‘We Are Not Just Some Kids’: The Gallery as A Classroom Space for Student Engagement

Dr Kate Winchester is a facilitator and lecturer who is passionate about student engagement, inspiring social justice, creativity and authentic learning. Kate began working in schools as an Arts facilitator in disadvantaged schools in the United Kingdom. This experience motivated her to pursue a career as a teacher and she returned to Australia to undertake a Master of Teaching degree at Western Sydney University. Having been particularly inspired by the work of the Fair Go Program in her studies, Kate worked as a teacher in a variety of Primary schools that serve lower socio-economic communities in both Western Sydney and in the UK, and she continued to explore the key ideas from the Fair Go Program and how arts pedagogy could deeply engage students in these social contexts. Her PhD research, completed at Western Sydney University, examined how the synchronous interplay of the themes of creativity, arts practice, student engagement and big ideas in learning could enhance the social and academic outcomes of all learners, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. This article talks about important ideas from that research.

The quote in the title of this article is from a student participating in the ‘Gallery’ pedagogical model. The words carry the important message that the Gallery had become a classroom space where the students saw themselves as valued members of an engaged learning team. The statement highlights a changing mindset in the students’ own perception of themselves as learners and a growing understanding that they themselves had powerful and valuable learning to communicate to their school and to their local community.

The ‘Gallery’ was designed to facilitate rich opportunities for students in low SES communities to experience arts-based creative teaching and learning experiences, and to dive deeply into learning about ‘big ideas’ in the curriculum. The Fair Go Program’s Student Engagement Framework (the MeE Framework) was a strong and crucial aspect of the Gallery design and subsequent research that took place in low SES primary school contexts in Western Sydney. This article provides an overview of the Gallery model in operation, and offers ‘food for thought’ about how the Gallery might open up classroom spaces for sustained and meaningful learning.

What is the Gallery?

The Gallery model is conceptualised as a ‘gallery’, evincing the language and physical domain of the arts world as a way of encouraging the students to think differently about their learning, and so to act differently within the more dynamic spaces that were opened up to them. Thought about in this way, both the gallery as a public space and the classroom as a learning space value the exhibition and expression of art in all its forms. Both are spaces that invite the interaction of the participants. Both have the potential to generate emotion and empathic understanding, and both value the idea that art has the power to reflect important local and global issues.

The Gallery learning experiences were designed to work towards the creation of an ‘Exhibition’. The classroom exhibition was likened to that of a public showing in an art gallery, and this was seen as an opportunity for students to share with their local community the deep and purposeful learning that had been occurring throughout the Gallery experiences. The Exhibition was thus not perceived to be a disconnected, one-off artistic showcase, but rather a purposeful exhibition of student learning. An important feature of the Exhibition was that it was to be designed and built by the students themselves, and so promoted a rich expression of artistic learning, rather than a fanciful artistic ‘show’. It was intended to accentuate the participants’ feeling of ownership as part of the student engagement concept of the ‘insider classroom’ (Fair Go Team, 2006). For this reason, it was seen less as a ‘product’ of learning and more as an invitation to the audience into the ‘process’ of the Gallery learning

The Gallery Themes

The Gallery is informed by the four research themes: student engagement, arts pedagogy, creativity and ‘big ideas’. The interaction and intersection of these key themes shape the theoretical and pedagogical framing of the Gallery model.

Student engagement

The Fair Go Program’s (FGP) student engagement model (Munns et al., 2013) was deployed as a way of understanding the interactive and reciprocal dynamics of classrooms. The FGP model emphasises engaging and meaningful learning experiences, rather than focusing on the control of student behaviour. The FGP concept of ‘in- task’ behaviour (substantive engagement: strong psychological investment) was firmly at the heart of the arts practices developed for this research, and so two important aspects of the FGP frame were implemented. The first was the design of pedagogical experiences that were high cognitive (intellectually challenging – ‘thinking hard’), high affective (enjoyable – ‘feeling good’) and high operative (‘assisting students to become better learners’). The second was the promotion of processes aimed at the FGP idea of the ‘insider classroom’ – a student community of reflection and self-assessment, and teaching as conversation with feedback focused on self-directed learning.

Arts pedagogy

At an intellectual level, the model was informed by Eisner’s (2002) view that human understanding can be represented beyond literal language and quantification (p. 204), and that an aesthetic response might help with enhanced learning insights. Since the students in the research were reluctant (indeed, often opposed) to becoming involved with intellectually challenging work, the research wanted also to contest the common perception that the arts in educational settings are ‘affective rather than cognitive, easy not tough, soft not hard, simple not complex’ (Eisner, 2002, p. 35). So, artistic expression was favoured in this study as a viable format for the expression of intelligence (Dewey, 2005, p. 46). There was also a consideration of how emotion interplayed with intellectual understanding. Research was utilised showing that artistic expression is an important resource to negotiate and display intellectual understanding (Gallagher et al., 2013, p. 9). Emotional responses, therefore, were appreciated as particular forms of cognitive expression, and were central to the types of planned intellectual activities.

Creativity

The research considered the interrelationship between creative and intellectual work, and the importance of creativity as a shared social practice. There was a response to Craft’s (2008) call for ‘creativity with wisdom’, which is where creative practice is empowered by its connection to human concerns and ideas. Here, the relationship between creativity and wisdom informed the interplay of the four themes of this research. The Gallery embraced the importance of creative pedagogy aiming to improve learning through imaginative thinking (Egan, 2007), play and possibility thinking (Craft, 2000), collaboration (John-Steiner, 2000; Sawyer, 2014) and inquisitiveness (Lucas et al., 2013). The gallery model also challenged what Craft (2005) identifies as ‘blind spots’ in the discourses surrounding the educational importance of creativity, such as those that most highly value individuality. Here, Csikszentmihalyi’s (1991, 1996, 1997) concept of ‘flow’ and Sawyer’s (2004, 2006) notion of ‘group flow’ were both considered. For Csikszentmihalyi, ‘flow’ is a state of consciousness of optimal experience in which the participant undergoes complete focus and fulfilment. In Sawyer’s (2004, 2007) notion of ‘group flow’, creative collaboration and a ‘collective state of mind’ can explain high levels of engagement (2007).

‘Big Ideas’

To this point there emerges a picture of the way the pedagogical spaces of the gallery were crafted. That is, the gallery model was clearly shaped by a focus on learning intellectually and emotionally through the arts, a commitment to creativity as a shared social practice, and conscious teacher planning of high level and enjoyable experiences that would develop a community of learners. The final theme of big ideas provided specific directions within this shaping. The first was that the pedagogy should favour processes such as play, collaborative work and corporeal expression (Egan, 2013; Eisner, 2002; Gallagher, 2010; Winston, 2015). The reasoning was that these processes were important to balance the types of performative curriculum practices that can dominate the pedagogy of classrooms in all too many disadvantaged contexts. Second, content was designed to connect, both with students’ life experiences (Brophy & Alleman, 2007, p. 15, drawing on Dewey, 1938), and then, as a social justice issue, with fundamental understandings about the human condition through authentic learning about ‘big ideas’ (Brophy et al., 2010). Big ideas were employed to foster creative thinking, curiosity, deeper understandings and empathic experience, and to encourage a deep emotional connection between learner and content (Brophy & Alleman, 2007, p. 17). Their implementation into the gallery was a key engagement strategy, and complemented FGP engagement ideas around content that is authentic, interesting, relevant and worth learning. It was an approach that focused on schooling as an intensely social and moral process, and not a technical endeavour (Winston, 1998: p. 90). These four theoretical themes are summarised and depicted in the Figure below.

What could the Gallery look like in practice?

The following Figure shows the key planning ideas in the development of the Gallery.

What does this look like?

Let us now look at a brief illustration of a Gallery in action in a school in Sydney’s South West. This description of the Gallery in action paints a brief picture of how the model might take place over a series of lessons, perhaps once a week for a term.

Decide on the ‘Big Ideas’ in the topic

Students in a Stage 3 class undertook learning in the NSW Syllabus: Geography content topic ‘A Diverse and Connected World’. The ‘big ideas’ and key inquiry questions of the learning experiences that were to take place became:

What are Australia’s global connections between people and places?

Who were the people who came to Australia? Why did they come?

Select resources that facilitate drawing out and working through the Big Ideas

The Gallery opened up spaces for the students to explore individual narratives of the migration experience of refugees. Picture books documenting the experience of being a refugee or asylum seeker were employed as the basis of the artistic learning experiences. The books selected were: Ziba Came on a Boat (Lofthouse & Ingpen, 2007) and Home and Away, (Marsden et al., 2008). The descriptive poem, The Magic Box, (Wright & Bailey, 2009) was also used as a foundation for ideation and to help the students to structure their own poetry in response to the ‘big ideas’ as listed above.

Plan a sustained series of arts-based practices that can be employed as a vehicle for students to explore the resource and big ideas

Students responded to the picture books through a variety of arts-based strategies. The theatrical device of tableaux, in which participants freeze in poses that create a picture of a key moment from a story, was an important strategy that was employed to support them to empathise with, and embody, characters, as well as to express their comprehension of the narrative. The students were also involved in exploring dance elements such as dynamics, relationships, action and space to create movement sequences to communicate a story or message (NESA, 2006). Working collaboratively, they used mime and movement to explore how emotions and feelings can be expressed to an audience. Drama activities were the main artistic modality that was invoked in order to support the students in expressing their understanding of the topic.

Provide time and various opportunities for students to collaborate and ‘play’ with their ideas through artistic or imaginative expresssion

Improvisational drama games were a key element in providing scaffolding for the students to work cohesively in teams, collaborate on a task and to encourage them to share and respond to each other’s ideas. Time and space were allowed for students to discuss their responses to the resources through planned and scaffolded group brainstorming activities, creative writing challenges and reflection. Writing challenges were given at key points in the program, only after the students had built up imaginative expression through drama games and activities first. Emphasis for such challenges was on play and experimentation.

Ensure a focus on learning, not behaviour and include high cognitive, high effective, high operative experiences. Establish an ongoing community of reflection

The creative and artistic learning space is intentionally planned against the high cognitive (‘thinking hard’), high affective (‘feeling good)’ and high operative (‘becoming a better learner’) structure. The tasks in each Gallery ensure intellectual inquiry focused on the big ideas, affective enjoyment and purposeful learning as well as reflective activities to help students work with the high operative level of their learning. The focus for each experience is on the process of learning, taking up artistic challenges and intellectual expression through creative practice, rather than on behaviour management and compliance. Learning is the main game.

Build learning experiences toward an ‘exhibition’ of deep student learning

An exhibition should be a celebration of the learning that has taken place in the Gallery as opposed to a one-off, disconnected, fanciful ‘performance’. This particular Gallery incorporated the students’ growing interest in shadow play (from playful shadow activities linked to measurement and Earth and Space Sciences), and this interest culminated in an Exhibition in which students decided to produce and share a shadowography performance in their own self-made shadow theatre. The story of the shadow theatre was designed by the students themselves and played out an account of a refugee who fled a war-torn country to travel by boat to Australia. Students were focused on communicating the Big Ideas and feelings about the topic to the wider school community.

In summary, the key aspects of a Gallery in practice include:

Sustained aesthetic practices that value empathic and artistic expression as intellectual expression.

Experiences of the essential human qualities of play, collaboration, improvisation and imagination.

Focus on learning, high expectations, student active participation (shared control, student voice in reflection and discussion), high engaging experiences, increased student collaboration with links to wider school community.

Sharing empathic understanding through big ideas around local and global impact and effect.

Data collected from the Gallery at this primary school illustrated that students, when provided with these kinds of learning experiences, were able to take ownership, shift their perceptions around achievement and begin to challenge their own, and the wider school community’s, perception of what a classroom might look, sound and feel like.

The Gallery and the ‘bigger pictures’ of student engagement

The Gallery is presented in this article as a model for deep and purposeful learning, particularly for students in low SES areas. The Fair Go Program’s Student Engagement Framework (the MeE Framework) was a critical component of the inspiration, design and implementation of the Gallery. The pedagogical practices in the Gallery respond to a belief and commitment that all students, including those from marginalised backgrounds, need to be provided with intellectually demanding and meaningful work, not only as an engagement strategy but as a matter of social justice (Hayes et al., 2006). The metaphor of the Gallery, suggested here as an engaging classroom space, is a worthwhile response to the teaching challenge that many educators face. That students who were involved in this model were able to see themselves as ‘not just some kids’, but as people with powerful learning to share, and this points to the real possibility that the Gallery model can be a platform for advancing social and academic outcomes for students in low SES communities.

