Analysis of AI Capability to Support Cross-Role Productivity and Effectiveness
This section deliberately sets roles aside and works task-first: across the responsibilities catalogued throughout this framework, where does AI genuinely reduce workload or improve quality of output, and where does it have no legitimate place? The task clusters below draw directly on the domains in Section B.
- First-draft generation of IEPs/ILPs from structured input (stated goals, observation notes, teacher input) — a person still reviews, corrects and finalises.
- Drafting case notes or file summaries from meeting notes or transcripts, within approved, privacy-compliant systems only.
- Organising existing evidence into the structured format required for SAC applications, ORS applications, or Gateway Education Profiles — assembling, not deciding.
- Drafting transition plans, handover notes and sustainability/closure documentation.
- Highly engaging multimedia summaries of information that are engaging for parents and stakeholders.
- Adjusting the reading level of existing curriculum text while preserving the underlying concept.
- Converting material between formats — text to simplified outline, outline to structured visual, and so on.
- Drafting first versions of social narratives, visual schedules and structured routines for a specialist to check and personalise.
- Producing several differentiated versions of the same lesson or task for a mixed-needs classroom.
- Surfacing patterns across observational or assessment notes to support — never substitute for — professional judgement.
- Drafting evidence summaries ahead of specialist referral or multi-agency meetings.
- Condensing lengthy specialist reports into a short, accurate summary for teacher or whānau use.
- Helping structure a functional behaviour write-up from raw observation notes.
- Turning specialist or clinical terminology into a plain-language explanation for whānau.
- Producing a first-pass translation for multilingual families, with human review before anything sensitive is sent.
- Drafting meeting agendas, summaries and follow-up correspondence.
- Preparing whānau-friendly explanations of assessment results or proposed plans.
- Structuring incoming referral information to support — not make — caseload prioritisation decisions.
- Drafting collaborative plans and goal-setting documents for review with the learner, whānau and teacher.
- Generating structured agendas and templates for IEP, transition or multi-agency meetings.
- Drafting PLD workshop content, facilitator notes and teacher-coaching conversation prompts.
- Generating reflective-practice discussion questions for coaching conversations.
- Producing first-draft training material for teacher-aide induction.
- Drafting alt-text and image descriptions as a starting point for a specialist to refine.
- Producing draft tactile-graphic layouts or descriptions for a vision specialist to finalise.
- Converting inaccessible documents into a more accessible structure (headings, reading order) as a first pass.
- Supporting captioning and transcription work.
- Summarising recent evidence on an intervention approach to support (not replace) professional decision-making.
- Drafting literature summaries for PLD design or practice review.
- Generating prompts for reflective supervision sessions.
- Drafting standard correspondence and service-explanation letters.
- Producing record-keeping templates consistent with privacy protocols.
- Turning existing spreadsheets or registers into structured, readable summaries.
Where AI should not be used
Carried forward from Domain 16/17 and worth restating in task terms:
- Determining funding eligibility or entitlement.
- Producing a diagnosis, or a conclusion that functions as one.
- Processing confidential learner information in systems that aren't approved for it.
- Replacing professional judgement in risk, safeguarding or crisis situations.
- Generating behavioural or clinical conclusions unsupported by direct evidence.
- Standing in for direct learner or whānau voice in a decision.
- Any unsupervised, high-stakes assessment decision.
The Five Roles: What They Actually Are
Before competencies, the roles differ in kind, not just in specialism. Treating them as five flavours of the same job — as a flat competency table can imply — understates real differences in authority, employment, and mandate.
A locally designed school role — not a nationally standardised job description.
School-employed; scope set by each school.
Varies substantially by school — some SENCOs manage staff and budgets, others coordinate only. No two SENCO roles are guaranteed identical.
A funded, defined role for an experienced registered teacher.
Ministry-funded position, school-based.
Explicitly no management responsibility in the Ministry's own role description, despite requiring significant influence, coordination and capability-building. Works alongside SENCOs and existing learning-support roles — not as their replacement or superior.
