About Shift & Spark

Built by teachers
for teachers.

Shift & Spark came from a simple observation: the best classroom strategies are too good to be kept locked inside individual classrooms. We spent 18 months collecting them, testing them, writing them up, and packaging them so any teacher could pick them up and run them.

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"If a strategy takes ten minutes to set up and saves five minutes of lesson time, it's a tax. Every card runs in under a minute, no prep."
Rachel M., HoD English, Wellington

How it started

In 2022, a group of secondary teachers in Aotearoa started sharing strategies over email. Nothing fancy, just what worked in their classrooms. Five minutes in, ten minutes out. Retrieval. Reflection. Routines that stuck.

By the third year, the list had grown to 150 strategies. Teachers were printing them, laminating them, carrying them in pouches. They were using them across departments and sharing them at PDs. The patterns were clear: low-prep, high-return activities work because they respect teacher time and student time equally.

So we decided to finish the job. Every strategy got written up properly. Aligned to the NZ Curriculum refresh and Te Mātaiaho. Backed by the research: Roediger on retrieval, Hattie on feedback, Nuthall on how learning actually happens in classrooms. Each card got a front (the activity) and a back (the why). Then we tested the deck in classrooms with Y9 to Y13 students across six schools.

150+
Strategies
6
Pilot schools
18
Months to build
100%
NZ written

What we
believe in.

Three things we kept coming back to as we tested the deck in classrooms. Every card in Shift & Spark earns its place against all three.

01

Low prep,
high return

If a strategy takes longer to set up than it saves, teachers won't use it. Every card runs in under a minute, no prep, from anywhere in the curriculum.

02

Names the
research

Retrieval practice. Metacognition. Peer learning. Every card maps to specific research so you can defend the choice and learn the theory behind the activity.

03

Teacher
look-fors

What does good look like? What does fake engagement look like? Every card has a line of look-fors so you can read the room while it's happening.

Written by NZ teachers.
Tested in NZ classrooms.

Not adapted from a US resource. Not based on international studies applied to NZ context. Built from the ground up for Aotearoa, with examples and references that land with your students.

Read the research base →
For schools & departments

Order for your whole team.

Equip a department or a staffroom. Bulk pricing, invoicing and purchase orders all live on our dedicated schools page.

Visit For Schools → Or buy a single deck →

Give it one term.

One deck on your desk. See what changes when retrieval and reflection become routine, not an afterthought.

Shop the deck · $65