AbstractsCreative connectionsAugust 2005;
Pages 12–14
Creative Connections: an arts in education partnership framework 2005–2007 aims to promote the role of arts in education in Western Australia. Formulated by Departments of Culture and the Arts (DCA) and Education & Training (DET), the framework outlines the use of arts in achieving broader educational goals in literacy and language, numeracy and spatial concepts, analytical thought and interpretation, goal-setting and self-discipline, self-worth and awareness of others. Implementation priorities will be developed by the Departments over 2005 and 2006. Research has found that students involved in the arts are more likely to achieve academically, engage with learning, and develop key personal skills such as self-esteem, critical thinking, resilience, interrelational skills, literacy and numeracy. There is a particularly pronounced impact for low socioeconomic and at-risk students. Arts programs are also shown to be uniquely engaging for this group. Such programs provide for student consultation and direction, self-reflection and critique. They also entrust students with multiple responsibilities and provide professional support. One of the framework’s six objectives targets students at risk, through specialised professional development for teachers and the development of advocacy methods. Discovering Relationships Using Music Beliefs, Emotions, Attitudes and Thoughts (DRUMBEAT) is one program which has improved self-esteem, cooperation and school attendance for at-risk students in Western Australia. Key Learning AreasThe ArtsSubject HeadingsMotivationSocially disadvantaged Students Values education (character education) Western Australia (WA) Testing times
Volume 84
Number 14, 8 August 2005
New Zealand's Progressive Achievement Tests (PAT) of Mathematics have recently been updated. They now offer deeper analysis of student skills and new, time-saving reporting methods. The standardised tests, popular among teachers for Years 4 to 10, have been revised in line with changes to curriculum and an increasing focus on number. The tests are now organised so that teachers can analyse student skill levels in the key areas of number knowledge, number strategies, algebra, geometry and measurement and statistics. Once current skills are ascertained, teaching materials, methods and programs can be tailored to meet learning needs more effectively. A scale measurement of progress further supports identification of specific strengths and weaknesses. A new computer-based reporting mechanism will save time on marking. The option of machine correction and website analysis of results is also being explored. Seven tests relating to year levels are available, and results can be compared with national reference groups. Researchers, maths experts and groups involved in maths education have played a role in writing and developing the tests. The tests' introduction follows an 18-months trial by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER). Key Learning AreasMathematicsSubject HeadingsReportingNew Zealand Mathematics Assessment Making maths count
Volume 84
Number 14, 8 August 2005
The findings from the New Zealand Numeracy Development Project 2004 show that the Projects have consistently fostered student achievement and the quality of teaching in mathematics. Both English and Maori-medium (Te Poutama Tau) content is incorporated into the Projects, which focus on student outcomes, professional practice and sustainability within primary and intermediate schools (Years 1–8). The Projects have had significant impact in reducing disparities for Pasifika, Maori and ethnic students. This result has been achieved through positive role-modelling, teaching in te reo Maori, and encouraging collaborative, small-group working strategies for students. Projects focusing on schools in disadvantaged settings have also been successful. The evaluation found that boys were achieving beyond the rate of girls across all cultures. A school-wide focus on achievement, strong staff leadership and student collaboration has made vital contributions to project outcomes. Teaching quality and confidence has been significantly improved by training staff in maths content and effective teaching methods. Teachers are using more appropriate mathematical language as a result, which has improved students' mathematical understanding. Launched in 2000, 17,000 teachers and 460,000 students have participated so far in the Projects, while most other primary and intermediate teachers will be able to participate by the end of 2007. The Projects have been approved until 2008. Key Learning AreasMathematicsSubject HeadingsEducational evaluationMäori Education New Zealand Numeracy Mathematics teaching Cool in a crisisAugust 2005;
Pages 43–45
With increasing scrutiny from a diverse array of stakeholders, schools are under growing pressure to maintain their reputations, community status and 'long term profitability'. A pre-emptive and well-maintained crisis management plan can help safeguard schools from risk. A basic plan should include clear objectives, a contact database, and response messages for potential scenarios. Staff should have designated roles and responsibilities in a crisis. There should also be support features, such as counsellors. School leaders should take care to communicate well with the school community, which involves listening to and valuing input. The school needs mechanisms for communication with its community – such as letters to parents, email updates and community meetings – to help the school predict potential problems and manage them in advance. A single spokesperson, ideally the principal or senior administrator, should deal with the media and be responsible for delivering consistent messages to it. That spokesperson needs to understand the Australian media, including the way that journalists investigate and report. However, communication with the school community remains a priority over the media. KLA Subject HeadingsLeadershipCrisis management School and community School leadership School principals St Aloysius College Lighthouse ProjectAugust 2005
St Aloysius College, North Melbourne, is currently developing a best practice model for the Career Education Lighthouse Schools Project. The school has introduced an evening program for parents and Years 7–12 students to advise or update their understanding of young people's career options. Employability skills portfolios and goal-setting activities have been used to foster parent–student communication and encourage student self-direction. St Aloysius has aligned the VELS Interdisciplinary strand with recognised employability skills to increase the professional advice available to teachers without increasing workload. Teachers with limited experience outside the education sector can take advantage of work placements, and will report back on their impact. Surveys on career issues and evaluations of the school's programs have been collected from parents, teachers and students to help shape the project's future direction. KLA Subject HeadingsVocational guidanceTransitions in schooling Secondary education Curriculum planning Employment History and VELS: making the connections
Volume 40
Number 2, 2005;
Pages 6–9