A cluster-based specialist service, not a school employee acting as a case manager.
Employed by a lead school on behalf of a cluster; governed by a national service model.
Operates across a cluster of schools/kura, at universal, targeted and individualised tiers. Practice is bound by formal service timeframes and accountability structures, not just individual professional judgement. Primarily Years 2–10, with defined exceptions.
A specialist teaching and service-coordination role (via BLENNZ or a Vision Resource Centre), not just an accessibility/AT adviser.
BLENNZ / regional vision service.
Covers eligible learners from birth to age 21 — spanning early intervention, school years and post-school transition. Combines direct teaching, developmental support, staff/whānau advice, and coordination of the wider vision-service team.
A specialist teaching and service-coordination role for Deaf and hard-of-hearing learners, built around its own Expanded Core Curriculum-equivalent body of knowledge: auditory access, NZSL, Deaf pedagogy, cochlear implant and hearing aid management, interpreters, and co-enrolment models.
Delivered through a Deaf education service, working directly with learners and coordinating with school staff and whānau.
Authority is exercised through specialist service coordination across a wide age range — combining direct teaching, developmental support, and coordination of interpreters and co-enrolment arrangements.
Master Competency Domains
The framework comprises 24 competency domains, spanning inclusive pedagogy, assessment, whānau partnership, systems leadership, statutory processes, safeguarding, service accountability and early learning.
Two wording cautions to carry into any published version
- Diagnostic language: keep "do not diagnose prematurely," but state directly that RTLB, SENCOs and LSCs gather educational evidence and form hypotheses — they do not make clinical diagnoses unless they separately hold a relevant regulated professional qualification.
- Funding/entitlement language: none of the five roles determines funding entitlement. They assemble evidence, coordinate applications, advocate, plan and administer provision — final eligibility decisions sit with the relevant agency or process (Ministry for ORS, NZQA for SAC, etc.).
Comparison Table (24 domains)
Filter by role to highlight a column, or search a domain by name.
| # | Domain | RTLB | RTV | SENCO | LSC | RTD |
|---|
Where the Roles Converge
Near-identical depth (●●●) across all five roles
- Inclusive pedagogy and curriculum access (Domain 1)
- Whānau and learner partnership (Domain 6)
- Te Tiriti, culture, identity and language (Domain 7)
- Collaborative and multidisciplinary practice (Domain 8)
- Privacy, ethics and professional judgement (Domain 17)
- Agency, independence and self-advocacy (Domain 19)
- Research, evidence and reflective practice (Domain 20)
This is the genuine common core — the material that would sit in a shared induction or shared PLD programme across all five roles, regardless of specialism.
Moderate, working-level convergence (●●) — easy to mis-rate
AI in learning support (Domain 16) — genuinely flat across roles once corrected; no role should be positioned as the "AI lead."
Practical Implication for Your Work
Given Summit Institute's PLD delivery context, this synthesis suggests three natural groupings for programme design rather than treating all five roles identically.
Shared core PLD
The Section D domains — deliverable as one combined cohort across all five roles.
Role-specific statutory / operational modules
SAC and qualifications access for SENCO-heavy audiences; service-delivery/accountability content for RTLB-heavy audiences; ECC/CVI/O&M-boundary content for RTV audiences; auditory access and Deaf-pedagogy content for RTD audiences.
A named "AI in Learning Support" module, pitched identically across all five roles
Since the corrected rating shows this isn't a specialism owned by any one of them, it's a good candidate for the kind of cross-role AI-in-education PLD you already deliver nationally.
Sources: Ministry of Education (Learning Support Coordinators, RTLB service standards and scope of practice), NZQA (Special Assessment Conditions guidance, 2026 Assessment Rules), BLENNZ (The Vision Book, Expanded Core Curriculum), He Pikorua, and the Gemini/Claude/Perplexity review chain supplied by the user.