Perry Rush was appointed as Leadership Consultant and member of Tui Tuia’s Senior Leadership Team in 2022. He was recently the National President of the New Zealand Principals’ Federation and Principal of Hastings Intermediate School. Perry is a passionate advocate of student-centred learning and is well known and respected for his expertise in leadership, inquiry-based learning, and curriculum. 

Mei Lai is currently the Associate Director of Woolf Fisher Research Centre. Mai’s career in education has included roles with numerous schools, the NZ Ministry of Education, and professional development agencies; as a professional developer, consultant, researcher, and academic. Her work focuses on integrating research and practice to co-design and co-evaluate sustainable interventions using collaborative analysis of data. Mei’s body of research represents nearly two decades of developing and testing how research-practice partnership interventions can improve teaching and learning. 

During the Kāhui Ako’s first session with Tui Tuia and Woolf Fisher Centre, Kelly Slater-Brown, the Principal of Bucklands Beach Primary School, shared the writing data from the Kāhui Ako. Collectively, writing results across the schools has decreased over the last 2 years. Kelly also mentioned that the Kāhui Ako has over 800 students who are struggling with learning and receive no funding. 

Mei and Perry introduced The Learning School Model - a research-practice partnership intervention to improve school and teacher practices and valued student outcomes. The Learning Schools Model has been implemented for 17+ years in five countries and has successfully improved student achievement.