Liam Rutherford
![](https://main.ei-ie.org/image/vGH2Hvh6scnaOaZ59pXUYnNlDR5FvBoSnT3kEEXM.jpg/portrait.jpg)
Liam has been a teacher for 12 years and is currently serving as the President of New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) - Te Riu Roa. His teaching career has had him working mainly with 11 and 12-year-old students where he has a passion for student led curriculum, design thinking, and linking learning into the local community. He has a strong interest in PB4L and mixed ability pedagogies. Liam is currently on leave from his school at Ross Intermediate which he plans to return to after his term as president has finished. During his time with NZEI Te Riu Roa, Liam has been involved with a number of important pieces of work, most notable he led the Primary Teachers negotiating team during the Kua tae te wā campaign.
Variously practiced as ‘ability grouping’, ‘streaming’, ‘attainment grouping’, ‘setting’, ‘banding’ or ‘tracking’, pedagogical practices that group students based on perceived ability or prior achievement are longstanding and widespread world over. Research, however, has long shown that this has negative impacts for students, especially those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, ethnic minorities,...
Ending Ability Grouping to empower Māori learners in Aotearoa New ZealandAotearoa New Zealand is in a privileged position, along with a small number of other countries, of being relatively COVID-free. We do face many challenges that the rest of the world often doesn’t hear about – such as serious pollution of our waterways, extreme levels of poverty and inequality, a...
Aotearoa New Zealand, education unions and climate change