References

Brophy, J., & Alleman, J. (2007). Powerful social studies for elementary students (2nd ed.). Thomson Wadsworth.

Brophy, J., Alleman, J., & Knighton, B. (2010). A learning community in the primary classroom. Routledge.

Craft, A. (2000). Creativity across the primary curriculum: framing and developing practice. Routledge.

Craft, A. (2005). Creativity in schools: Tensions and dilemmas. Routledge Falmer.

Craft, A. (2008). Tensions in creativity and education: Enter wisdom and trusteeship? In A. Craft, H. Gardner, & G. Claxton (Eds.), Creativity, wisdom, & trusteeship: Exploring the role of education (pp. 16-34). Corwin Press.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1991). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. Harper Collins.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. Harper Collins.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Finding Flow: The psychology of engagement with everyday life. Basic Books.

Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. Macmillan.

Dewey, J. (2005). Art as experience. Perigee Books. (Original work published 1934).

Eisner, E. W. (2002). The Arts and the Creation of Mind. Yale University Press.

Egan, K. (2007). Imagination, past and present. In K. Egan, M. Stout, & K. Takaya (Eds.), Teaching and learning outside the box: Inspiring imagination across the curriculum (pp. 3-20). Teachers College Press.

Egan, K. (2013). Wonder, awe and teaching techniques. In Egan, K., Cant, A. I., & Judson, G. (Eds.), Wonder-full education: The centrality of wonder in teaching and learning across the curriculum. Taylor & Francis.

Fair Go Team (2006). School is for me: Pathways to student engagement. NSW Department of Education and Training.

Gallagher, K. (2010). Improvisation and education: Learning through? Canadian Theatre Review, 143, 42-46.

Gallagher, K., Ntelioglou, B.Y. & Wessels, A. (2013). “Listening to the affective life of injustice: Drama pedagogy, race, identity, and learning”. Youth Theatre Journal, 27(1), 7-19.

Hayes, D., Mills, M., Christie, P. & Lingard, B. (2006). Teachers and schooling making a difference: Productive pedagogies, assessment and performance. Allen & Unwin.

John-Steiner, V. (2000). Creative collaboration. Oxford University Press.

Lofthouse, L., & Ingpen, R. (2007). Ziba came on a boat. Penguin/Viking.

Lucas, B., Claxton, G., & Spencer, E. (2013). Progression in student creativity in school: First steps towards new forms of formative assessments (OECD Education Working Papers, No. 86). OECD.

Marsden, J., Ottley, M., & Children’s Book Council of Australia. (2008). Home and away. Lothian.

Munns, G., Sawyer, W., Cole, B. (Eds.) & the Fair Go Team (2013). Exemplary teachers of students in poverty. Routledge.

NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA). (2006). Creative Arts K-6 Syllabus. https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-10/learning-areas/creative-arts/creative-arts-k-6-syllabus

Sawyer, R. K. (2004). Improvised lessons: Collaborative discussion in the constructivist classroom. Teaching Education, 15(2), 189-201.

Sawyer, R. K. (2006). Educating for innovation. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 1(1), 41-48.

Sawyer, R. K. (2007). Group genius: The creative power of collaboration. Basic Books.

Sawyer, R. K. (2014). Group creativity: Music, theater, collaboration. Psychology Press.

Winston, J. (1998). Drama, narrative and moral education. Routledge Falmer.

Winston, J. (2015). Transforming the teaching of Shakespeare with the royal Shakespeare company. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Wright, K., & Bailey, P. (2009). The magic box: Poems for children. Pan Macmillan.

Let’s Play! Benefits of Music Recitals

Ashleigh Smith celebrates performance through an exciting school recital series…

Why a recital program?

Music plays an important role in our social, cultural, aesthetic and spiritual lives. At an individual level, music is a medium of personal expression. Through my experience developing a recital program in a comprehensive public high school, I have found that it has provided a platform for students to showcase their abilities in performance and to grow as a musician, with benefits to HSC results, confidence and personal development of the students involved.

At my school, Keira High School, music has always been an important focus, and the Recital Program has provided the school community with the opportunity to celebrate the success of a range of individual and group performances. Inspired by the renowned composer Antonio Vivaldi and his signature suite, The Four Seasons, the programs builds into the school calendar a series of recitals to be held annually. These four celebrations of musical talent take the name of each season, reflecting Vivaldi’s work and connecting the school community to the individual performers and to the world of classical music beyond the classroom.

Such events allow students to hone a vast array of collaborative and organisational skills through direct engagement in decision-making around aspects such as staging, programming, rehearsal schedules, technical support and performance delivery. A scope and sequence of learning activities supports students to negotiate the decision-making required of them to work towards delivery of these events. Associated student self-evaluations and teacher observation assessment documents also provide feedback on the development of problem-solving abilities and the impact of this on the quality of each event. Combined with audience responses to these programs, it is clear that our program has been successful in building these key capabilities within our music students.

Curriculum beyond the classroom

A school’s curriculum can be enhanced by the inclusion of quality learning experiences provided to students beyond the classroom and syllabuses. Whilst there can be many competing priorities, delivery of music programs, which are inclusive, well-resourced and sustained, should be a significant focus at all schools to ensure a sufficiently broad and culturally rich curriculum. This is especially true for schools serving disadvantaged communities.

At Keira, our band program connected to the recitals boasts high levels of participation of students, with some 35 students from Years 7 to 12 performing in a variety of contexts, both within and outside of the school community. We think this popularity comes from providing a supportive learning environment that allows students to explore music in a culture that values the importance of making mistakes, seeking feedback, and planning for future success. Most importantly, our music program has allowed a wide range of students to enjoy exceptional success as part of a quality band, as the statement below from Year 11 student, Lola Sossai, who joined the Recital program in 2018 and featured at the Summer Recital in 2019 as the leading musician, attests:

Recitals build character, resilience, friendships and can benefit one’s happiness immensely. I never liked to sing in front of people, I loved to play the drums and guitar and hoped it would bring a smile to someone’s day. The on-going support from music teachers and students helped me learn to love singing in front of people. You create memories, you create moments, and you can maybe leave a recital stage, having inspired someone with the same potential they didn’t know existed.

Overcoming challenges for performers

It is important to acknowledge that the COVID-19 pandemic we are living through has affected our program, and we were unable to run live events in 2020. During the last week of Term 2, this year our Winter Recital was modified and performed to selected class groups; a change that was decided upon very last minute. The Recital ran in school hours and was filmed and sent to parents, carers and performers via a YouTube link. It was important for me that the students had this opportunity to showcase the hard work they had put in over the term, and it also taught students the importance of innovation in the performing arts.

More than external factors, since the beginning of our program, it has been clear that the biggest obstacle for students is performance anxiety. Most students in the 2018 Recital Program had never performed for their classmates, let alone their parents, teachers and friends. As a performer myself, I understood the necessary tricks needed before a performance, which included being prepared and limiting self-doubt. A student will typically feel more confident in their performance if there has been substantial preparation before the recital. So, leading up to what we call ‘show week’ there are numerous rehearsals at lunch times and after school. As a teacher, this might appear to be a lot more work. However, what initially appears to be a substantial increase in workload actually provides the platform for student growth in creativity and self-expression and makes future teaching more efficient and effective. A rehearsal does not only provide students time to practise a piece, but also has social benefits which build rapport between students and across year groups, which makes the classroom environment more positive too.

Last notes

Performing is a major element of the arts, and the Recital program provides students with the platform to aim higher. Creating this opportunity for students to perform on stage, with a program and audience brings many benefits. Our Recital Program has built the confidence of many students and increased their skills, contributing to the development of each child. Creating a program that has built student confidence has positively impacted my classroom. Not only has it given students the chance to strive toward excellence in the performing arts, it also regularly brings our community together to celebrate the successes of our students through music.

Ashleigh Smith teaches Music at Keira High School where she initiated the development of a framework to successfully re-establish the importance of a school band and to provide the learning and organisational structures to support it. Ashleigh has been teaching for five years and co-ordinates the intermediate and beginner Concert Band, advanced Stage Band, Choir and upcoming string and woodwind ensembles as well as the professional experience program between the school and universities.

Aboriginal Studies: A Good HSC for Students and Community

Cath Jeffery explains why your school should offer Aboriginal Studies and shares student experiences of the subject’s personal, social and career benefits…

A great deal!

Perhaps no other subject offers such varied opportunities for schools to establish and maintain authentic relationships with their local community as Stage 6 Aboriginal Studies. At Inverell High School the Aboriginal Studies course has fostered the development and consolidation of a positive authentic partnership whereby the community has a degree of ownership of both the subject material and also student outcomes. These relationships have also provided opportunities for older students to become mentors to their younger peers and facilitated greater communication and collaboration between all key stakeholders in the education of all students.

HSC success for students

Stage 6 Aboriginal Studies is an exciting and engaging course for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. The subject offers an opportunity for individuals to enhance their analytical skills, think creatively and critically and develop a comprehensive understanding of both the historical and contemporary experiences of Indigenous people around the world. Students who undertake Stage 6 Aboriginal Studies will develop an understanding and appreciation of the concepts of shared histories and social justice.

The Preliminary Course investigates traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies as well as other Indigenous societies around the world. It examines the process of colonisation and the legacy of this and the subsequent dispossession on these people up until the 1960s. There are two core studies, Aboriginality and the Land and Heritage and Identity.

Section 3 of the course provides students with an opportunity to investigate a specific International Indigenous community. Students examine the location, environment, culture and lifestyle of their chosen people. This allows students to compare and contrast the experiences of the two groups.

The Local Community Case Study encourages students to develop their research and inquiry skills by conducting an investigation of the experiences of their local Aboriginal community. The focus of this component of the course is to consolidate students’ skills in relation to:

Appropriate community consultation procedures
Various research methodologies
Acquiring, processing and communicating information

The HSC course focuses on the period from the 1960s where the world experienced monumental social change, to the present day. The core study of Social Justice and Human Rights – A Global Perspective offers students the opportunity to examine the various treaties, covenants, and agreements which are being worked towards for all people across the globe, as well as the various strategies and initiatives to address racism. Students study two options from health, education, criminal justice, economic independence and employment when they conduct an in-depth investigation examining the ongoing impact of colonisation, the current issues facing Indigenous Australians and other Indigenous Peoples, along with the various government and independent initiatives and programs which are focused on bridging the socioeconomic divide.

Students are then given the option to study either:

Aboriginality and the Land, which investigates the Land Rights movement and the recognition of Native Title. Students also analyse the effectiveness of government policies and legislation and non-Aboriginal responses in relation to the ongoing land rights campaign.

Heritage and Identity, which analyses contemporary aspects of Aboriginal Heritage and Identity as well as government policies and legislation and non-Aboriginal responses in relation to the celebration and preservation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural expression.

The Major Project presents an opportunity for students to utilise their strengths and ignite their passion to conduct a personal investigation into an area which they are interested in. It is envisaged that through this research journey students will consolidate their researching skills and knowledge of ethical practices.

Patterns of study

There are also significant cross-curriculum advantages for students who study Stage 6 Aboriginal Studies. Similar syllabus content and key concepts overlap in a number of various HSC subjects. Some examples are outlined below.

Syllabus content	Link with the Aboriginal Studies course
Research Fundamentals Students learn about sources of data from individuals and groups as well as print and digital sources. They discuss the advantages and limitations of each source of data Students investigate ethical behaviour in research practices, including conducting investigations respectfully and with integrity. They assess the importance of practising ethical behaviour when conducting research by considering: Sensitive research topics Confidentiality Research bias and data validity	In both the Preliminary and HSC courses, students in Aboriginal Studies have to conduct a major research project. A significant component of research and Inquiry methods is for students to develop a comprehensive understanding of ethical research practices as well as observation of cultural protocols which are to be observed when conducting investigations. In both projects, students must acknowledge how they have observed these in their projects.
Research Methods Students become familiar with the following research methods; Questionnaires Interviews Case studies Observations Literature reviews	As outlined above, students utilise all of the research methods highlighted in CAFS, both in the Preliminary and HSC courses. Students who study both CAFS and Aboriginal Studies develop not only skills in using such methodologies but also which ones are more appropriate in particular instances.

Syllabus content

Link with the Aboriginal Studies course

Research Fundamentals

Students learn about sources of data from individuals and groups as well as print and digital sources. They discuss the advantages and limitations of each source of data

Students investigate ethical behaviour in research practices, including conducting investigations respectfully and with integrity. They assess the importance of practising ethical behaviour when conducting research by considering:

Sensitive research topics
Confidentiality
Research bias and data validity

In both the Preliminary and HSC courses, students in Aboriginal Studies have to conduct a major research project. A significant component of research and Inquiry methods is for students to develop a comprehensive understanding of ethical research practices as well as observation of cultural protocols which are to be observed when conducting investigations.