The new Victorian Essential Learning Standards (VELS) declare History to be an essential learning, which is a positive development for the discipline. History teachers develop a range of interdisciplinary skills in students, and the value of this work within the VELS context should be promoted throughout the school. VELS requires History to make connections across the curriculum. These connections are likely to be most significant in terms of non-discipline strands rather than other subject areas. Connections should be sought with the domains of Physical, Personal and Social Learning, especially in terms of Civics and Citizenship. For example at Level 5, Civics and Citizenship calls for students to be able to discuss the qualities of leadership through historical examples, while Level 5 History allows for teaching of ancient Athenian democracy. History at Levels 5 and 6 can be linked to the Interpersonal Development and Personal Learning strand of VELS by encouraging students to reflect on the learning process in History, and by discussing the issues of diversity and global values and beliefs. In the Interdisciplinary Learning strand, the Reasoning, Processing and Inquiry standards fit well with long established methods used for historical inquiry. It is important that teachers make connections at the same level and clearly specify the standards being met, rather than just asserting ‘we do all that in History’. Teachers should promote the way that a given learning activity will help students to achieve a particular standard. Schools wishing to continue with Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE) will find it a challenge to meet the VELS' standards for History, Economics and Geography within the one subject. Key Learning AreasStudies of Society and EnvironmentSubject HeadingsVictoriaThought and thinking Teaching and learning Secondary education History Educational planning Education policy Democracy Curriculum planning Civics education Citizenship The International Children's Digital Library: a case study in designing for a multilingual, multicultural, multigenerational audience
Volume 24
Number 1, March 2005;
Pages 4–12
The International Children’s Library (ICDL) is a free, online index of selected children’s literature from around the world, developed by the University of Maryland and the Internet Archive. The project’s objective is to create a multilingual listing catering for three to thirteen year olds, as well as for academics in the field of children’s literature. Selecting, reviewing and processing books in different languages has been a major challenge for the project team, which arranged for advisors and children's literature experts from around the world to review each title for age level and cultural suitability. Another challenge has been sourcing software to support up to 100 different languages and to handle different date formats, general formats and number systems. Images, especially icons, must be culturally sensitive, and understood by young users. Project team volunteers have come from many different countries. Evaluating the impact of access to multicultural material for users is a long-term aim of the project. Key Learning AreasEnglishLanguages Subject HeadingsLanguage and languagesChildren's literature Libraries Internet Websites Future studies: providing the tools to meet the needs of young adolescents
Volume 5
Number 1, May 2005;
Pages 25–32
Future studies involves considering possible, or even probable, futures by examining and analysing current trends. Evans observes that while education is about preparing young people for the future, curricula provide very little space for the actual consideration of possible futures, preferring instead to concentrate on the past. Future studies provides an avenue for young people to be fully engage in their education, as it requires them to create meaning from their present and to think about shaping their futures. This process, by necessity, values their voices, opinions and perspectives, and it makes their knowledge relevant to their learning. Given the open-ended nature of the subject, as well as the higher order thinking skills required to ‘create futures’, future studies would support current conceptions of sound middle years pedagogy, as well as prepare young people to be active participants in their futures. KLA Subject HeadingsPedagogyEducation aims and objectives Adolescents The importance of being physical in the middle years
Volume 5
Number 1, May 2005;
Pages 5–9
Encouraging physical activity in the middle years, and helping young people to appreciate and learn about their physicality, are of paramount importance to their physical, intellectual and emotional development. These endeavours, however, are often undermined by a curriculum that privileges intellectual, sedentary activity over physical ways of learning and communicating, and which relegates knowledge of the body to specific, often marginalised, subjects. Moreover, the obsession with traditional sports, along with the elitism attached to participating in sport, tend to alienate many students from physical activity. Hunter and Macdonald advise educators in the middle years to incorporate physical activity into their educational practices, and to ensure that it is informed by constructivist and inclusive pedagogical approaches. KLA Subject HeadingsPhysical FitnessPhysical education Middle schooling Adolescents Making the connections: principles of good practice in student behaviour management and the needs of young adolescents
Volume 5
Number 1, May 2005;
Pages 5–9
Terry de Jong reports on a project, conducted under the auspices of the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA), which attempted to uncover best practice in behaviour management in schools, and thereby establish guiding principles for behaviour management in schools. The MCEETYA Behaviour Management Research Project was conducted between 2003–04, and included a literature review of the research in the area of behaviour management, and surveys of behavioural management programs in schools. Five principles of behaviour management in schools were established by the project. The principles encourage schools to take a holistic approach to the area, using programs which create safe environments for students, support student-centred approaches to education, are inclusive and responsive to a diversity of student needs and potentials, and which foster good teacher-student relationships. KLA Subject HeadingsMiddle schoolingBehaviour management Adolescents Male role models: emotional regulation, identity, scaffolding and fathers’ involvement in schools
Volume 8
Number 2, June 2005;
Pages 34–41
Even though male role models have been used in schools to improve the learning experiences of boys, there is very little research on the effectiveness of role models generally, nor support for developing gendered identities in policies on gender in schools. Developments in neurological research, however, as well as the realisation of the importance of emotional development to educational achievement, may provide a basis for supporting the use of male role models in boys’ education. The difference in the development of the male and female brain may point to a biological basis for gender identity, and Fletcher sees this neurological discovery as supporting the assertion that boys are developing their gender identity through their learning experiences at school. The modelling of emotional behaviour and regulation by other males, in this case fathers playing a role in their sons’ school lives, would therefore benefit boys' emotional development and identity, and enhance their educational experiences. KLA Subject HeadingsBoys' educationParent and child Can education policies veto positive male role models for boys?
