Investing in Equity: Evidence based interventions for schools and kura

The New Zealand Ministry of Education has published a document (in PDF) titled 'Investing in Equity: Evidence based interventions for schools and kura', available here. Excerpts follow from this document:

The Ministry of Education provides equity funding to schools and kura, in addition to core funding, so they can work to reduce the impact of socio-economic factors on student achievement. This funding is provided as a part of a school or kura's operational grant, giving flexibility to use it to respond to their local needs. ...

SUPPLEMENTAL PROGRAMMES

This section provides information about additional academic support outside of school hours that is effective for supporting students facing socio-economic barriers. These programmes can be provided internally or externally with support from both the school and wider community. Investing in supplemental programmes might mean running sessions for whānau to implement the Reading Together® programme or bringing in external facilitators to help make a programme successful. ...

Reading Together®

The Reading Together® programme has been running in Aotearoa New Zealand for 40 years and over that period has shown remarkable success. Reading Together® is a cost-effective, relationship building programme that focuses on teaching the whānau of early primary school students how to support their children in learning to read.

• Research shows a strong association between parental involvement and educational achievement, Reading Together® helps whānau build capacity for this.
• Multiple studies have shown that students whose whānau participate in this programme make sustained gains in their reading ability and these gains are sustained over time.
• The Reading Together® programme is flexible and can be adjusted to different cultural settings such as marae, churches, and community centres.

More information is available here:
www.readingtogether.net.nz/reading-together.html