In both projects, students must acknowledge how they have observed these in their projects.

Research Methods

Students become familiar with the following research methods;

Questionnaires
Interviews
Case studies
Observations
Literature reviews

As outlined above, students utilise all of the research methods highlighted in CAFS, both in the Preliminary and HSC courses. Students who study both CAFS and Aboriginal Studies develop not only skills in using such methodologies but also which ones are more appropriate in particular instances.

Supporting teachers with accreditation

Stage 6 Aboriginal Studies provides teachers authentic opportunities to connect with a number of the Australian Professional Standards.

The standard	How teachers can work towards the standard
1:4:2 Design and implement effective teaching strategies that are responsive to the local community and cultural setting, linguistic background and histories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.	Aboriginal Studies provides an opportunity for teachers to regularly consult with their local Aboriginal community. The curriculum content provides a foundation by which schools can build authentic relationships with Aboriginal parents and caregivers and other key stakeholders.
2:4:2 Provide opportunities for students to develop understanding of and respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.	The course investigates traditional Aboriginal society and culture, it explores the effect that colonisation had on Australia’s Indigenous peoples and the legacy that that has in contemporary Australian society.
7:3:2 Establish and maintain respectful, collaborative relationships with parents/carers regarding their children’s learning and wellbeing	Aboriginal Studies enables parents to have an strong voice in not only the curriculum but also the teaching strategies that will be used to deliver the content. This provides Aboriginal parents with the opportunity to have regular contact with the classroom teacher and the wider school community.

The standard

How teachers can work towards the standard

1:4:2

Design and implement effective teaching strategies that are responsive to the local community and cultural setting, linguistic background and histories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

Aboriginal Studies provides an opportunity for teachers to regularly consult with their local Aboriginal community. The curriculum content provides a foundation by which schools can build authentic relationships with Aboriginal parents and caregivers and other key stakeholders.

2:4:2

Provide opportunities for students to develop understanding of and respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

The course investigates traditional Aboriginal society and culture, it explores the effect that colonisation had on Australia’s Indigenous peoples and the legacy that that has in contemporary Australian society.

7:3:2

Establish and maintain respectful, collaborative relationships with parents/carers regarding their children’s learning and wellbeing

Aboriginal Studies enables parents to have an strong voice in not only the curriculum but also the teaching strategies that will be used to deliver the content. This provides Aboriginal parents with the opportunity to have regular contact with the classroom teacher and the wider school community.

Community wins too!

Aboriginal Studies includes local community case studies as well as many opportunities for community members to contribute, not only to the curriculum content but also to assist in the delivery of subject material in the classroom. At Inverell, it has also encouraged a sense of reconciliation in the wider community where residents display a sense of pride in the fact that the school celebrates the town’s local history.

The Stage 6 course also provides schools with the opportunity to develop real relationships with pre-schools, infants and primary schools.

Arguably, the most appropriate way the value of an HSC subject can be assessed is its potential to assist students as they move into the workforce or undertake tertiary studies. The following testimonies from the alumni of various Inverell High School HSC classes attest to the widespread value of Aboriginal Studies to students post-high school.

Chelsea’s story

From this subject I built a solid foundation of knowledge on the history, culture, and health of Aboriginal Australians.

This has been very beneficial to my career as a job consultant in a community with a significant Aboriginal population. It has allowed me to look at my clients with a different perspective and take a holistic approach in assisting them to move forward. Using my knowledge of socio-economic indicators that I gained within Aboriginal Studies has allowed me to identify the areas that may be affecting my client without them being aware.

The knowledge of Aboriginal Australians’ culture has also allowed me to be more flexible with requirements and considerate around times of funerals within the community. The history of Aboriginal Australians and the subsequent fear of authority has also had an impact on their participation with our services and this needs to be considered when utilising compliance.

The knowledge base that I gained from Aboriginal Studies has greatly improved my ability to interact and work effectively with Aboriginal Australians in both formal and informal situations.

Chelsea Thom (Job Coach, BEST Employment Ltd – Inverell)

Alex’s story

During my schooling I chose to do Aboriginal Studies as an elective from when it was offered in Year 9 right to having it as one of my HSC subjects in Year 12, and the content I have learnt from the subject has been highly useful in my various career choices. After graduating in 2018 I attended NAISDA Dance College as a developing artist gaining my Certificate III in Dance Practise for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. Having prior experience in Aboriginal Studies was of significant benefit during my training. One of core components was Cultural Learning where we investigated Indigenous history, protocols and other issues and inequalities. From previously studying this I found I was able to have more depth conversions with guest tutors such as Carol Johnson, founder of NAISDA, and attendee of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. As well already having experience in community consultation during my schooling through Aboriginal Studies, when we had cultural residence in the Torres Strait Islands, I was able to effectively connect with the community and develop strong relationships.

After finishing my certificate I enrolled at the University of Newcastle to begin my new chapter of becoming a secondary teacher. Many of my subjects again involved Indigenous people such as Introduction into Aboriginal studies (core subject) and Working with Aboriginal Communities (elective). Both subjects were very similar to the Preliminary syllabus of Aboriginal Studies with additional focus points, therefore once again the subject proved to be of significant advantage to me. During this subject I met another student who also previously did Aboriginal Studies in high school and we both felt noticeably more confident and well prepared in a number of our university units.

Being someone who has begun a variety of careers in the past two years since leaving school every career I have pursued has had an element of Aboriginal culture or education. I cannot recommend enough for school students to participate in Aboriginal studies because it has been one of, if not the only, subject I have had continued to use post schooling.

Alex Jeffery (current university student, Newcastle University)

An enriched educational journey for all

diversity of the topics investigated in the subject along with the various mediums by which students can express their understanding of core themes and concepts caters for diverse learning styles and interests. The subject offers schools an opportunity to establish and sustain authentic relationships with their local Aboriginal community with a focus on collaboration and consultation in relation to shared ownership of the curriculum.

Cath Jeffery is the Head Teacher of Teaching and Learning at Inverell High School. She established Aboriginal Studies in Year 9 in 2007, it is now one of the most popular subjects in Years 9 to 12. Cath also works with the NSW Department of Education Curriculum Innovations team and the Australian Human Rights Commission developing teaching resources for Stages 5 and 6 Aboriginal Studies and Stages 3,4,5 and 6 History.

Technology That Works for K-6

Maria Wilson outlines five achievable areas for schools to begin improvement in digital technologies…

Here is an example of a typical school day for a primary school computer coordinator like me:

Before school, one of the classroom teachers needs help as there is no internet connection for the computer attached to the interactive whiteboard. Twenty minutes later, with some new cables and the reorganisation of desktops in the classroom, the issue is solved. During the morning, a student appears in the coordinator’s classroom, his laptop does not work. The computer coordinator thinks, ‘Do I stop teaching the 28 Year 4 children in front of me to try and fix this, or tell him to leave it with me’. The student really needs it now. Year 4 seems to be focused, the coordinator performs some magic and the computer seems to be working again, unfortunately Year 4 are not. Then, a phone call comes to the classroom. It is the teacher from before school explaining that now there is no interactive whiteboard software on the computer. The coordinator makes a mental note to download the software and relabel the desktop on the Department’s Universal Desktop Management system.

The bell goes for lunch.

I am a full-time teacher and I also manage nearly 400 desktops, laptops, iPads and interactive whiteboards in my school. I am not an IT specialist. I am self-taught and readily admit to huge gaps in my knowledge covered by a lot of Googling, YouTube videos and telephone calls to people who do know. What I have observed over the last four years in this role is that while access to computers in schools has grown exponentially, the digital technology needs of primary classroom teachers and their students are not always being met.

Where to begin

I have carried out some anecdotal research with teacher colleagues from across the state into their IT needs and found the results are remarkably similar, no matter where they are teaching. The needs outlined below are not ranked in an order and instead reflect the range of immediate support that schools might pursue across most primary settings.

Newish computers and other hardware

‘The internet is so slow’ is a common cry in schools, and it is frustrating when computers take forever to do the smallest task. Rest assured it should not be an issue for much longer. In October last year, the Minister for Education, Sarah Mitchell, explained that over the following 18 months all NSW public schools would have high-speed internet (NSW Government, 2020). If that does not leave you resting assured, new Federal laws guaranteeing ‘decent’ internet speeds regardless of where you live and work in the state came into force on 1 July (Lysaght, 2020). If, however, the issue is not internet speeds but the age of the hardware that schools are using, then Houston, we have a problem. Age slows computers, well technically it is not age but newer software which takes up more space, lack of available memory, unused files slowing the processing speed and numerous other technical issues. This is the reason that private businesses replace hardware at least every five years. However, in schools we are more likely to play ‘musical computers’ with equipment that may be ten years old, and try another old device rather than prioritising upgrades. While the current, annual Departmental rollout may replace some of the equipment which is beyond use or broken, most of us will continue waiting for a device to load, while breathing in and out slowly. This is an area where more efficient and timely programs for change are necessary from both the Department and school leadership.

Easy logins for K-2 students

I was recently preparing a digital technology team teaching unit for a Kindy class. I told the class teacher of my plans which involved students acting as robots, giving directions to each other and gradually advancing to programming Bluebots. My colleague looked at me wryly and explained that it sounded like a lot of fun but maybe we could start by teaching the students to log on to a computer.

Our Kindy students have 30-character logins. Some of these little darlings have only just worked out that their fingers can go places other than up their noses, yet obstacles such as these excessive logins create challenging hurdles that would turn off even the most patient of teachers who wish to use ICT with young students. This also applies to the online learning programs that many schools subscribe to. While often providing excellent learning opportunities, they come with sign-in requirements which take the first 15 minutes of computer time and test the patience of a saint, or, perhaps, a Kindy teacher.

Professional learning in commonly used technology

One teacher I spoke to about this article asked for a little less judgement of those teachers who cannot get the hang of the latest app/program/update after a five-minute explanation from a well-intentioned colleague preceded by ‘Oh it’s really easy, don’t worry’. What is really needed is more meaningful professional learning in technology use for all teachers. Professor Pasi Sahlberg pointed out in his submission to the Gallop Inquiry “Technology can only be as good as the people who use it” (as cited in Gallop, Kavanagh & Lee, 2021, p.34). In my experience this is true. For instance, how many of us really use the interactive whiteboard in our learning space as anything more than a glorified whiteboard? Much of the technology that is now available in all classrooms does have incredible potential, yet without training, from experts in the field, and time to experiment, learn and plan using the equipment, teachers are prevented from realising the potential in both the technology and themselves. Professional learning in using technology is also a necessary requirement for meeting the Proficienct Teacher standards under the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (NESA, 2018), so whilst the intention is clear, there is much to do in practical, planning and resourcing to support this important work.

Clear guidelines around the use of apps

On a recent Stage 3 excursion, one of the class teachers posted some photos of the students on her class Seesaw page. She almost immediately got a message from a parent saying that her child was not in any of the photos. The situation left me wondering when and how teachers became so accountable that they now feel obliged to post daily updates in apps such as Seesaw or ClassDojo, which may then be critiqued by parents?

Even before COVID, many teachers were using these apps to communicate directly with parents, sending reminders, newsletters and occasionally photos and work samples. There are no doubt benefits to these apps but for many teachers who feel obliged to use them, they have become a menace, with parents using them to communicate with the class teacher without limit. For instance, a child forgot their school hat, they are sick, unhappy, missing their pet, missing their lunch. These are all issues which would have once gone through the school office and been noticed and coordinated at a senior level, or might not have been sent at all. They are now sent directly to teachers, sometimes involving long emails in the dead of night.

Teachers are committed to good relations with parents and thus feel obliged to respond and follow up every message. This is time consuming and takes up lesson planning time before and after school hours, as well as precious release from face-to-face time (RFF). Many teachers are desperate for strict guidelines, for parents and themselves, around communication and the use of such apps and this is something that could be addressed without additional expense or equipment.

Expert technical support

Potentially the biggest digital technology issue in schools is the provision of technical support. It is hard to think of any other similarly sized organisation that requires their employees to manage their own technology. A recent report on this topic, based on survey results from 259 schools from across the state, found that in the majority of schools, technical support was provided from among the teaching staff (Fogerty, 2021, p.11). That is teachers, like me, who put their hand up to take on the role and who are usually self-taught. Some get extra release time, but many are also using their RFF or time before or after school hours to fulfill the role. Of course, this impacts on the quality of the coordinator’s teaching, yet if schools do not support technical needs, then teaching across the school is negatively impacted. This is a situation that need not continue.

