven Joyce, minister for tertiary education.

Surviving the transition from school to university can have a big impact on whether Maori and Pacific students succeed at tertiary level, a new report says.

Outstanding Maori secondary school students are the focus of new research into what factors influence their success.

PPTA president Kate Gainsford is calling for an independent look into school staffing vacancies after the MoE underestimated staffing in 74 per cent of secondary schools.

The VEX World Robotics Championships were held in Dallas, Texas, in late April and the Kristin School team were awarded Tournament Champions of the High School competition.

Analysis of secondary school survey data by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) shows support for the NCEA qualification has further consolidated among principals, teachers and boards of trustees.

Some have been inspired to fund-raise for charity; others have been motivated to get their lives back on track and re-engage with learning.

Sanitarium Nutrition Service has launched a new senior Home Economics teaching resource called Vegetarian Choice for the 2010 school year.

Each year Tai Poutini Polytechnic presents a number of awards to students from West Coast secondary schools who demonstrate goal setting and passion in the curriculum areas of Technology, Computing, and Hospitality and Tourism.

Starpath at The University of Auckland says NCEA students can make significant gains when detailed data on their academic progress is used to help them meet their highest aspirations.

Career Services extends its phone guidance service to meet growing demand

Every year dozens of young hi-tech enthusiasts spend hours racking their brains and developing the next big thing for the prestigious Bright Sparks Competition.

Dr Paul Lowe, a secondary science teacher at Morrinsville College, has won the Kudos Award for Science Educator at the Kudos Awards in Hamilton.

Tertiary institutes are lagging in popularity with 14 and 15-year-old secondary school students when compared to other available career opportunities. This alarming trend is the unexpected result of a partner report generated by Inzone’s new interactive careers network.

School teachers and students throughout NZ are encouraged to enter teams in the 2009 Pearl Izumi Taupo Half Ironman to be in with a chance to win $1000 for new sports equipment.

During September students from around the Northland region gathered at Pehiaweri Marae, Glenbervie to represent their schools in a biannual forum facilitated by Enterprise Northland.

As demand grows for university education, parents are giving their children an edge at secondary school by sending them along to a new course in study skills during the school holidays.

International rower, polar adventurer and former Waikato University student Jamie Fitzgerald visited Hamilton Girls’ High School earlier this month to inspire its young leaders.

Two NZers have proudly taken the stage to receive bronze medals at the world’s foremost and most prestigious programming contest for high school students, in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

A team of teenagers from NZ achieved great results in the 41st International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO) this year.

SeYe Chan of Northern Southland College shares how the year 12 Humanities Class completed an awesome field exercise where they lived the life of a NZ soldier during the Somme Offensive of 1916.

Recent international financial scandals have highlighted the fact that exercising good judgement is often just as important as following professional rules, says Accountancy Prof. Paul Dunmore.

Two special prizes in the Freemasons BIG Science Adventures DVD competition have been awarded by the Royal NZ Navy.

Applications for the Mike Pero Mortgages Foundation, which opened on 1st June, have been coming in steadily, and Mike Pero Mortgages chief executive Shaun Riley says they still want more.

Do you know or teach students that want to study overseas? Find a cure for cancer? Start their own fashion label? Compete in the Olympics? Raise money for charity? Fly to the moon?

The Starpath Project at The University of Auckland has warned that many Maori and Pacific students may not make it to university because they are making ill-informed NCEA subject choices.

The 2009 National Secondary School Songwriting Competition and the 2009 Peace Song Competition are open to all secondary school students, with entries closing on Friday, 5th June, 2009.

“I’ve always loved what I do, because I did what I loved,” says John Cowan, writer and presenter with Parents Inc.

Two gifted NZers will receive the rare privilege to study at the National University of Singapore (NUS) which is ranked among the top 30 in the world.

Youthtown’s Short Film Challenge targets the whole of NZ.

Late last term 22 dedicated year 11 to year 13 students from seven Northland secondary schools met at the second Education for Enterprise Northland Student Forum.

Three tertiary education scholarships, two worth $5000 and one worth $2500, are being offered again this year by the Mike Pero Mortgages Foundation, for students planning their first year of tertiary study in 2010.

Visual Art from NZ’s top secondary school art students will be featured in a touring exhibition visiting approximately 30 different venues throughout the country over the next five months.

As indicated last year, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) has developed a set of draft guidelines for schools on reassessment and resubmission opportunities for internal assessment.
 

An energy boosting ice block, a beat-the-recession internet blog and a gym towel with iPod storage were among the business ideas suggested by students at the launch of the Young Enterprise Scheme (YES).

Three outstanding NZ students have been awarded prestigious Asia NZ Foundation David Holborow Memorial Scholarships for 2009.

NZQA has confirmed the Premier Award and Top Subject Scholarship Award winners for 2008.
 

One of NZ’s most loved poets will judge the country’s best young writing talent in this year’s expanded New Zealand Post National Schools Poetry Awards.

Crash Bash is offering free scriptwriting workshops at the end of March for up to 40 students who are interested in this year’s Scriptwriting Competition in Christchurch.

The Challenge is open to all NZ senior secondary school economics students. It is designed to expand students’ understanding of monetary policy and links to NCEA achievement standards.

Two reports on nursing services in NZ will provide greater insight into the diverse work nurses now do, according to Victoria University researcher Dr Jackie Cumming.
 

