Julie Luxton
Julie is an experienced education consultant and literacy leader who partners with schools across Aotearoa New Zealand to strengthen teacher capability, accelerate literacy progress, and ensure all learners can thrive within NCEA literacy requirements.
She is approved to deliver Ministry of Education PLD in:
structured literacy approaches
assessment.
Julie also supports schools with:
improving achievement for Pasifika and English language learners
enhancing language and literacy skills
cultural capability
linguistically inclusive teaching practice
effective formative and summative assessment practices
teaching as inquiry.
Julie brings specialist expertise in English language (ESOL), secondary literacy, and culturally responsive teaching practice. She supports leaders and teachers to analyse data dependably, design cross-curricular literacy systems, and implement targeted strategies that build ākonga confidence and success.
Julie’s recent mahi includes leadership and facilitation in national and regional initiatives such as Te Manu Ka Rere: targeted NCEA co-requisite support, literacy and numeracy support in schools, accelerated learning in literacy and structured literacy approaches. She has facilitated national webinars, co-authored Ministry of Education assessment guidelines, critiqued teaching and learning resources prior to publication, and designed professional learning that helps kaiako embed the Science of Learning in practical, classroom-ready ways.
As NZQA National Moderator for English Language, Julie oversees national consistency in assessment practice, leads a moderation team, and provides national guidance to strengthen teacher assessment capability. Julie is also a moderator for English for Academic Purposes. Her work across secondary and bilingual settings is recognised for its clarity, rigour, and impact.
A former English and English Language (ESOL) teacher and middle leader (Years 7–13), Julie holds a Master’s degree in Applied Linguistics. Her research and facilitation draw on deep knowledge of language acquisition, literacy development, and effective pedagogy.
Julie has presented nationally at NZAI, CLESOL, and NASDAP conferences, sharing insights on literacy acceleration, equity, and English language learning. She has published papers based on action research, including vocabulary teaching and learning, supporting Pacific learners and assessment of English language learners in the secondary context.
Outside of work, Julie describes herself as a self-confessed couch kūmara who enjoys reading, gardening, and a modicum of walking.
Below are blog posts Julie has written to share her thinking with the education sector:
This blog describes how one secondary school is enacting the mantra that ‘every teacher is a teacher of literacy’.
Vocabulary knowledge and enrichment in Aotearoa NZ secondary classrooms
I, for one, am heartened by imminent changes to the NCEA literacy assessment requirements. I’ve always been uneasy about the current expansive pathway, with hundreds of tagged achievement standards from a wide range of subjects, most of which assess content knowledge, with no literacy-specific criteria.
As educators, we have all heard inspiring stories of the teacher or mentor who changed the direction of a disengaged student.For me, it is the story of Marcus Akuhata-Brown that remains and resonates in my head and heart.
O tu, aganu’u, ma agaifanua a le tamaititi o le a le mafai ona ulufale atu I le potuaoga sei vagana ua fa’atauaina me faaulufaleina muamua I le loto ma le agaga o le faiaoga.
The culture of the child cannot enter the classroom until it has first entered the consciousness of the teacher.
Samoan proverb