Teachers showering Kiwi kids with praise - and never allowing them to fail - are threatening to do more harm than good, a leading educationist says.

The average Kiwi teacher is a woman in her early fifties and she's facing a generation of kids who have grown up with Wi-Fi, the cloud and hand-held technology.

New Zealand's bullying problem may be going unchecked because schools do not want to share their problems nationwide.

Schools' latest stationery demands are making some parents mad enough to cry - especially the discovery that tissues are now listed among their children's essentials.

If teachers were unpaid, they would be reluctant to do the job and, in the end, children would be worse off, writes Jamie Whyte. Yet the same goes for those who supply the capital.

The Government would have us believe school teachers are just a pack of whiners, writes Dita De Boni. It is exhausting, relentless work, mentally and physically, and I for one am happy to admit I could never hack it.

He's 28 and a former mechanic - but had to go to jail to learn that it's useful to save some of your money.

A flagship charter school has lost nearly a quarter of its students and is still battling problems as it nears the end of its first year.

Mass killer Stephen Anderson who in 1997 gunned down 10 people, killing six of them, including his 60-year-old father is no longer tutoring at an art school.

A primary school lost more than 55 teachers in four years - but got a government inspector's tick of approval.

A class set of laptops has proved life-changing for a young Aucklander who believes he is NZ's only wheelchair-using teacher with cerebral palsy.

Class disruptions and a lack of exposure to algebra and geometry are just some issues being linked to NZ slipping from 13th to 22nd in OECD maths ratings.

An Auckland teacher accused of committing indecent acts on 10 girls was caught in compromising positions by other adults, the Crown says.

A teacher who failed to report the behaviour of a student who developed an intense crush on him has been censured, but will continue to be able to teach.

Her own boy has done okay - but over a 35-year teaching career Margaret McCaw has helped in the development of hundreds of other children.

After pouring $45m in to fix Novopay, the teachers’ payroll system is no longer a "dog" and teachers will be thankful that the Government has taken it over, John Key says.

An Auckland school failed to act on concerns raised by two teenage students who felt unsafe around their teacher - six years before he was arrested for sexually grooming one of them and other underage girls.

Failure to pass on information at school’s management level was critical to the overlooking of allegations made by students.

In the mid-1990s, Gus, a polar bear in the Central Park Zoo, alarmed visitors by compulsively swimming figure eights in his pool, sometimes for 12 hours a day.

The Government's $359 million expert teachers policy has proved to be the latest in a series of "epic failures" in the education sector due to a lack of consultation with teachers.

Parents of a schoolgirl psychologically abused by her headmistress are furious she has denied targeting their daughter.

A researcher has been shocked by the racist attitudes of the teachers she interviewed for a study looking at expectations for students' success.

Some British teachers are taking food to give their pupils breakfast every day because they are too hungry and exhausted to learn, says a new report.

There will be less chance of dodgy teachers resurfacing at other schools under legislation to be introduced in Parliament today, Education Minister Hekia Parata says.