Next steps

Reading this article, you may have noticed some factual errors around the working of computers, revealing that I am not a ‘tech wizard’. In writing this piece, I want to make the point that whilst teachers can do a lot to support each other in effective use of information technology, every school in NSW should have the benefit of specialist, dedicated technical support along with the necessary, updated hardware and software to deliver and model truly modern and best practice for students. Coupled with this specialist technical support, classroom teachers should receive training from experts in the software and systems they want to use, ensuring the ‘digital revolution’ benefits our students. There is also a need for clearer guidelines, direction and support from the Department around new and evolving technology that connects us to our parent communities and the world beyond.

References:

Fogarty, M. (2021). Technology support lacking. Education, 102(2), 11. https://news.www.stagingnswtf.com.au/education/editions-2020/may-2021?c=may-2021-1&page=11

Gallop, G., Kavanagh, T., & Lee, P. (2021). Valuing the teaching profession: An independent inquiry [Report]. NSW Teachers Federation.

Lysaght, G-J. (2020, July 2). Federal Parliament laws now guarantee minimum broadband speeds for all Australians. ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-02/high-speed-internet-universal-service-obligation-legislation/12415512

New South Wales Education Standards Authority (NESA). (2018). Australian professional standards for teachers: Teacher accreditation. https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/wcm/connect/9ba4a706-221f-413c-843b-d5f390c2109f/australian-professional-standards-teachers.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=

New South Wales Government. (2020, October 22). Faster internet for all NSW public schools [Media release]. https://www.nsw.gov.au/news/faster-internet-for-all-nsw-public-schools

Maria Wilson began teaching thirty years ago in inner London, she briefly ran a small school in the West Indies before settling in the inner west of Sydney. She has a Masters degree in Human Rights and had planned to become the Secretary General of the United Nations. In the event of this not happening she has settled for the other best job in the world. She currently teaches and coordinates computers at Kegworth Public School.

Vital, Elusive and Fantastically Complex: Teacher’s Worth

Raewyn Connell captures the scope and place of the work of teachers in modern Australia…

This essay reflects on the nature of teachers’ work and its value to society. It builds on recent debates about teachers and education, on my experience as a researcher concerned with schools, and on what I have learned as a teacher in universities. It is based on a submission I wrote for the 2020 Inquiry Valuing the Teaching Profession, sponsored by the NSW Teachers Federation.

Significant cultural players

In graduation ceremonies for Education degrees, the invited speaker often includes a fanfare for the teaching profession. Looking out at the rows of graduands, nervous in their academic robes, the speaker tells them they are bearers of cultural traditions, mentors of the rising generation, and gatekeepers to the future. Perhaps these are clichés, but there is an important truth in them. Teachers do have a central role in contemporary culture.

Ever since mass school systems became a reality, teachers have been responsible for the growth of literacy and numeracy, the ‘basics’ as politicians see them. That’s not a small thing. But teachers have also been responsible for much more: forming skilled and professional workforces, spreading the knowledge of sciences, arts and humanities, and contributing a large part of young people’s social learning.

When we look at it this way, teachers’ work underpins our society’s achievements in public health, economic and technological development, literature, music and art. It also underpins our social life, in ways less spectacular than Facebook or TikTok, but essential none the less. It’s through schools that children and youth learn many of their capacities for making social connection, for dealing with difference, and of course for dealing with organisational life. The role is so broad that when social troubles emerge, politicians and journalists often blame teachers for causing the problems, or expect teachers to fix them.

Sociologists sometimes view teaching as the archetype of a ‘new profession’. School teachers are trained knowledge workers, now usually with university degrees. They are mostly unionised, they earn wages rather than charge fees, they are employees rather than self-employed, and most of them work in the public sector. Compared with other professions, teaching has a high proportion of women, and of entrants from working-class backgrounds. Teachers not only perform important tasks for society but have themselves been significant players in economic and social change.

In one sense, teaching is the best-known profession of all. When almost every child has gone to school, almost every adult has had a close-up view of teachers doing their daily work (or at least, part of it). Many adults hold great affection for particular teachers who were important in their lives. But other memories may be negative, even angry. Many people also imagine, from a limited knowledge, that teaching is an easy job with short hours and long holidays, something that anyone could do with only some quick-and-dirty training. We know that is wrong; but we have to acknowledge that public images of teachers include myths and misrepresentations as well as real knowledge. We do not see a similar diversity of views of engineers or architects.

All in a day’s work

If you enter ‘teachers’ and ‘work’ together into the widely used database Google Scholar you will find over 4,000,000 references in the English language alone. Using the phrase ‘teachers’ work’ as an exact search term, you will find 280,000 references. Teachers and their work are certainly widely discussed. We can see in these searches how often questions about teachers connect with other educational issues, from curriculum to public policy, assessment, and pedagogy.

However, the research literature that is closely focussed on teachers’ work is much smaller than that. I would judge that at most 1,000 items, perhaps less, form the core. What this research shows, and what teachers know from direct experience, may be rather different from what’s assumed by mass media and politicians.

Teaching involves connections: it consists of human encounters. These may be intense or formal, short or sustained, one-to-one or one-to-many, even some-to-many (in team-teaching). Sometimes, for instance in remote teaching during the COVID pandemic, the connection is made through machinery; but the element of encounter is always there. Encounter means interaction. Close-focus observation of classrooms shows this dramatically: the classroom is a busy place with lots going on at any given time. Pure top-down instruction is part, but only a minimal part, of actual teaching.

To play an effective role in someone else’s learning, any teacher must learn what that pupil’s current capacities and motivations are, and what the pupil needs to take the next step in learning, the step after that, and so on. The teacher’s capacity to learn about the pupils is a crucial element in teaching, perhaps the most important element in effective teaching. The more diverse the cohort, the greater is the professional demand upon the teacher to sustain the pupils’ learning.

Classroom work includes complex intellectual labour: understanding the pupils, and transforming the curriculum into classroom practice. This is an easily recognised part of the job. But the job also requires (as more recent studies emphasise) what has come to be called emotional labour. This means creating connection with class members through encouragement, humour and sometimes anger; keeping focus in the classroom by managing pupils’ boredom, excitement or distraction; dealing with conflict in the class and the effects of tension and trauma in the pupils’ lives.

As well as intellectual and emotional labour, teaching also involves administrative labour: keeping records, managing equipment, providing materials, administering tests, and more. There is evidence that this part of the job has increased in the last few decades, with growing official requirements for testing, record-keeping and compliance.

Then there are the tasks outside the classroom needed to keep a school humming along. They include preparation of classes, supervision in break times, organising sports, arts and hobby groups, arranging and supervising events, speaking with parents, keeping up with official circulars, participating in staff meetings, attending in-service programmes, and so on. A growing part of this is done via computers, smartphones and other devices.

A team of workers

Though media images of teachers emphasise colourful individuals, good or bad (the movie Dead Poets Society has both), no teacher really works alone. As with many other forms of labour, most effects in teaching are produced by a whole workforce. Any teacher in her classroom is building on the work of all the teachers who have worked with those pupils before.

What happens in any classroom is further shaped by what happens in the next-door classroom, by the routines of the whole school, by the planning in formal staff meetings and informal consultations. It is shaped by the work of school principals and senior teachers, the work of office and maintenance staff, the constant exchange of information in staffrooms and around the school office.

Researchers recognise this when they speak of schools as organisations and try to characterise school cultures, climates or atmospheres. That collective dimension of teaching is why attempts to measure ‘teacher effectiveness’ on an individual basis have so little grip. It is a strong argument against the attempts of market ideologists to make teachers’ salaries depend on individual measures of ‘performance’.

Across a large school system, teachers deal with very varied groups of pupils. One school is located in a quiet, mostly White suburb with a high proportion of professionals and managers. Another is in a crowded, multi-ethnic city area with a high proportion of recent migrants. Another is in a depressed rural area with high youth unemployment and very few resident professionals. Some of the students will be academically engaged, others will be bored or distracted, others in outright conflict with the school. In any age group there will be students with disabilities, behaviour problems and complex wellbeing needs.

It is important to recognise that social differences and inequalities are educational issues. Poverty and wealth, rural remoteness, urban tensions, ethnic and religious difference, Indigenous or settler background, racism, sexual harassment, physical difference and disability all confront teachers with specific social conditions and educational tasks in different schools. There are no one-size-fits-all answers to educational questions.

New pressures

Teachers and their work have always been subject to controls: religious, political, managerial and professional. Not far back in history, teachers were expected to show rigid conservatism in dress, manners and attitudes, in private life as well as during working hours. Some of this has changed, as teachers asserted their citizen rights. But teachers can still be targeted in moral panics. Concerns about sexual abuse of children, for instance, have required teachers to observe much more restrictive rules about physical contact with pupils in everyday school life.

In the last few decades, new means of regulating teachers’ work have developed. They generally involve control at a distance, euphemistically called ‘accountability’. Schools and teachers are supposed to have easily-measured goals to achieve, as if they were Dickensian firms counting up their cash. School league tables are now familiar, such as those constructed from the appalling MySchool website (‘supports national transparency and accountability’ according to its front page, giving the game away). Teachers are confronted with a tension between government demands for competitive standardised testing, and their students’ need for assessments relevant to their actual learning situations and patterns of growth.

Education systems have been subjected to requirements imported from other industries, with little attention to their educational effects. There is formidable pressure to standardise teaching practices, to discourage the messiness of experiment and local engagement, and to re-define teaching as a measurable technical performance rather than a complex human encounter. A few decades ago, we laughed at the insulting idea of a ‘teacher-proof curriculum’. We should laugh no more, since current information technologies, combined with corporate strategies for centralising knowledge and control in the hands of managers, make it more feasible to reduce the skills of teachers, while still maintaining a facade of performance.

Careers and lives

There is an ideal image of the teaching career, from initial training, through the baptism of fire in the First Year Out, through professional learning and promotion, to senior roles and finally retirement. Of course, in practice it is much more complex.

One reason for complexity is teachers’ lives outside school. Work/life balance can be very problematic for beginning teachers, given the pressures of the early years in the job. Forming a family often comes at the same time as starting professional life. In Australian society, work/life balance is constructed mainly as a dilemma for women, given the long-standing gender inequality in the load of housework, child-care and care for elders (this was little changed even in the COVID19 lockdowns). We should be alert to the way apparently ‘family-friendly’ policies may actually reinforce this division.

Fifty years ago, teachers in Australia came overwhelmingly from White English-speaking backgrounds. But it was also true then that teaching provided upward mobility for a significant group of working-class entrants. Now, more students from both Aboriginal and non-English-speaking migrant backgrounds have come through teacher education and into the profession. The public sector has probably changed faster than the private sector.

But with the end of teaching scholarships, the rise of university fees and the growing weight of student debt, recruitment may become more restricted again, at least in social class terms. If we value the sharing of experience through education, then having a socially representative teaching workforce seems an important goal.

Final thoughts

Teachers, as a group, have a formative role in social and economic processes. The central purpose of their labour is to help the rising generation develop their capacities: intellectual, social, practical and creative. This task is simultaneously vital, elusive and fantastically complex. Teachers have to deploy a wide range of their own capacities to do the job, which involves intellectual work, emotion work, practical skills, and organisational and social know-how. Though pupils encounter teachers as individuals, the work is in fact strongly collective and powerfully shaped by the institutional system. It is no wonder that teachers’ public image is contradictory and that governments often reach for showy short-term solutions to tough long-term educational problems.

Teachers today have to deal with changing technologies as well as declining government support for human services and rising management demands. Yet it is at the human level that teachers most immediately deal with social change. Pupils have needs shaped by colonisation, poverty, racism, domestic violence, disabilities, social conflicts and changing job markets, as well as the universal problems of growing up. It is the job of teachers to work from the actual conditions of young people’s lives towards educational outcomes. It is an impressive sign of teacher professionalism that so much good and thoughtful teaching is found in our public schools.

Raewyn Connell is one of Australia’s leading social scientists. Her writing on education includes the books Making the Difference, Teachers’ Work, Schools & Social Justice, and The Good University. Her work is widely cited and has been translated into twenty languages. She recently retired from an academic career to focus on subversion. Raewyn has been active in the labour movement and in work for gender equality and peace. Her website is www.raewynconnell.net and Twitter @raewynconnell.

