Garry Taylor
Garry is a nationally respected education consultant based in Canterbury, with over two decades of leadership in assessment design, facilitation, and evaluation.
Garry is approved to deliver Ministry of Education PLD in the following areas:
Assessment
He also works with schools in the following areas:
Assessment for learning
Curriculum and assessment development
Data analysis
Moderation
Assessment tools
Practice analysis
Supporting and growing leaders and middle leaders
As co-lead of the Curriculum and Assessment portfolio at Evaluation Associates | Te Huinga Kākākura Mātauranga, Garry oversees a team of more than 20 consultants and manages multiple Ministry of Education contracts. His recent work has focused on high-impact national projects that strengthen assessment capability and generate dependable data to support teaching and learning.
Over the past five years, Garry has led and contributed to a range of strategic initiatives including the NCEA Level 1 mini pilot, pilot, and co-requisite evaluations, the Year 7–8 mathematics and pāngarau acceleration trials, and sponsored the national support programmes for NCEA co-requisites (LNSiS and Te Manu Ka Rere). He has authored Ministry-commissioned reports on e-asTTle, including a 2021 review and a 2024 background paper on test design. He was on the panel for the writing of the Ministry of Education’s Assessment Position Paper in 2023
Garry also led the 2021 stocktake of assessment tools for the Assessment Online website and continues to shape national practice through webinars, workshops, and sector publications.
Garry’s leadership in assessment facilitation has included national delivery of e-asTTle training, Overall Teacher Judgement workshops, and implementation support for the Curriculum Progress Tools and PaCT. He has designed and facilitated hundreds of workshops focused on dependable data, moderation, and culturally inclusive assessment practices. As a founding member of the New Zealand Assessment Institute and contributor to its 2021 guide to effective assessment documents, Garry is routinely called upon for his expertise in assessment and aromatawai.Garry holds a Master of Education from the University of Tasmania, with a focus on curriculum and assessment in the New Zealand context. He also has a Diploma of Education Management, a Bachelor of Education (Measurement and Evaluation), , and a Diploma of Teaching. His professional learning includes extensive training with leading assessment thinkers such as Dylan Wiliam, Ann Davies, and Dr Selena Fisk.
Outside of his professional life, Garry is married with two sons. He enjoys fly fishing, golf, mountain biking, tramping, and boating.
Blogs:
Generating accurate and meaningful assessment data on individual students and cohorts is vital to reduce disparity and boost achievement. Follow our top tips to ensure you assess well to reap the rewards that good data can deliver.
Have a think about the last time you deliberately had to learn something. What did you do to help you learn? What helped? What was most useful?