Much has happened in The Graham Nuthall Classroom Research Trust since you read our last newsletter edited by Dr Elody Rathgen, sponsored by Professor Bob Manthei and distributed a year ago when we held our last ‘Bids for Kids’ auction and raised over $26,000. This was enough, with interest, to cover three annual Graham Nuthall Research Awards for research in classroom learning. This newsletter, produced with the assistance of the University of Canterbury, tells you what the Trust has since achieved with your backing and how you may be part of it. We are just beginning the most ambitious research project the Trust has undertaken, the Book and Symposium Project led by Dr Baljit Kaur. The Board is excited that this will provide selected classroom researchers, many of whom might be using Professor Nuthall’s methodological innovations and theoretical lead, with an opportunity to extend their own research. Nuthall’s unpublished works will form an integral part of the project and the resulting book aimed at furthering our understandings of classrooms. Although the Trust is covering the bulk of the costs of this project, we are seeking partner organisations to help make it an outstanding event.
Assistance with costs such as travel for a leading academic to speak to the symposium would stretch our funds. Already we have the support of the University of Canterbury’s College of Education. An instance of the partnership established last year by the College and the Trust in a Memorandum of Understanding The 2008 Award was given to Mrs Lois Christmas whose study is described as well as information for those interested in applying this year. You will also read an account of our newly established Doctoral Scholarship. The Board believes that by increasing the numbers of research projects and teachers who understand classroom research, we expect children’s learning to improve. We are therefore keen to talk to anyone who is interested in funding other classroom research prizes. These need not be annual and could be for a fixed number of years so the costs may be less than you expect.
Further items describe our work disseminating results of classroom studies, the seminar for recipients of the Nuthall Research Award and Professor John Hattie’s extraordinarily popular 2008 Lecture, Visible Teaching – Visible Learning: The Ingredients of Successful Learning in our Classrooms. We share its success with Lecture sponsors Canterbury Primary Principals Association, Lift Education and South Pacific Press. You and your organisations have supported our biennial auctions to the hilt. You gave your time and your energy; you lent us your equipment and your expertise and the auctions were all successful and fun. However, following a series of strategic planning meetings, the Board of the Trust decided not to hold further auctions but rather to match fundraising with activities and scholarships. This decision recognises that we live in a new tax environment; companies’ donations are now all tax deductible and individuals can claim deductions for donations up to their annual income so for every dollar you donate to a charity registered with the Charities Commission, you get up to 33 cents back from IRD. We hope you are pleased that The Graham Nuthall Classroom Research Trust is so focused and share our excitement of the new phase we are entering.