Supporting Learning Through COVID-19

Rani Fairbairn and Belinda Gibbs were involved in Schooling for a Fair Go as a classroom teacher and coach respectively at Grassland Public School. Rani investigated her own teaching practices by asking a research question, gathering evidence and discussing if the changes were making a difference to students’ engagement in learning with her coach. As coaches, Rani and Belinda supported others in their own learning journeys focused on a practice-based research question. Katina Zammit was the school’s academic critical friend and co-researcher. In this article, we reflect on the influence of the Fair Go Program (FGP) on our roles, our teaching and coaching practices, and the challenges and successes during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Background

Belinda and Rani work at Grassland Public School in south-west Sydney. Both were involved with the Schooling for a Fair Go project – one as a coach and the other as a classroom teacher who then became a coach respectively. Their involvement with the Fair Go Program (FGP) started that particular learning journey. The coaching model initiated as part of the project (see Katina’s article on the history of Fair Go in this Special Edition) has continued to support individualised teacher professional learning which includes teacher-coach conversations that are research-informed and action-oriented through co-planning of activities focused on teaching for improved student engagement in learning. The coaching model especially supports those teachers within their first five years of teaching. Working directly with teachers, coaches emphasise the importance of learning from each other, developing both collective wisdom and collegiality. Engagement is the key for teachers and students as is evident in the statements below from Rani and Belinda:

It’s that collegial discussion and using research to inform what we’re doing so we can’t just make it up. Something has to be the basis – where did you get this information from? Then we trial it in our classrooms then we talk about what worked, what didnt work and how we can make it a sustainable practice.
Rani

We have behaviours that we have to deal with, but when we’re in the classroom we are focussed on teaching and learning, the majority of teachers will say that behaviours are happening in the playground not in the classroom. It’s just sort of second nature to staff now.
Belinda

However, in 2020, COVID-19 added a new complexity to their role in supporting learning as the teachers moved to remote learning for eight weeks and then returned to school, albeit with the restrictions in place that meant the community was not allowed on site.
These are their stories:

Rani: My many different roles supporting quality learning experiences

As a coach, I try to always ask questions that come down to, ‘How can we make teaching work?’. Before COVID-19, I had started with a new coachee and I noticed, through observation, that some lessons were quite ‘low cognitive’. I felt the students were not being challenged and I asked the teacher, ‘How can we make the lessons more high cognitive?’. I use that [FGP] language consciously and deliberately with the teachers. We were about to start looking at this issue of how we could make our lessons ‘high cognitive’ and we were collecting data to reflect upon and discuss when everything had to stop as we were forced to adapt to an unexpected new situation with our students trying to learn from home.

During remote learning, my role was technical to begin with: providing parents with technical support in launching Google Classrooms and Zoom over the phone and sometimes they would even drop into school for support. To begin with, Stage 3 and then Stage 2 needed to be set-up with Zoom classes. However, our focus quickly moved into asking, ‘How can we facilitate more engaging classes through Zoom?’

There were also issues of access and the school loaned iPads to students so that they had the individual technology to undertake learning from home, this was especially necessary where there was more than one child in the home. We found that access to the Internet was not such an issue for the majority of homes. However, sometimes there were situations where a Zoom session had only five students and so we were concerned we were not seeing everyone each day. It was also evident that it was difficult for parents to support their children as they may have been at work, had other commitments or had four children at home. In some cases it was necessary for a few children to come back to school to do their work.

The Kindergarten teachers were another of my designated teams. They did a really good job with our newest learners. The whole team put lessons on Seesaw and then wrote feedback comments and also left voice comments so the students could hear or read these and load their work back up after editing using the feedback.

For Year 6 students, my role was to provide support around the learning tasks their teachers had provided. To provide scaffolding to help students complete the work, I learned to make ‘scaffolding videos’ using screen-recording to explain and differentiate the lessons. We talked about the level of difficulty in each lesson as a team. It was exhausting, as I spent a lot of time writing comments and feedback. Frequently, I couldn’t tell when my day started and ended as sometimes I worked until six or seven o’clock at night because that was when the students were online working, and I wanted to give them feedback while they were online.

Just as we got into the swing of things with remote learning, students came back to school. However, the challenges continued as, due to the restrictions on visitors, we were still unable to meet with the parents. At this point, my work returned to the Kindergarten teachers who observed of the parents that:

I talk to them on the phone but I haven’t ever seen them.
I don’t know them.
It’s an unusual feeling not to see them. You always see them.

We felt we wanted to welcome parents in and say: ‘Come and have a look. This is our community. This is where your children are spending six hours a day, five days a week’. We wanted to have them here.

It was challenging to return to school as a lot of teachers felt like they were back to day one of the school year. However, at the same time, teachers have continued some of the practices with their class that were established during the remote learning phase, such as Stage 3 teachers sharing their programs through Google Drive with each other.

As we moved towards the end of the year, my role stayed with Kindergarten and moved to organising Kindergarten Orientation. This was another challenge, as parents still could not come on site. Our idea was to have Year 6 make a multimodal text (a video) to showcase our school for new students and parents. The approach was that I “hired” the students as video editors, and they promoted our school. They interviewed teachers and the leadership team and did a school tour. The class had to think about their audience even though they had not met that audience of all those parents. There was a lot of script writing, looking at visual literacy, for example, looking at fonts, using images and understanding how the images correspond with the text. These lessons were built on the knowledge I had from Schooling for a Fair Go, where I completed a documentary project in which students learnt about visual techniques and used a green screen app. I knew that if the students wanted to create quality work then they had to be challenged, take risks, learn together, provide and take feedback, and revise their texts.

Through this project we all learned a lot about film making, often through trial and error. For example, when they initially started to film teachers, they were not using tripods to keep the camera still and they were asking questions that were not resulting in the answers parents needed for the purposes of new parents and students beginning at the school. In some cases, they needed to go back and film again, up to four times for the Principal, and so they learned a lot about what they would do differently next time. The project was about getting feedback and refining their work. Feedback was provided by the whole class when they watched the videos together, which in itself was building a community of learners. All the students participated. We concluded that we would also want to get feedback from a professional videographer.

Throughout my planning of this orientation video and the other technology-based work to support learning to continue outside the classroom, I asked myself the same questions which came from my experience in the Fair Go Program, ‘How can I make learning relevant to them? How can I make this challenging? What will we learn together? How can I make students really care and be motivated?’

And they were; students and teachers alike. They were just so motivated to do it well.

Belinda: Supporting student voice and choice

The main ‘takeaway’ for me from Schooling for a Fair Go was about the importance of investing in the teacher through the coaching model, which I have continued even during COVID. When we invest in the teacher, we are improving classroom practice, which is ultimately improving student engagement and student outcomes. It is about reflecting on teacher pedagogy, but it is also about new learnings and what we can try to do differently. Teachers were, and still are, really happy to open their classrooms up and have anyone walk in come and help. Investing in the teacher is heightening their own enthusiasm and their engagement.

Setting goals and reflecting on learning with students is certainly something that I have continued to try to embed and work with other teachers to embed. As a coach or instructional leader, I do not pretend to have all the answers, but we go and find these answers together. I have questions of them, they have questions of me, and then we find out about them together. The focus is on engagement, not behaviour, providing students with a range of different, high operative activities and opportunities which emphasise student voice and choice.

During remote learning, coaching continued with off-class coaches, instructional leaders and Assistant Principals all aligned to a grade to support the teachers on that grade to try to ensure that we were making things as engaging as possible. Of course, it was different because we were working with a team via Zoom. I would join teachers’ Zoom sessions with their students and we would do a bit of team teaching. In these situations, the whiteboard was used to demonstrate a specific skill or concept that we were introducing or revising with the students. It allowed them to see and engage with the explanation while the teacher (or me) were talking. We also used the screen-sharing feature of Zoom. This allowed us to share what was on our screens with the students and parents in the Zoom meeting to assist with explanations, to run activities and consolidate learning. For example, I would share my screen and prepared slides with questions such as, ‘Which one doesn’t belong?’ We would use these slides to promote discussions with the students who were in the Zoom sessions (and to teach them some Zoom etiquette such as taking turns to talk and share by muting and unmuting microphones). I also created some Kahoots (quiz activities) for some classes based on what they were learning, to try to assess their understanding of the content. These were shared via screen sharing and allowed us to know what we needed to cover again or at greater depth, while also being engaging for the students.

In terms of technology, the school had one-to-one devices, so we were very fortunate because we could loan iPads to our community for them to be able to engage in the online learning. If we did not have that, we simply would not have had the engagement that we did in online learning. The school providing access to the technology was essential.

If teachers needed support, or they wanted to chat, or wanted to talk, we would talk via Zoom or talk via phone about their teaching practices and activities. Teachers did feel stressed through the whole process of getting the work out to students, monitoring the work, evaluating the work and getting the next day’s work prepared. It was a really stressful time.

In my role, I was working with the Year 1-2 (Stage 1) and Year 3 (Stage 2) cohorts. I was supporting the Assistant Principals and teachers of these Stages. I was assisting with the work that they were putting up on Seesaw and Google Classroom, offering ideas and suggestions. I would also provide feedback to students on their work by commenting, such as making ‘where to next’ suggestions to improve their work. Also as part of such follow-up to their writing, I might develop specific Seesaw activities for specific students, sometimes as a response to a teacher’s request. For example, for some students, I created Seesaw activities on using capital leters, for others on the correct use of homonyms, for others on specific uses of pronouns or adjectives. Teachers would assign these activities for the class, or for groups of students that needed that particular focus, as part of a day’s work. I also created short videos explaining features of writing. Stage 1 were focusing on informative writing, so I created videos on paragraphing, using key words to write sentences and pronouns. I created exemplars of published pieces of writing using different platforms, such as Google Slides, Pic Collage and Book Creator, so that teachers could use these to show students and parents different ways to publish work. The Kindergarten and Stage 1 classes were mainly using Seesaw as the platform whilst our Years 3-6 used Google Classroom. The work I saw on Google Classroom and Seesaw was really amazing. The teachers worked tirelessly to best support students and to provide timely feedback so that students and parents could grasp concepts and have questions answered almost immediately.

It was evident that the teachers were trying to keep things as normal as possible for the students. For example, they had their usual morning routines and did their literacy and numeracy sessions and these were on Google Classroom or through Seesaw. Each day, teachers uploaded slides which would be different from the previous day. For example, in literacy sessions, some of the tasks included students reading to themselves, or to someone else. Then they would make reflections on what they had read, or on what the person they read to had said in response, for example, the feedback they had given to them. This feedback was then written up by the student. Alternatively, students might complete a comprehension activity, in which they would read a passage and the teacher would ask levelled questions to differentiate for the students in K-2. We were also using the PM Online reading program. The students also recorded themselves reading and uploaded it for the teacher to hear; then there would be different sorts of activities, or a writing task related to that and some spelling or other activities.

Students would submit their morning’s work and teachers would provide feedback, so that students could go in and make changes or do things a bit differently. This did not always happen, but nevertheless, teachers did have the facility to provide immediate feedback in real time through Google Classroom and Seesaw to keep the students engaged. Frankly, students were not given a lot of voice and choice during remote learning time and this is something that could be improved for future online work (see the Motivation and Engagement Framework article by Geoff Munns for more explanation on these). However, the strategies described above did help to keep students engaged because they knew their teacher was there, was present for them, helping them and providing them with feedback. For Stage 2, we introduced Fun Friday, in which all activities were oriented towards fun, while being linked to a KLA, for example, Science or Art, and this was popular.

When we returned to school it did not take long to get back into the swing of things. We were all exhausted and it took a little while to get some of the students completely back on track. However, teachers have changed how they do things now as a result of their experiences. For example, in Stage 2 they are continuing to do reading groups through Google Classroom because these worked very well during remote learning and the students were really interested. Students also loved using the iPads, so we are using these more now. Their engagement levels were high as the technology was a bit of a hook for them and teachers went onto design more lessons around collaboration between students using the iPad.

Despite the problems raised by COVID and lockdown, there were lasting lessons not just for students, but for teachers as well.

Feeding Back: Reflections on Mentoring

Alexandra Harris is a Head Teacher (Teaching and Learning) in Sydney. The story she tells here involves her work in the Schooling for a Fair Go project in which, as a targeted early career teacher, she was mentored in her own school around action research on her teaching practice. She then went on to mentor a HSIE teacher at another school to effect change in the motivation and engagement of students. Alexandra has been a sessional lecturer and tutor in History curriculum at Western Sydney University, a Curriculum Advisor and was a recipient the NSW Department of Education ‘Significant Achievement in Classroom Teaching’ award.

Me as mentee

In 2012 I was asked to take part in a project that became known as Schooling for a Fair Go. The premise was that I would work under a mentor teacher in my school through an action research project which would challenge and improve my practice. The project used the MeE Framework, a motivation and engagement framework developed in the early 2000s by a team led by Associate Professor Geoff Munns of Western Sydney University (WSU), and further developed from a collaboration between this team and Professor Andrew Martin (Munns & Martin, 2013)[i] Working in a low- SES South Western Sydney comprehensive high school as an early career History teacher, I knew that the opportunity to be mentored by a more experienced teacher would be an invaluable experience. Little did I know how much this project would change my practice and reinvigorate my passion for teaching and learning.

