Public health researchers are arguing against cuts to the free school lunch programme, saying there's even room to extend it to help more hungry children.

A dozen school and early childhood sector groups have united to ask Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to retain funding for the free school lunch scheme, Ka Ora Ka Ako.

As International Women's Day rolls around again, women can sit back, relax and reflect on all the amazing progress that's been made in the past year. Kidding!

The Hearing House is an Auckland-based charity which provides health and counselling services for people with cochlear implants. This year, the charity is launching a mobile hearing clinic, which will bring services closer to the communities which need them.

Are we now entering a post-kindness era? We haven’t heard much talk of kindness from the Government, except maybe for Nicola Willis’ defence of the Government taking a tough stance on welfare dependency. “It is not a kind thing to let someone linger on welfare for many years.” (Or, as Luxon said, “The free ride is over”.)

Eye health experts want more Māori to get their eyes checked regularly, as undiagnosed eye conditions are causing long-term vision loss for te iwi Māori.

"The earlier it's identified, the more we can do for it" is an optometrist's warning to New Zealand families amid a global rise in myopia, or shortsightedness, among children.

Revolutionary laws repealed, language initiatives reversed, authorities disestablished, even the climate crisis denied. As 2023 wraps, writes John Campbell, is the coalition government leading Aotearoa forward – or backward?

An Auckland charity has found 25 percent of children across three schools are suffering with eyesight problems after running hearing and vision tests.

A volunteer-run charity group focused on the wellbeing and health of students is changing the lives of south Auckland kids, one hearing and vision test at a time. Painga Project has been testing primary and intermediate-aged schoolchildren in low decile South Auckland schools for two years.

Wearing glasses for the first time or getting their hearing problems treated had been life changing for students at Edmund Hillary School - both inside and outside the classroom, according to principal Kataraina Nock.

Poor eyesight and hearing are hindering learning for one in four South Auckland primary school children tested by the Painga Project.

Under the current government, schools have ditched decile numbers, coped with a pandemic and started to get to grips with NCEA and curriculum changes.

Rheumatic fever is skyrocketing and cases in the first six months of 2023 have already ballooned past the numbers for the whole of last year. It's prompted an expert to warn more Māori and Pasifika children will die unless health resources are targeted to help them.

Eighteen months ago, James McDiarmid​ struggled to stand for more than 10 minutes. At his heaviest, weighing 281kg​, he never dreamed he’d be where he is today: demonstrating the form to hold in a plank, more than 125kg​ down.

If your child is 15 or under and you have noticed they have vision problems causing them to need glasses, you may be able to get the spectacle subsidy. Find out what you can use it for and how to claim it.

The Ministry of Health funds free vision checks for children. If your child has a vision problem, finding it early is good for their learning and development.

As a feisty teenager, Ngahuia Te Awekotuku MNZM was regularly dismissed as “unseemly”. But it was her defiant and inner Māori strength. she says, that saw her go from expulsion from her first year at high school to Emeritus Professor and now a Companion of the Royal Society Te Apārangi.

Aggressive families, drugged parents and even a dog attack were among the challenges cited in half-year and full-year reports to the Education Ministry from 28 organisations contracted to provide attendance services.

It was a bitterly cold morning in Geneva the day New Zealand’s government delegation met with the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child to measure our nation’s progress.