Tag Archives: Education

Strategic philanthropy (including NEXT), social bonds, ethical funds management and social enterprise trends
are featured in this report by Chapman Tripp released this week.

Impact investment – trends and insights is a report written
by friend of NEXT Phillippa Wilkie.

“Right now we have got a unique opportunity
with the child wellbeing framework review
and the review of early learning to get talk high on the
agenda – we want recognition for it centrality early in
life.

New research
shows babies babble can be an indicator
of how good a reader they will become. TVOne news reports
on the findings- and
NEXT education initiative Talking Matters
backs it up – saying babies are “born
to communicate”.

Two teachers from College Street Normal
School in Palmerston North have been awarded the
NEXT Expert Teacher Award after completing a postgraduate
course at The Mind Lab.

Read more

The NEXT supported education
initiative Summer Learning Journey
is helping achieve better literacy
results of students who participate
in the programme over the school holidays.

As this University of Auckland Annual Donors Report report says
those students who join the programme are helping to
stave off the “summer slump” – and achieve significantly higher writing and reading scores.

The Education Hub has announced Mount
Aspiring College teacher Chris Waugh has
won one of its Bright Spots Awards for innovative
teaching practice. The Wanaka Sun reports
on the details of the award – which NEXT funds.

Two Burnside Primary teachers who have
developed an innovative oral language
programme to help new entrants have been named winners
of The Education Hub’s Bright Spots Awards,
for innovative teaching practice.

Gisborne Boys High School Head of
Science Darcy Fawcett has been named
one of the winners of The Education Hub’s
Bright Spots Awards. Darcy has developed
a data interpretation tool to determine if teachers improvements
in practice are effective.

A group of school children from Omaha
School west of New Plymouth are playing
detectives to help the Taranaki Mounga project. They are
trawling through hours of video footage to help
locate where the predators are – so the
Taranaki Mounga team know where
to target their trapping efforts.

A group of teachers from Tauhara College
in Taupo have won one of The Education Hub’s inaugural
Brights Spots Awards – for an innovative teaching
programme promoting STEM subjects at the Maori girls
college.

A group of Taupo teachers developing a programme to encourage young Māori women to enrol in STEM subjects and a Christchurch primary school designing an oral language programme for new entrants are among the winners of The Education Hub’s inaugural Bright Spots Awards, funded by NEXT Foundation, announced today.

Neal and Annette Plowman are one of New Zealand’s most generous
couples. We chart their philanthropic journey over the past 15 years.

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“It’s a privilege to be able to support
teachers who want to better prepare our
future generations of New Zealanders –
there’s no more impactful place to invest in
education,” NEXT CEO Bill Kermode reflects
on the foundation’s investment in upskilling
teachers in technology through The Mind Lab.

PwC NEXT Young Leader
Jacob Weaver
has completed his one year
secondment. He shares his thoughts on
how the experience will shape his career.

Leith Comer – who chairs the Ngā Pūmanawa e Waru
Education Trust that NEXT supports, has been made a
Companion the Queen’s Service Order in the Queen’s
Birthday Honours.

NEXT has announced it is extending the funding
for Talking Matters – an educational initiative promoting
rich language in a baby’s first 1000 days of life.

Read More

NEXT champion Frank Janssen has been awarded the Plowman medal for his
generous contribution to NEXT’s education
investments. Thank you Frank for your valuable
insights – straight talking – and your philosophy
of giving back.

Two teachers have been selected as the
winners of the NEXT Expert Teacher Award
at the Mind Lab by Unitec Postgraduate Certificate
in Applied Practice graduation held this week.

“The Bright Spots Awards are another opportunity for us to support examples of excellence in practice in New Zealand education. We are delighted to be able to partner with The Education Hub in them,” NEXT CEO Bill Kermode commenting on the new awards for teacher innovation, supported by NEXT.

NEXT Foundation is celebrating four years since its launch in 2014 – and now supports sixteen environmental and education initiatives.

Thirteen of those investments have been made since the foundation’s inception – and three are continuing support for projects started before NEXT’s launch.

The Mind Lab by Unitec has launched a new
education platform today to enable teachers to develop the skills and understanding to
deliver the new digital technologies curriculum. NEXT is supporting the new
Digital Passport initiative as a natural progression from its investment in sponsoring
teachers to undertake The Mind Lab’s postgraduate technology qualification.