Being introduced to the MeE Framework, I was immediately drawn to the ‘e’ngagement aspect of feedback (see article on the MeE Framework by Geoff Munns in this Special Edition) and knew I wanted to use feedback more effectively to further improve student engagement. I decided to focus on two classes, Year 9 and Year 12. Both of these groups had learning needs that would benefit from more explicit feedback as well as other elements of the MeE Framework. The cultural make-up of my school at the time, with many students coming from EAL/D backgrounds (97% in 2012), meant that many students relied heavily on direct teacher input and found more ‘student-centred’ learning challenging. Most of my students did not feel confident enough in their own ability to complete work independently, for example. This was something I wanted to change through more effective feedback. I wanted students to feel confident about their knowledge of assessment and course content through: analysing marking criteria, ‘unlocking’ feedback cues to take on criticism of their work, and implementing strategies to improve.

Year 9 were a particularly challenging group. Through teaching this group and engaging with the MeE Framework I learnt that student ‘compliance’ does not equal ‘engagement’. To have 30 students appearing to be working away had always been a dream classroom for me, particularly as an early career teacher. However, I realised that half the group were not working to the best of their ability and the other half were taking my attention from others who truly needed my assistance. To address this, my main focus for the project was to use both verbal and written feedback to better develop a learning environment that strongly valued learning above any distractions.

When the WSU team and my mentor observed my lessons with this class, their feedback made me realise that whilst I was using a range of useful strategies in the classroom, they were not suitable for all students. Due to this, students did not feel like they had ownership over the learning and thus were not part of an ‘insider classroom’. This left other students who appeared to be working well not being valued as individual learners. Using the MeE Framework, I researched adaptive motivation strategies I could apply to this class to engage them with class materials and stay ‘on task’. Initially, I changed the seating of the class to be able to better monitor student progress and acknowledge and support individual encouragement of students to learn, solve problems and further develop their historical skills. In addition to this, I played around with pairs and groupings to maximise the support and extension offered in my classroom to better address student learning needs. I then created specific ‘laptop learning’ days, having our Thursday lessons be ‘laptop free’ and Friday lessons ‘laptop specific’, to continue developing their writing skills. This enabled students to showcase their individual talents and allowed those students who needed further writing assistance the time and place to develop those skills. I also modelled responses frequently in the classroom to support students with a base level of knowledge upon which to scaffold learning.

The effect of these small modifications created remarkable change in the classroom. Upon closely monitoring students in their new grouping configurations and asking questions from a range of students, rather than relying on the usual pattern of students who frequently answered, I was able to keep students ‘on task’ whilst allowing students one-on-one time with me and individual feedback on their knowledge and skills. I utilised targeted questioning to elicit responses from a range of students and noted the growth in knowledge acquisition over the course of the project. Over time, my use of metacognitive feedback generated student self-assessment and self-direction which led to a rise in engagement and work productivity, and I found students were actually ‘in task’ instead of simply ‘on task’.

Reflecting on the ways I gave feedback, and being supported by my mentor and the WSU team gave me valuable insight into my classroom practice and the effects of my teaching on my students. Working closely with my mentor gave me a great opportunity to reflect with, and learn openly from, an experienced educator who was enthusiastic about pedagogy. This meant I was able to explore and appreciate the role that research could play in my development as a new educator. Investigating different pedagogies and applying them to my classroom through this project reignited my passion for teaching and the joy in the victories for both students and myself along the way.

Me as mentor

Part of my involvement in the project was to be involved in the next phase as a mentor myself. Through links with my previous mentor, I was able to form a connection with a local high school with a diverse cohort of students. I approached an early career HSIE teacher at the school to become involved in the project. This teacher’s classes were mixed ability, coming from many backgrounds and with many learning needs. The teacher selected one class in particular to work with, a Year 9 Geography class she had been battling to keep on task for most of the first term. She was coming up against several roadblocks to learning in this classroom: not having specifically studied Geography at university herself; the school’s timetable, which meant only seeing the class a couple of times a fortnight; high absenteeism in the class; and a history of these students themselves not valuing learning. This combination of factors meant that most students were disengaged.

We decided that the emphasis of the project in this iteration was for the teacher to use specific language to identify her students as learners, moving away from a focus on negative behaviour and towards motivation in the classroom. The teacher was concerned that the class were falling behind and was seeking ways to better structure their learning to enhance engagement. On my initial observation of the Year 9 Geography class I could see that some students were desperate to learn but lacked confidence in their ability. Others were hindered by the nature of some classmates who were trying everything to seek attention from their peers and the teacher.

Over the course of a few months I spent time observing and unpacking lessons, creating further ways to implement the MeE Framework in this class and discussing changes in student behaviour. The teacher worked to improve the confidence of her class by drawing attention to the positive learning experiences students were having instead of focusing on negative behaviour. Eventually, students began to engage with the classwork further. Phone usage, which was officially banned by the school but actually prevalent in this class, began to decline. The peak of this action research project culminated in the final topic, Darwin: A Community. I raised the idea of using Minecraft in the teacher’s class to engage the students and, not being familiar with the program, she fully committed herself to learning how to use it. Observing students engaging with Minecraft and then working together to create a model of the city of Darwin in the program was a positive experience. The teacher implemented reflection activities into her class in which students themselves noted that the class’s behaviour had changed and that they were ‘learners’, working together and co-operating within the classroom. In my final observation of the class, all students were fully immersed in the activity at hand. Students were collaborating and the teacher was able to spend time with individual students, focusing on their learning rather than reprimanding them on their behaviour.

This project in this class was a positive learning experience, enabling me to work with WSU academic staff and challenged my own teaching methods to help support another teacher. Seeing the progressive changes in students’ learning and the teacher’s own teaching style proved to be a great success, with the MeE Framework underpinning the changes that occured. By the end of the cycle, most students were engaged and monitoring their own behaviour rather than giving in to other distractions. Overall, this was an extremely worthwhile exercise which produced real changes for all that were involved.

Now a lot further into my career, I can see the importance of action learning in shaping my teaching today and the need for continuous professional learning and reflection. I am an educator who thrives when working with both students and staff to improve learning outcomes for all. It is opportunities to be involved in projects that support my profession, like the Fair Go Program, that encourage me to stay engaged and committed to the profession and our students.

References:

Martin, A. J. (2007). Examining a multidimensional model of student motivation and engagement using a construct validation approach. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 77(2), 413-440.

Munns, G., Arthur, L., Downes, T., Gregson, R., Power, A., Sawyer, W., Singh, M., Thistleton-Martin, J., & Steele, F. (2006). Motivation and engagement of boys: Evidence-based teaching practices. Australian Department of Education, Science and Training.

Munns, G., & Martin, A. J. (2013). Me, my classroom, my school: A mixed methods approach to the MeE framework of motivation, engagement, and academic development. In G. A. D. Liem & A. B. I. Bernardo (Eds.), Advancing cross-cultural perspectives on educational psychology: A festschrift for Dennis M. McInerney (pp. 317-342). Information Age.

[i] The complete MeE Framework was first developed for the Motivation and Engagement of Boys project (Munns et al, 2006). Andrew Martin’s work is well-known through his ‘Student Motivation and Engagement Wheel’ (see Martin, 2007).

The Beginning of a Journey to Assessment and Data Literacy for Teachers

Jim Tognolini asserts that assessment is a central activity in all education and that its main function is to improve learning. He stresses that professional judgement is essential in this process and that such judgement is owned by teachers. Jim outlines how the Centre for Educational Measurement and Assessment (University of Sydney) used the findings of their research to develop professional learning modules for teachers on Assessment Literacy and Data Literacy. . .

Introduction

Whenever I talk about assessment to people, I like to make it very clear how I define assessment. This is because I think it is critical in assessment at all levels to have a shared understanding of what it is we are talking about. Too often, particularly in assessment, measurement and evaluation, we have discussions with colleagues using terms with the assumption we all have the same shared meaning. Generally, we do not.

Assessment

Assessment is a central activity in education and necessary for understanding student progress and development. It involves making judgments, based on evidence, about progress in the acquisition of the knowledge and skills required by the syllabuses and the school curriculum. It is through assessment that we understand learning is occurring, hence assessing is an essential component of classroom activity.

The definition that Gordon Stanley and I arrived at, after experimenting with different definitions over many years, is “Assessment involves professional judgement based upon an image formed by the collection of information about student performance.” (Tognolini & Stanley, 2007). As teachers, we are primary agents in assessment and we are doing it formally and informally every day. It is interesting to reflect on the relationship between the classroom assessment and the formal assessment (e.g. HSC, NAPLAN, NAP). The validity and the credibility of the formal assessments are largely determined by classroom assessments. If, for example, the results for the HSC were totally “different” from those that the teachers expected (i.e. the students who they expected to do well, based on the classroom assessments, did a lot worse; and those who were expected to do poorly did a lot better across the system) then it would call into doubt the results in the formal assessments. Going back to the definition of assessment above, assessment involves professional judgement and that professional judgement is owned on a day-to-day basis by teachers. However, the interest in assessment goes beyond the classroom. There are many other players who have a stake in assessment and in understanding what it means.

The process of assessment is generally used, at classroom level, for the purpose of monitoring performance and for understanding the learning that has taken place so the next step in the learning process can be undertaken. Thus, from an educational perspective, the main function of assessment is to improve learning. Whenever information is collected about student performance there should be an intention by the teacher to provide feedback to the students in a way that will make clear where the students are in their learning and what they have to do to progress.

When the learning goals have been achieved, the purpose of assessment is to provide evidence of that achievement. Assessment provides feedback to the student, the teacher and the education system. Feedback is an essential requirement for learning (Hattie & Timperley, 2007).

As indicated in the definition, central to the way that teachers assess is the idea of building up an image of what it is students know and can do. It is this image in a standards-referencing system that is used by teachers to build evidence to “track” and report student progress along a developmental continuum (commonly referred to as progression).

The assessment and evidence generation, and interpretation, role that teachers have is critical to the success of the teaching and learning. If the assessments are not really assessing the appropriate outcome and/or are technically unsound, then the image of what it is that students know and can do is flawed and this is not fair to the students.

Purpose of the paper

The purpose of this paper is to show how, starting with Standard 5 of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (AITSL, 2014), we identified the specific elaborations of assessment knowledge and understanding that teachers (at the Graduate and Proficient career levels respectively), need to be able to demonstrate in order to provide evidence that they have met the standard at the particular career level. Using the elaborations that teachers and assessment experts described as essential, we built two professional development programs: one is called Assessment Literacy for School Teachers and the other Data Literacy for School Teachers.

This paper describes how the Centre for Educational Measurement and Assessment (CEMA) at the University of Sydney, working in conjunction with the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) took each of the foci for Standard 5, identified the specific elaborations of assessment knowledge and understanding that teachers ( at the Graduate and Proficient career levels respectively), need to be able to demonstrate in order to provide evidence that they have met the standard at the particular career level.

Assessment and the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers

Assessment is so important to the practice of teaching that it is reflected in the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (AITSL, 2014) https://www.aitsl.edu.au/teach/standards as a separate standard (Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning) along with its 5 foci (5.1 Assess student learning; 5.2 Provide feedback to students on their learning; 5.3 Make consistent and comparable judgements; 5.4 Interpret student data; and, 5.5 Report on student achievement).

Elaborations of Standard 5 of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers

Starting with the foci, we delineated each of the focus areas for Standard 5 into elaborations. An elaboration is a description of the knowledge and understanding the teachers need in order to be able to demonstrate the standard.

Table 1 gives an example of this process.

TABLE 1. Knowledge and understanding needed to be able to demonstrate the graduate and proficient standards described in the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers

5.1 Assess student learning:

(click on table to view)

It can be seen from Table 1 that in Column 3, (headed “Proficient Standard Descriptor”) the Proficient standard for focus 5.1 “Assess student learning” is presented. In column 4, (headed “Elaborations of knowledge and understanding”) are a couple of the potential assessment knowledge and understanding elaborations that teachers might need to be able to demonstrate the standard descriptor presented in column 3.

TABLE 2 Distribution of elaborations by graduate and proficient career levels of Standard 5 of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers

(click on table to view)

It can be seen from Table 2 that there were 46 elaborations of the 5 foci associated with Standard 5 at the Proficient teacher level.