Volume 8
Number 2, June 2005;
Pages 42–43
Fletcher surveys the gender policy framework for schools over the last 30 years, and contends that the definitions of gender identities – constructions of femininity and masculinity – emanating from the agenda to address the educational needs of girls, are limiting, if not defeating, efforts to address the needs of boys in education. He particularly draws attention to the term ‘dominant masculinity’, which he notes focused attention on the effects of boys’ identities on girls' education, but which has serious limitations in dealing with boys’ educational needs. Moreover, when the concept of a dominant masculinity is married with the tendency for participants in the gender equity debate to narrow the frame of reference to boys who are socially disadvantaged – 'the which boys, which girls?' approach – it creates the capacity to blame underachieving boys’ masculinities for underachieving girls’ educational outcomes. It also ignores the fact that boys’ identities in general, regardless of socioeconomic background, may need attention. According to Fletcher, the limitations of the current conceptual framework necessitate an inclusive approach to dealing with and understanding the impact of gender in schools. KLA Subject HeadingsBoys' educationGirls' education Education policy A boys’ own adventure story: improving outcomes for disadvantaged boys
Volume 8
Number 2, June 2005;
Pages 12–15
Airds High School is located in a socially disadvantaged suburb in Sydney’s southwest. The unemployment rate in the local community is approximately 30 per cent, and as many as 40 per cent of households earn less than $200 a week. A maximum security juvenile prison is also situated in the area. Until quite recently, the school also had a reputation for violence. The authors, however, were part of team who attempted to transform the school by focusing on creating successful learners among their male student cohort. To this end, they created the Boy’s Own project, which encouraged Year 7 to 9 boys to build their confidence through completing a substantial project over a period of time. The boys worked with mentors from the local community in areas such as computing, automotives, performance and outdoor improvement. The success of the initial project in 2000 has led to the program becoming a permanent part of the Airds High School experience for boys. The authors describe the various facets of the program, its values and goals, and the measurable effects it has had on the school community. KLA Subject HeadingsBoys' educationSocially disadvantaged Adolescents Strong and smart: the way forward for Indigenous boys
Volume 8
Number 2, June 2005;
Pages 4–9
Chris Sarra is the former principal of Cherbourg School, a primary school in the Cherbourg Indigenous community. Sarra is credited with transforming the school from one with a low achieving, high absentee and low retention rate to one where retention and absentee rates, as well as students’ performances on benchmark tests, have dramatically improved. Sarra has written about this transformation elsewhere, but in this article he considers some of the measures taken to change the attitudes of boys to their education, as well as their perceptions of themselves as ‘Aboriginal men’, and the role that played in the transformation of the school. He describes how he engaged men in the community and the school to be better role models for Indigenous youth, and the steps he took to employ more male staff at the school, asserting that conveying to Indigenous male students what it meant to be ‘young Aboriginal men’ was an important component in transforming the school. On a more poignant note for educators, Sarra observes that when one reads the report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody one cannot help but realise that most of the Indigenous men who died in custody were either illiterate or had very little education. KLA Subject HeadingsBoys' educationAboriginal students Aboriginal peoples Annual Survey of Trends in Primary Education: survey of 2004
Number 17, 2005;
Pages 2–10
The UK National Foundation for Educational Research has released its Annual Survey of Trends in Primary Education. A survey was conducted among 800 primary principals in England in late 2004, seeking their views and main concerns in relation to budgets, staffing, curriculum, their schools’ integration with local community services, school improvement and parental involvement. Over 75 per cent of principals identified budgetary issues as a main area of concern. Ninety per cent of principals were concerned about teachers’ work-life balance, even though the proportion who were concerned about administrative demands on teachers has dropped in comparison with previous surveys. The survey also found that primary schools' use of other services in their area was similar to previous years, but their use of social services had increased. This trend was explained by schools’ use of child protection agencies and support agencies for children with special needs. KLA Subject HeadingsPrimary educationGreat Britain School principals School leadership School and community There are no Conferences available in this issue. |