Forty-five university graduates and career changers have begun a new profession this year –
teaching at some of New Zealand’s lowest income communities. They are the Teach First NZ:
Ako Mātātupu 2018 cohort – a NEXT supported initiative addressing inequality in our
education system.

More than 500 primary and
intermediate schoolchildren from
low decile Manaiakalani schools have
been blogging over the holidays under
the NEXT supported Summer Learning
Journey. Seven Sharp journalist Michael Holland caught
up with two girls from St Pius X school in
Auckland to check out what the programme and
the “summer slump” is all
about.

“I learnt classical music so I could get out of study and hide in the music rooms…” Mike Chunn – friend of NEXT, music mentor and Play it Strange Trust CEO
takes us back to where his passion for music began – how Split Enz was born –
and how NEXT and his music charity are travelling side by side
for a better New Zealand.

“Students who didn’t practice
or flex their literary muscles over summer experienced a
loss of literary fitness that took lots of hard work
and training to regain .

For our final newsletter of 2017 we bring you the wisdom of the wonderful
leaders in education and the environment that NEXT supports. We asked them for a short quote or anecdotal story that resonates with them.

“Summer Learning Journey is an excellent example of a well structured education innovation with robust evidence and a scalable model,” – NEXT CEO Bill Kermode in the NZ Herald, in a report about NEXT’s latest education investment.

A blogging programme for school children – to help them maintain academic grades over the summer holidays – is to expand significantly with support from NEXT Foundation.

The Summer Learning Journey has been developed through a partnership with Manaiakalani teachers and the Woolf Fisher Research Centre at the University of Auckland to counter the “Summer Slump” – where school students can lose a year or more of their academic progress in writing when they break for the six-week summer holiday.

NEXT Foundation has announced it is investing in an educational support programme for new parents and their babies – SPACE.SPACE for you and your baby is a programme run through early childhood education and community organisations offering parent education, parent support and community connectedness.

NEXT is privileged to have the support of
PwC as part of our vision to make New Zealand
a better place for our land and our people.

The NEXT supported education initiative
Ngā Pūmanawa e Waru was recently
selected as a finalist for the prestigious
Rotorua Westpac Business Excellence Awards.

The Rotorua district-wide initiative brings together the best of teacher practice coupled with an appropriate future focused learning pedagogy with the endorsement and support from parents, caregivers, community, business and iwi.

One of the education initiatives NEXT
Invests in – Springboard Trust – is celebrating its 10th birthday.
Springboard offers strategic leadership advice to school principals and in the video below its Chairman Ian Narev outlines its success over the past decade.

Friend of NEXT Annette Culpan offers up some advice on when charities are investment ready – including some insights from NEXT CEO Bill Kermode.

Click here

Sandy Bornholdt from Mt Manganui’s Te Kura o Matapihi has been recognised as the country’s top digital teacher, winning the prestigious NEXT Expert Teacher Award at The Mind Lab by Unitec’s graduation in Auckland last week.

“He waka eke noa.. we are all in this together. We need help, let’s paddle the waka together..” Jamie Tuuta, Maori Trustee, CEO Te Tumu Paeroa, Chair Taranaki Mounga, on kaupapa Maori iwi and philanthropy, shares his insights into Maoridom today; philanthropy – and how iwi and philanthropists can work together for a better New Zealand.

Technology is helping parents realise the benefits of richer language with babies
in their first 1000 days – the New Zealand Herald report on the device being
trialled by NEXT education initiative Talking Matters.

In the NEXT September Newsletter we highlight our education investment in the First 1000 days
with an opinion piece from the Children’s Commissioner; and some technology trials in Talking Matters.
We also bring you an environmental update from Project Janszoon and introduce some young Canterbury songwriters
in our Meet the Musicians series.

Play it Strange songwriters Troy Scott and Katie Miller found music therapeutic during the trauma of the Christchurch earthquakes. In this Meet the Musicians profile,they discuss what songwriting means to them – and the story behind their single “Turn to Me” which they kindly allow NEXT to use on our video about education initiative The Springboard Trust.

Could technology help tune parents into the importance of rich communication with their babies in their first 1000 days?
Talking Matters, a NEXT early years(0-3) education initiative has been testing cutting edge technology with a group of parents – as a tool for promoting richer language.