Each of the elaborations was then placed in a questionnaire and presented to a small sample of a) primary teachers; b) secondary teachers; and, c) assessment experts identified by the Deans of Education at Universities.

Respondents were asked to rate each of the elaborations as “Essential”, “Desirable” or “Not Necessary” to demonstrate the standard aligned with the elaboration. Each question was framed as follows “To what extent do proficient teachers (or teachers at the Proficient career level) have to know “THE ELABORATION IS STATED” to demonstrate the specified standard.

For example, “To what extent do Proficient teachers have to know how to deliver feedback that includes suggestions for improvement e.g. skill development, content knowledge, foundational subject knowledge or skills, test technique, student health, wellbeing and motivation” to demonstrate PROFICIENT STANDARD 5.2?

After completing the questionnaires, respondents were invited to attend focus group sessions to discuss the outcomes from their responses to the questionnaire. The overall outcome from the questionnaire, and the associated focus groups, was a comprehensive pool of content that could be tailored to assessment professional development courses to provide support to teachers responsible for assessing and making evidence-based decisions on assessment data.

The content split naturally into two groups, some we called Assessment Literacy and the others we called Data Literacy.

Assessment Literacy and Data Literacy

There are numerous examples of definitions of what is meant by assessment literacy in the literature. For example, Stiggins (1991a; 1991b) defined teacher assessment literacy as knowledge about educational assessment and the skills required to apply that knowledge to measure student learning. Fullan and Watson (2000) defined it as the capacity of teachers, either on their own, or in collaboration with other teachers, to analyse and correctly comprehend student work and performance data, and, at the same time, be able to design classroom and school plans to change circumstance as needed to improve results.

We suggest, from an analysis of the elaborations that emerge from the Australian Professional Teacher Standards, that it refers to the knowledge and understanding required to be able to carry out good quality assessment practice. This includes the understanding of assessment terminology; the development and use of assessment methods and techniques; and an understanding of what is required to achieve high standards in assessment.

In essence, this means assessment literate teachers know how to write and select high-quality assessments (including Higher Order Thinking Skill (HOTS) items); know how to integrate results obtained from assessments with improvements in learning (Formative Assessment and Assessment for Learning); know how to communicate accurately about student learning; and can demonstrate data literacy.

Data literacy, on the other hand, as defined by Mandinach and Honey (2008) is “… the ability to understand and use data effectively to inform decisions. It is comprised of a specific skill set and knowledge base that enables teachers to transform data into information and ultimately to actionable knowledge (evidence)”. An analysis of our elaborations suggests that data literate teachers know how to identify, collect, organise, analyse, summarise and prioritise data. They also know how to develop hypotheses; identify problems; interpret data; convert data into evidence; and, determine, plan, implement, and monitor courses of action. These are the steps that enable teachers to take data, and turn it into evidence which can then be used to inform decision making and teaching in the classroom.

The Importance of Assessment Literacy and Data Literacy for Teachers

At the national and state levels, data are informing major educational, accountability and investment decisions. At the school level, school assessment data, (including data from large-scale testing programs such as the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), and the Higher School Certificate (HSC), underpin policy and accountability processes between school administrators, principals, teachers, students and school communities.

Arguably more important, is the use of assessment and data literacy to inform teaching, and to support learning in the classroom. The education community, including NESA, has identified an urgent need to develop teachers’ professional practice in these areas over the coming five years. In response to this need, The Centre (CEMA) has entered into a partnership with NESA. The main aim of this partnership is to provide professional learning to teachers at all levels within schools.

Learning modules have been designed for primary and secondary teachers in Assessment Literacy and these will soon be complemented by a suite of modules on Data Literacy, which is currently being designed. The Centre is planning to develop further modules for teachers in middle and senior leadership roles.

The professional learning modules in Assessment Literacy support teachers’ engagement with, and understanding of, assessment and the use of data to inform teaching and learning.

The modules in Assessment Literacy are endorsed by NESA at Proficient Teacher level, meaning that all teachers may learn more about aspects of assessment while, at the same time, achieving their hours for maintenance of accreditation. Highly Accomplished and Lead Teachers may complete these modules as ‘Teacher identified’ PD. They are competitively priced. Furthermore, the modules are offered fully online and are, therefore, available on demand and can be completed at the teacher’s own pace.

The University has assessed the professional learning modules for articulation to award programs, particularly the Master of Education programs, of which there are nine streams, including Digital Technologies, Special and Inclusive Education, Educational Management and Leadership. Information on the Master units may be found on CEMA’s website.

References:

Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), (2014). Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.https://www.aitsl.edu.au/teach/standards

Fullan, M., & Watson, N. (2000). School-Based Management: Reconceptualizing To Improve Learning Outcomes. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 11, 453-473.https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy2.library.usyd.edu.au/doi/abs/10.1076/sesi.11.4.453.3561

Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81-112. http://journals.sagepub.com.ezproxy1.library.usyd.edu.au/doi/full/10.3102/003465430298487

Mandinach, E. B., Honey, M., Light, D., & Brunner, C. (2008). A conceptual framework for data-driven decision making. In E. B. Mandinach & M. Honey (Eds.), Data-driven school improvement: Linking data and learning (pp. 13-31). New York, NY: Teachers College Press

Stiggins, R. J. (1991a). Assessment Literacy. Phi Delta Kappan, 72, 534-539 https://sydney.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/openurl?institution=61USYD_INST&vid=61USYD_INST:sydney&ctx_enc=info:ofi%2Fenc:UTF-8&rft.volume=72&ctx_tim=2020-08-03T22:58:00Z&rfr_id=info:sid%2Fgale:&rft.jtitle=Phi%20Delta%20Kappan&rft.aufirst=Richard&rft.genre=article&rft.issue=7&rft.pages=534&rft.aulast=Stiggins&svc_val_fmt=info:ofi%2Ffmt:mtx:sch_svc&req_dat=info:sid%2Fgale&url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft.date=1991-03&rft.spage=534&rft.au=Stiggins,%20Richard%20J.&rft.atitle=Assessment%20literacy&rft.issn=00317217

Stiggins, R. J. (1991b). Relevant Classroom Assessment Training for Teachers. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 10(1), 7-12. https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy2.library.usyd.edu.au/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/j.1745-3992.1991.tb00171.x

Tognolini, J. & Stanley, G. (2007). Standards-Based Assessment: A tool and means to the development of human capital and capacity building in education. Australian Journal of Education, 51(2), 129-145. https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy1.library.usyd.edu.au/doi/abs/10.1177/000494410705100203#articleCitationDownloadContainer

Professor Jim Tognolini is Director of The Centre for Educational Measurement and Assessment (CEMA) which is situated within the University of Sydney School of Education and Social Work. The work of the Centre is focused on the broad areas of teaching, research, consulting and professional learning for teachers.

The Centre is currently providing consultancy support to a number of schools. These projects include developing a methodology for measuring creativity; measuring 21st Century Skills; developing school-wide practice in formative assessment. We have a number of experts in the field: most notably, Professor Jim Tognolini, who in addition to conducting research offers practical and school-focused support.

The professional learning modules are available now at the following site: https://sydney.nicheit.com.au/education_social_work/web/workshop

During registration, teachers are required to use their individual teacher email address and create a 9-character password to access the selected module in Canvas. Payment by credit card is required to complete registration and be granted access to the course.

Women in Leadership: It’s Time to Redefine and Refocus

Leeanda Smith raises significant questions about the impediments, caused by gender stereotypes and gender based power balances, placed before women when accessing leadership positions, within the teaching profession and the wider society. She explains why it is time to re-evaluate matters related to women and leadership . . .

The culture of education systems and their management structures, the wages, working conditions and organisational practices transmit strong messages about the value placed on the contribution and participation of women. It is educationally important for students to see their teachers in a range of roles, across all curriculum subjects and in all leadership positions. The reinforcement of gender stereotypes, and, therefore, gender based power imbalances, by a lack of representation of women in senior leadership roles, and within all subject areas, cannot be ignored.

The NSW Department of Education Annual Report (2018, pp. 79-81) identifies just over 82 per cent of teachers in primary schools and 60 percent in high schools are women. The Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation (CESE) data shows that in 2019 these numbers are consistent in all regions across the state. However, this proportion is not reflected in leadership positions where just over 66 per cent of principals in primary schools are women and high schools are yet to achieve 50 per cent representation. Based on the numbers reported, even though there are fewer men in teaching, there is a higher proportional representation for men in leadership positions. That means around 30 percent of men in primary schools are in Assistant Principal, Deputy Principal and Principal positions compared to just under 18 percent of women and high schools see almost 25 percent of men compared to just under 13 percent of women.

(click on table to download and view)

Source: The NSW Department of Education Annual Report (2018)

According to the NSW Department of Education Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (2018-2022) “Gender diversity in senior leadership helps improve problem solving and collaboration and leads to higher organisational performance. Our aim is to maintain a gender balance at senior leadership levels. This will involve understanding the leadership pipeline and any structural barriers in place that may be impacting disproportionately on women’s progression into leadership roles”. The strategy also identifies targets of 50 percent of ‘senior leadership’ roles (P3 and above) to be held by women and to increase the representation of women in senior leadership roles to 60 percent by 2025.

Recognising structural barriers

Australia is not performing well when it comes to gender equity. The World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Gender Gap Index ranks Australia 44th out of 153 countries (New Zealand ranks 6th). Australia has dropped 5 places in 2 years. According to the Forum’s report, gender parity has a fundamental bearing on whether or not economies and societies thrive. It should be no surprise that Australia is ranked number 1 for educational attainment, a ranking which has not changed since 2006. Educational attainment refers to the overall access to education and the capacity of a country to educate women and men equally in literacy and numeracy. Despite this, Australia’s overall ranking, as well as the ranking on labour force participation and female representation in leadership, has worsened (Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association [SDA], 2020 p. 1). If obtaining an education is not the issue, the key factors contributing to the worsening gap are most likely structural barriers and discrimination. The report also found that career and work interruptions are responsible for 21% of the proportion of the gender pay gap which is the largest changing factor increasing from 9% in 2007. (SDA, 2020 p. 1)

This is related to the way domestic and care work were not included in the early economic models because activities like raising children and feeding the family weren’t seen to create tangible goods that could be bought, traded or sold. The early economists decided that such undertakings didn’t contribute to prosperity (Marcal 2015, p.30). That decision has had a sustained impact on the creation of, value placed on, and wages within, industries where there are more women. As Katrine Marcal points out the question of how it could be possible to combine family with work outside the home isn’t a complaint from the privileged female elite that wants to ‘have it all’, rather it is an enormous challenge that affects entire economies and populations (2015, p. 195).

Women continue to have majority representation in the category of part-time work. In NSW public schools just over 88 per cent (17,425) of teachers who were in part-time employment in 2018 were women. The Department (2018) also reported that 61,834 staff (84.7 per cent of whom were women) accessed ‘flexible’ work options including part-time, job sharing, leave without pay and varying flexible hour arrangements. The report further identifies that 51,582 staff (78.5 per cent of whom were women) took short term absences for family and community responsibilities.

Structural bias means that it is often harder for those working part-time to obtain relieving in higher duties opportunities and advertised positions, and in many cases it takes much longer to obtain promotions. Women often refer to the ‘motherhood penalty’ to describe some of these barriers. Women have always worked but the rigid ways organisational leadership is defined, jobs are structured and rewarded, and expectations reinforced about who will do the domestic work contribute to these obstacles (Fox, 2017, p. 189).

Sheryl Sandberg’s (2013) form of corporate feminism (i.e. asking women to “lean in”) is far easier than demanding that we fundamentally change the way organisations operate: who they operate for; and how we reward and approach work. The ideals on which Sandberg’s view trade, such as personal development and focusing on individual success stories, do not provide the solution. Encouraging women to just be more confident and assertive implies that the barriers they are facing will then simply disappear. Rather we should ‘lean out’ and challenge the structural inequality by examining the organisations that women are struggling to gain promotions within (Foster, 2015 p. 20-21).

With the ‘Merit Selection’ employment and promotion procedures in NSW schools it’s not lack of talent, ability, or scarcity of potential candidates that prevents women’s full participation. Instead, it is the actual structures and processes that need to be changed to remove the barriers (conscious and unconscious) to participation and progression into leadership positions for women. Identifying structural barriers is about ensuring that there is a legitimate organisational improvement not just for women, but ultimately for all employees (Fox, 2017, p. 185).