Primary, intermediate and secondary school children across NZ are taking their first steps into 3D visualisation thanks to partnerships with 3D visualisation industry catalyst Nextspace.

Seventy-four students were presented with awards in front of a packed auditorium at Auckland Grammar School on Thursday 19th February.

The scheme which last year won a Cathedral College team the regional award for their anti-drink spiking product, has again attracted interest from all over the region.

A unique education for sustainability programme for high school students has been launched in Auckland and the Bay of Plenty.

Earlier this month, a group of three Tauranga Girls College students and their teacher returned from a trip of a lifetime to the sub-Antarctic islands, thanks to their winning entry in last year’s Freemasons BIG Science Adventures DVD competition.

The number of men studying to become secondary teachers at Massey University’s College of Education (CoE) has doubled providing an even split between men and women – an exciting development for a profession that has recently struggled to find gender balance in the classroom.
 

Students from Fiordland College will be going home with dirt under their fingernails, thanks to a new initiative supported by the Meridian Manapouri Te Anau Community Fund.

Following a thorough and lengthy process the Epsom Girls Grammar School Board has announced that Mrs Madeline Gunn, who has been acting principal at Epsom Girls Grammar School throughout 2008, has been appointed to the position of permanent principal.

Three young Aucklanders have been given a generous helping hand in their university studies thanks to the Sir George Elliot Charitable Trust.
 

The 2008 examination focus has turned to marking nearly 1.9 million answer booklets covering 322 NCEA standards and 28 Scholarship subjects.

A new mentoring programme to help young women reach their full potential is an exciting step towards building a capable new generation of leaders, says Wellington YWCA president Lynell Tuffery.

Katikati student Pippa Grierson has won a major award at an international competition for young scientists in Europe, for her research project into facial eczema in livestock.

An internet-based career planning programme developed by a Mount Maunganui school careers advisor promises to open up a world of possibilities for students.

Three outstanding year 13 high school students are the recipients of Mike Pero Mortgages’ Foundation tertiary education scholarships for 2009.

After 14 months of challenges, nine graduates from Foundation for Youth Development’s flagship programme, Project K, were put to the test one more time negotiating the startling heights of the Sky Tower and the Auckland harbour bridge.

There are some jobs that girls could happily and productively do but they do not get the chance, Ministry of Women’s Affairs chief executive Shenagh Gleisner has said.

It seems everywhere we turn, kids are texting non-stop. Some say it’s a curse, signalling the end of verbal communication as we know it.

Students from Kapiti College in Raumati have been showing other colleges and health professionals how to combat youth smoking.

UCOL’s chef lecturers are challenging secondary school students to create a baked potato recipe that tastes great – and costs no more than $3 to make.

Fresh from her success in the MacDiarmid Young Scientists of the Year Awards, Scion’s Dr Tripti Singh is now lending a helping hand to start the scientists of tomorrow along their career paths.

Solid Energy is again offering tertiary scholarships to students attending schools in its local mining communities as part of its community support programme.

“ICT should be about the conversations students are having, not the technology,” according to 2008 MoE E-learning Fellow Michael Fenton.

The Foundation for Youth Development will celebrate the achievements of nine special graduates from its flagship programme, Project K at the Project K Student Excellence Awards at Government House Auckland on 18th September.

Exam candidates appear to be getting the message that cell phones have no place in exam rooms.

Secondary students from Auckland and Hastings have scooped the two top prizes in the 2008 NZ Post National Schools Poetry Awards, which were held at a ceremony in Wellington on Friday, 22nd August.

Waikato Diocesan School for Girls has won the 2008 National Secondary Schools Squash Tournament, held at Kawaroa Park New Plymouth, during August.

New Zealanders envisage a future in which the responsibility for education is widely distributed across the whole community, says Prof. Mason Durie, Chair of the Secondary Futures project.

Scholarships are offered to school leavers who are interested in a career in one of the many sectors of horticulture.

Secondary school students who tested the quality of water from locations around Palmerston North were surprised to find that The Square’s duck pond is almost clean enough to drink.

Chris Carter has announc­ed a new appointment to the board of the NZQA.

Making good career decisions has become all the more important as the number of career options available to young people today continues to multiply and employers’ needs become more complex.

Young NZers are being given their say on sustainability with The Outlook for Someday film challenge for 2008 launched nationwide recently.

School leaver data recently released by Chris Carter shows that more students are leaving school with higher qualifications.

Waiheke + 16 students + three days = an unforgettable experience, tons of experiences, and nooooooo showers!!!

Today’s secondary schools face an aging workforce, a lack of qualified job applicants and a growing resignation rate – some have even been forced to cancel courses because of lack of teachers.

New Zealand secondary school students have won a silver medal at the 21st International Young Physicist Tournament held recently in Trogir, Croatia.

After two-and-a-half years at the helm of the Secondary Principals’ Council (SPC), chairman Arthur Graves will hand over leadership to a team of two – Graeme Macann and Julia Davidson.

The MoE and NZQA are reviewing achievement and unit standards, as part of the joint programme of improvements to NCEA.

Te Piringa from Manawatu/Horowhenua has won the overall aggregate title for the National Secondary School Maori Performing Arts Competition 2008.

Pearson Education New Zealand announces the first NZ text book on astronomy and space for secondary school students. The book is Astronomy Aotearoa by Wellington author Robert Shaw.