Literacy Professional Development

Great literacy PLD doesn’t embed itself; coaching does. This school-funded programme is designed for schools who have already engaged in Structured Literacy PLD and are ready to take the next step: embedding and extending literacy practice through coaching systems that are aligned, consistent, and sustainable.

Leaders and in-school coaches build the skills to observe, give feedback, and support teachers in the classroom. The offer includes coaching profile design, modelling, guided practice, and ongoing support, all delivered in your school context.

What’s Included:

• Leadership workshops and staff co-design
• On-site modelling and coach training
• Built in support for coaches
• Online clinics to sustain

 Outcome: A coaching pathway that makes literacy improvement continuous; for teachers, for learners, for the long term.

Available in two pathways: 20 hours (base) or 40 hours (extended)

Enquire now to embed coaching at the core of your school’s literacy strategy and sustain impact well beyond the PLD hours.

Support your team to move confidently from sentence-level instruction into clear, scaffolded paragraph writing. Designed for schools who’ve completed Structured Literacy PLD, Transfer to Writing shows how to embed explicit writing routines that begin in reading and flow into writing, fully aligned to the Phase 2 curriculum.

Teachers learn to expand and combine sentences, draw writing structures from texts they read, guide structured paragraph construction, and use the assessment toolkit to track progress with purpose.

What’s Included:

• Staff workshops: sentence routines, paragraph scaffolds, assessment for learning
• Leadership session: walkthrough design and curriculum alignment
• Classroom modelling and co-teaching
• Walkthroughs using student writing samples and assessment toolkit

Outcome:
Teachers confidently deliver consistent sentence-to-paragraph routines anchored in reading. Students use what they read to shape what they write, producing clear, scaffolded paragraphs and growing independence. Leaders track progress through Phase 2 using the assessment toolkit.

15-hour base package available.

Enquire now to support your team in embedding writing routines that build confidence and clarity in every classroom.

Support your team to move from sentence and short-paragraph writing into extended, cohesive paragraphs and multi-paragraph texts.

Transfer to Writing equips teachers to embed explicit routines that draw directly from reading texts and flow into writing, aligned with the refreshed curriculum.

Teachers learn to teach complex sentence structures, support analytical and persuasive writing tasks, and guide students to plan, draft, revise, and edit for purpose and audience. They also learn how to use the assessment toolkit to track progress and scaffold learners towards greater independence.

What’s Included:

• Staff workshops: complex sentence routines, extended paragraph writing, scaffolds for purpose and audience
• Leadership session: curriculum alignment and walkthrough design
• Classroom modelling and co-teaching
• Walkthroughs using student writing samples and assessment toolkit

Outcome:
Teachers confidently deliver routines that move students from reading into purposeful, extended writing. Students use what they read to shape multi-paragraph responses across genres, writing with fluency, accuracy, and control. Leaders track progress using the Phase 3 curriculum sequence statements, using the assessment toolkit.

15-hour base package available.

Enquire now to strengthen your team’s capacity to guide students into extended, purposeful writing that endures.

Boost progress where it’s needed most. This school-funded PLD helps teachers deliver short, sharp, high-impact teaching that accelerates literacy learning for Tier 2 students. Grounded in an accelerative framework, the programme shows how to use explicit, diagnostic, and responsive instruction to close gaps quickly in reading and writing.

This offer builds teacher capability to plan and run intensive acceleration sessions that connect reading to writing. Teachers gain practical strategies through workshops, modelling, and coaching, while leaders design systems to track progress and sustain acceleration beyond the PLD hours.

What’s Included:

• Staff workshops: diagnostic assessment, targeted planning, explicit routines, and sustainability
• Leadership & team planning: systems design and English Learning Area acceleration map
• Classroom modelling & co-teaching: high-impact routines with Tier 2 learners
• Coaching & walkthroughs: feedback, reflection, and evaluation of learner progress

Outcome:
Teachers deliver targeted acceleration that closes literacy gaps in reading and writing. Students make rapid, measurable gains through scaffolded, high-impact routines. Leaders embed systems to sustain acceleration across the school.

40-hour PLD package available.

Enquire now to accelerate literacy progress for learners who need it most, and close gaps with targeted, high-impact teaching.

Planning shouldn’t feel like guesswork. In this hands-on PLD, your staff design year, term, unit, and weekly literacy plans that systematically build knowledge through rich texts and connect reading to writing. Guided by Cognition facilitators and drawing on Ministry English resource design, teachers leave with a coherent yearly knowledge map, a full unit plan, and weekly block plans that embed retrieval, oral rehearsal, and reading-to-writing transfer.

What’s Included:

• Leadership meeting: align your whole-school literacy map
• Staff workshops: explore knowledge building, through yearly and term design, unit unpacking, and weekly literacy block planning
• Planning labs: co-design year, term, unit, and weekly frameworks
• Reflection and next steps: share artefacts, align with curriculum, set implementation actions

Outcome:
Teachers leave with practical planning frameworks and ready-to-use templates aligned with the refreshed English curriculum. Students experience purposeful, knowledge-rich literacy journeys that seamlessly connect reading and writing.

20-hour base package available.

Enquire now to tailor this planning support to your primary or Year 7–8 team and start building knowledge-rich literacy plans that drive progress.

Sustained improvement doesn’t come from programmes, it comes from people.

Our coaching and mentoring approach grows capability from within, supporting teachers and leaders to embed Te Mātaiaho in ways that directly enhance learner outcomes.

Grounded in the work of Hattie (2012) on visible learning, Bishop (2019) on Teaching to the North-East, and Knight (2021) on instructional coaching, this approach combines the relational with the practical: teachers are supported through cycles of observation, feedback, reflection, and action that turn professional learning into visible classroom change.

Through a blend of professional coaching (building self-efficacy, reflection, and leadership) and instructional coaching (targeting pedagogy, assessment, and classroom practice), teachers and leaders are guided to connect curriculum knowledge with purposeful action that improves learner outcomes.

Our coaching and mentoring approach supports:

• Embedded practice and system coherence – ensuring curriculum understanding becomes everyday pedagogy.
• Relational trust and responsiveness – drawing on Bishop’s evidence that learning accelerates when teachers and leaders engage in authentic, reciprocal, and dialogic relationships.
• Collective efficacy and agency – reflecting Hattie’s finding that collective teacher efficacy has one of the highest impacts on student achievement.
• Sustained growth through reflection – enabling teachers to see, name, and refine their impact through ongoing coaching cycles.
• Aligned assessment practice – integrating evidence and reflection to inform next steps, not as an endpoint but as part of an ongoing learning conversation.

Whether through 1:1 coaching, team mentoring, or leadership partnerships, our facilitators walk alongside schools to build internal capacity for long-term success. In this way, we embody the spirit of Nā tō rourou, nā taku rourou ka ora ai te iwi, by sharing our baskets of knowledge, we enable the whole community to thrive.

The goal is not dependency but confidence, coherence, and capability across the system.