Nelson New Zealand: A Cengage Company is a leading provider of learning solutions to the secondary school and higher education markets in New Zealand. It is committed to publishing the finest educational resources for local students and teachers. Its secondary school texts have been designed for the NZ curriculum to ensure that students acquire the skills and knowledge to achieve the best results. In addition to successful national educational publishing, Nelson New Zealand distributes Australian and UK resources to secondary school markets, and Australian, US and UK resources to higher education and library reference markets. Nelson New Zealand are also the New Zealand agents for Collins UK and Hodder UK.
Series Information
The PM series is the result of a unique collaboration between Australian and New Zealand authors, educators, publishers, and teachers who came together with one focus — guided reading. ‘PM’ stands for Price Milburn, a publishing house from Wellington, New Zealand, who published the first 120 storybooks in the 1960s. Since then, the series has grown to 1,800 components, with strong local and international success, and is now considered the best guided reading series in the world. Over the years, a number of subseries have been added including PM Plus, Science Facts, Photostories, Gems, Early Chapters, Starters, and Stars. While these subseries have different names, they all bear the same strong and consistent levelling, and deliberate scaffolded support for developing readers. The PM series now include PM Benchmark Reading Assessment resources, PM Writing, and PM Oral Literacy. The newest innovation is the PM eCollection, a platform that reimagines guided and independent reading for the digital age, and the web-based PM Guided Reading Planner.
PM Aotearoa is a new series of 24 titles created for New Zealand children and written and illustrated predominantly by Māori and Pasifika authors and illustrators. Representing and celebrating Māori and Pasifika peoples, languages, and cultures, the PM Aotearoa collection takes a bilingual approach with words and phrases naturally woven throughout the texts. The series is finely levelled and written with the same rigour as all PM books and includes objective controls such as vocabulary, word count, and sentence structure. All books include teacher notes on the inside front covers, including the author’s inspiration for the story and cultural teaching points. Each book comes with an accompanying audio recording, accessible via a QR code, aiding students and teachers in the pronunciation of words and phrases from Māori and Pasifika languages.
Written by a talented mother-daughter team with many years of combined teaching experience in New Zealand secondary schools, the Walker Maths series contains high-quality workbooks that allow teachers total flexibility in course design for students at all levels. These well-designed, write-on workbooks contain teaching material, including relevant formulae, and ample practice exercises along with sample tasks and questions. Each new edition has fresh and up to date content. The clearly modelled worked examples and high standard of design and production make them a successful series with both students and teachers. Walker Maths provides the perfect resource for upper secondary (ages 15-18), while Walker Maths Essentials builds essential skills for lower secondary school (ages 13-14). Digital teacher resources are available across all titles.
The Secondary School English list boasts a wide offering, from complete workbooks for independent study to classroom support materials for teachers. Many of the unfamiliar texts for student comprehension are selections of the best writing from Aotearoa New Zealand, and short, student-centred activities focus on learning core skills. The development of particular skills (such as close reading or making connections) are supported by a range of activities, including puzzles, spelling activities, word finds, punctuation activities, crosswords and dictionary skills as well as opportunities for original art and original stories via scaffolding.
Secondary School Social Studies and History
The Secondary School Social Studies and History lists contains up-to-date comprehensive overviews of topics as broad and complex as civics and governance, The Treaty of Waitangi, population mobility, and environmental movements. All textbooks include detailed descriptions of their subject matter, with activities to support understanding incorporated throughout. Content and activities have been thoroughly classroom-tested in New Zealand schools. One of the list’s leading titles, Pacific History, is the first textbook of its kind to be written for New Zealand schools, and includes discussion of contested events that have impacted on indigenous people and groups in the Pacific.
Te Reo Māori textbooks, workbooks, and teacher resource books provide enjoyable and easily understandable lessons for Māori language learning. Te Ia Reo (The Current of Language) is a lively course for learning and teaching Māori. Te Mātāpuna (The Source), assumes students have little or no experience of the Māori language, which is followed by Te Pūkaki (The Stream) and Te Awa Rere (The Flowing River). Launch Yourself into Te Reo Māori offers an up-to-date bilingual approach, designed for learners of all backgrounds in today’s world.
Author details
Beverley Randell
Beverley Randell is a teacher, author and editor who wrote the original PM Story Books that began the PM series in the 1960s. Beverley and her husband, publisher Hugh Price, are responsible for over 400 PM books, many of which are in their second and third editions. Beverley was awarded a New Zealand Order of Merit in 2004 for services to children’s literature and education.
Annette Smith
Annette Smith ONZM is an educator, author and consultant with a deep understanding of how children learn to read. She has led the author team for the PM series since the late 1990s and has written well over 500 texts in the PM collection. In January 2016, Annette was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to children’s literacy.
André Ngāpō
André Ngāpō loves to write stories about his country, Aotearoa, and his Māori culture. His Māori ancestors link to Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Awa, Ngāpuhi, and Ngāti Tamaterā iwi. André has three sons and lots of whānau, and they all have provided inspiration for the stories in PM Aotearoa.
Lino Nelisi
Lino Nelisi is Niuean Samoan and has taught in Niue Island prior to migrating to New Zealand. She gained her Master of Education in Pacific Islands Education in 2004, and has since been teaching in different multicultural schools in Auckland. Lino has worked at the University of Auckland and was a Teaching Fellow at AUT. She is currently a Niue Language Facilitator for the Pasifika Early Literacy Project. Lino’s writing represents the diverse cultures in New Zealand, and her stories are published in Niue language, Samoan, Tongan, Cook Islands Māori, Tokelauan and Māori.
Dagmar Dyck
As a first-generation New Zealander, Dagmar Dyck is an artist, researcher, art educator, and social justice advocate of Tongan, German, Dutch and Polish descent. Since completing her Graduate Diploma in Teaching in 2009, Dagmar has merged her skills and is passionate about empowering her students through the platform of the arts at Sylvia Park School in Tāmaki Makaurau.
Ian Cormack and Shirley Cormack
Ian Cormack (Ngāti Mamoe, Ngāi Tahu) along with his wife Shirley, draws on decades of experience as a teacher, writer, editor and translator of Māori. As an adult he has also learned Greek, Italian, German, French, Mandarin and Russian. His own learning has put him totally in tune with the needs of other language learners. He is a Māori Language Commission-qualified interpreter and translator of Māori.
Charlotte Walker & Victoria Walker
Charlotte Walker & Victoria Walker are a talented mother-daughter writing team. Victoria Walker BSc (Hons), GradDipTchLn, has twenty years’ experience in teaching Mathematics, and is currently Teacher of Mathematics and Specialist Classroom Teacher at Riccarton High School. She has received a Jim Campbell award for teaching excellence (2003) and an Ernest Duncan Award in Mathematics (2007). Charlotte Walker BEd, GradDipTchLn, MHealSc, has nine years’ experience in teaching Mathematics, and is currently Assistant HOD of Mathematics and Dean of Year 9 at Darfield High School.