Castilla & Benard(2010) studied the ‘paradox of meritocracy’ where the managers in an organisational culture that promotes meritocracy may, ironically, show greater bias in favour of men over equally performing women. The resulting criteria for appointments, particularly at senior levels, reveal they have often been modelled on past incumbents. In many cases there’s a good statistical chance that any such incumbent will have been a man, and so another man can appear to be the best match. It’s hardly meritocracy if significant parts of the population are prevented from accessing these opportunities and as Vicky Pryce (2015, p.149) cautions don’t assume that others are not as good simply because they have not applied for those positions.

One strategy to redress this bias is to implement quotas and this is often a highly contested solution. However, in ‘Accidental Feminists’ Jane Caro pointedly remarks, to the opponents to quotas for women, that men have benefited from 100 percent quotas and every incursion women have made has had to be fought for against this 100 percent male quota (Caro, 2019, p. 212). Quotas, intelligently applied, are a way to make serious and lasting progress by ensuring greater diversity at all decision making levels (Pryce, 2015, p.125). Quotas can facilitate genuine career progression, succession planning and retention of skilled employees over their career (Pryce, 2015, 128).

Defining and redefining leadership

One of the criticisms I’ve faced over the years is that I’m not aggressive enough or assertive enough, or somehow because I’m empathetic, it means I’m weak. I totally rebel against that. I refuse to believe that you cannot be both compassionate and strong.
Jacinda Ardern (2018)

Professor Mary Beard lamented in ‘Women and Power’ (2017, p.86) that you cannot easily fit women into a structure that is already coded as male. That means changing that structure, and changing the way we think about power, is essential. Beard points out that power must be decoupled from public prestige. It means thinking collaboratively, about the power of followers not just of leaders and thinking about power as “an attribute or even a verb (‘to power’), not as a possession”. Sadly, the mental and cultural template for a powerful person, a leader, remains resolutely male (Beard, 2017, p. 53) and more often than not, women are still perceived as belonging outside power. This is illustrated by the shared metaphors we use such as ‘storming the citadel’ or ‘smashing the glass ceiling’ which underline that female exteriority. Beard, like Caro, articulates the ways in which women seeking leadership are treated as taking something to which they are not entitled (Beard, 2017).

Fear and resentment build when there are challenges to a strong sense of entitlement to, and ownership of, a role (Fox, 2017, p.160). Many of those who resist attempts to tackle the status quo strongly believe that the system works just fine, particularly if they have fared reasonably well in it. ‘Privilege is invisible to those who have it’, as US gender academic Michael Kimmel says in his TED Talk (2015) ‘Why Gender Equality Is Good for Everyone’. This is a powerful talk and definitely worth watching.

Catherine Fox points out that scrutiny of leadership models is long overdue and dismantling the ‘remedial model’ for women leads us to challenge the pervasive belief that stereotypical masculine behaviour should be the standard for all (Fox, 2017, p. 6). Mentoring features heavily in this model, and though it has its uses, it is often promoted as a ‘fix all’ for women to achieve leadership positions. Fox asserts mentoring is based on a deficit model that aims to equip women with skills they are assumed to be lacking. Most mentoring programs don’t challenge the male model but help to prop up existing norms (about what it takes to be successful) by reinforcing traditional, male dominated power structures and “in-groups”, rather than transforming them (Fox, 2017, p. 124). It is about a short agenda with a focus on individuals, compared to the much harder and longer agenda of tackling who has power and how that reproduces inequality.

Leading and Leadership

You don’t inspire your teammates by showing them how amazing you are. You inspire them by showing them how amazing they are.
Robyn Benincasa (2012)

As Kathy Deacon wrote in ‘Lead but Let Others Come First’ (JPL, 2020), dispersing leadership amongst staff provides opportunities for individuals and teams of teachers to utilise their skills and expertise to the full. Redefining leadership is about building a culture where team members feel safe, that doesn’t indulge in blame-shifting or in-fighting and where leaders are not expected to know everything. The best leaders are confident in their abilities but modest and supportive, open to advice and seek out capable people to build successful partnerships, and ensure team members feel valued and appreciated (Rizvi, 2017, p. 210-11).

It is important to avoid becoming an over-controlling ‘manager’ who believes that all of the work has to be done in a particular way because it is a direct reflection on their ability as a manager. The over-controlling manager does not see that employee stress, or reactionary behaviour, might be caused by their own management style (Clarke, 2005, p. 263).

There is a fundamental responsibility to carefully examine our cultural assumptions about women’s relationship with power and leadership. Flexible work, childcare, mentoring and all of the practical things are importantly enabling but they are only part of what needs to be done if we want to give women their place inside power, as leaders. For that we have to be able to understand how, and why, we think as we do. (Beard, 2017, p.57). To be effective, to make a difference in the world, to be taken seriously, together as much as individually, then picking at the threads to unravel the stereotypes is important, and calling out all acts of sexism is crucial (Fox, 2017, p.193).

In challenging traditional models of leadership more women will recognise the contribution, to what they’ve achieved, of their own talents rather than ascribing it to ‘luck’ (Rizvi, 2017, p. 6). Jamila Rizvi encourages us to use whatever power and influence we have to advocate for a fairer, more equitable and inclusive workplace for everyone not just the people who are exactly like us because “that is what sets a leader apart from a manager, and a person of integrity apart in an unjust world.” (Rizvi, 2017,p. 216).

Ultimately leadership should not be a rigid, top down, hierarchical mode that demands compliance. Genuine leadership happens at all levels and in all directions. Good leaders understand the importance of diversity in decision making, seeking out talented people, striving for equity, and being collaborative and inclusive. It is imperative that for society to progress, women are active participants where decisions are being made.

References:

Beard, M 2017, Women & Power – A Manifesto, Profile Books, London

Robyn Benincasa, (2012). “How Winning Works: 8 Essential Leadership Lessons from the Toughest Teams on Earth”, p.17, Harlequin

Caro, J 2019, Accidental Feminists, Melbourne University Press, Victoria

Castilla, E and Bernard, S 2010, The Paradox of Meritocracy in Organizations Administrative Science Quarterly, Sage Publications USA https://ideas.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Castilla-Benard-2010.pdf

Clarke, J 2005, Working with Monsters, Random House Australia

Deacon, K 2020, Lead but Let Others Come First, JPL 11 (Semester 1, 2020)

Dowd, M 2018, The Lady of the Rings: Jacinda Rules New York Times, USA
Interview with Jacinda Arden https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/opinion/sunday/jacinda-ardern-new-zealand-prime-minister.html

Foster, D 2015, Lean Out, Repeater Books, UK

Fox, C 2017, Stop Fixing Women, New South Books, Sydney

Marcal, K 2015, Who cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner? Scribe Publications, UK

NSW Department of Education Annual Report 2018 https://education.nsw.gov.au/about-us/strategies-and-reports/annual-reports

NSW Department of Education Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (2018-2022) https://education.nsw.gov.au/news/latest-news/diversity-and-inclusion-strategy-2018-2022

Pryce, V, 2015, Why Women Need Quotas, Biteback Publishers, London

Rizvi, J 2017, Not Just Lucky, Penguin Random House, Australia

Sandberg, S and Scovell, N 2013, Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead
Alfred A Knopf New York

SDA Discussion Paper, 30 June 2020, A Pink Recession… so why the Blue Recovery Plan?
COVID19 – IMPACT ON WOMEN – The need for effective and equitable recovery policies and interventions.
SDA: The union for workers in Retail. Fast Food. Warehouse. Hair & Beauty. Modelling.

TED Talk, Michael Kimmel 2015 – Why Gender Equality Is Good for Everyone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n9IOH0NvyY

World Economic Forum, 2020 Global Gender Index:
https://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2020/the-global-gender-gap-index-2020/

Leeanda Smith was elected as the NSW Teachers Federation’s Women’s Coordinator in August 2017.

Prior to this she has been the Organiser for St George, Eastern Suburbs and Canterbury-Bankstown Teachers Associations.

Leeanda is a Primary K-6 teacher who began teaching in 1994 in Campbelltown. She has held the roles of Federation Representative, Women’s Contact and Relieving Assistant Principal in schools. She was a Councillor for and the Secretary of Camden-Campbelltown Teachers Association. Leeanda was a Federation Project Officer and Relief Officer in 2006 prior to her election as a City Organiser.

Supporting LGBTIQ Students

Mel Smith asserts that protecting young people and maintaining student wellbeing are whole school responsibilities. She gives some practical advice to teachers about how to support LGBTIQ students as part of our commitment to ensuring that all our students (from all different backgrounds) feel safe and part of the school community and that they see themselves in the content that is taught. . .

Introduction

Public schools are representative of the diverse community of which they are a part and include people from a range of backgrounds, geographic locations, skills and abilities. Part of the diverse mix of schools includes those students, teachers and families that are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer or additional gender and sexuality diverse identities (LGBTIQ).

There have been a number of Australian and international research projects that have examined the experience of young LGBTIQ people and their school lives. From research we know that LGBTIQ students often experience bullying due to their gender identity and/or sexuality, which can lead to negative outcomes for these young people in a range of areas (Hillier et al., 2010). We also know that a lot of this bullying occurs in educational settings and there are things that schools can do to address such behaviour (Hillier et al., 2010; Ullman, 2015).

LGBTIQ young people exist in schools whether they are seen or “out” to the school community, and as the Department of Education (D of E) states, in Legal Issues Bulletin 55 (2014), that schools need a “…proactive approach to the development of positive school environments in which every student is respected and valued. Additionally, schools have a legal duty to protect students from foreseeable risk of harm and to do what is reasonably practicable to ensure their safety.”

Research indicates that ALL schools will have LGBTIQA+ students (and/or families). Findings from the 6th National Survey of Australian Secondary Students and Sexual Health 2018 (Fisher et al. 2019) revealed the sexual attraction of students in Years 10, 11 and 12 with 39% of respondents indicating they did not exclusively have heterosexual feelings of attraction.

This finding is something that has increased over the years of the survey with the percentage of young people reporting some, or exclusive, sexual attraction to people of the same gender growing from 6% in 1997 to 39% in 2018 (Fisher & Kauer 2019).

New Zealand research about secondary students that included a transgender option indicated that up to 4% of students identified as transgender or were not sure of their gender (Clark et al. 2013). Recent Australian research (Fisher et al. 2019) reported a trans/gender diverse group of 2.3% but noted that, due to unknown response biases, the results do not constitute a representative sample of students in the senior years of secondary school.

Additionally, we also know that 1.7% of people could be intersex (Intersex Human Rights Australia, 2020) and LGTBIQ matters apply to primary schools as well as to high schools. There are many transgender students living as their authentic self from a young age and same sex parents/rainbow families form part of the school community in many of our schools.

Wellbeing

Protecting young people and maintaining student wellbeing are whole school responsibilities and need to be reinforced throughout the school, in all classes as well as the wider school curriculum.

Research indicates that where school environments are marginalising, LGBTIQ students have lower levels of morale, safety and connection to peers, teachers and the school more generally as well as higher levels of distress (Ullman, J. 2015). However in schools that are more inclusive, the opposite was found to be the case. The report also found that those LGBTIQ students who were more connected to school were happier and less distressed while there and also felt as if their teachers were personally invested in them. These students were more likely to report enhanced academic outcomes, including a stronger reported likelihood to attend university.

The Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (2008) states that, “Schools play a vital role in promoting the intellectual, physical, social, emotional, moral, spiritual and aesthetic development and wellbeing of young Australians,” which is reflected in the NSW DoE’s Wellbeing Framework for Schools. The Wellbeing Framework (2015) recognises that the concept of wellbeing and its close links with learning are not new and that a wealth of evidence is available on this topic.

Additionally, the Department recognises that “Particular groups of students may be more vulnerable to experiencing low levels of connectedness, including those from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, students with disabilities, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students. Students with low connectedness are two to three times more likely to experience depressive symptoms compared to more connected peers.” (Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation, 2018)

Consequently, schools and teachers should be seeking to boost LGBTIQ students’ wellbeing at school through ensuring their safety and freedom from bullying, as well as connection to the school. Examples of ways that schools and teachers can build connections with their LGBTIQ students or those from rainbow families include:

the use of welcoming symbols and visual cues (e.g. rainbow flags, LGBTIQ inclusive posters etc.)
developing positive professional relationships with students which are safe and supportive
training for staff which addresses expectations of inclusivity of LGBTIQ students/families (including inclusive language, the use of pronouns and how to challenge homophobia /transphobia in the classroom or playground)
promoting a positive school climate through ensuring LGBTIQ students are included and referenced in school policies (including uniform, wellbeing and discipline policies)
setting clear guidelines for a consistent whole school approach to address bias based bullying and harassment (of LGBTIQ students or those perceived to be) which focuses on an educative and/or restorative approach
the opportunity for engagement with the school via student groups such as GSAs (Gender and Sexuality Alliances)
establishing safe and supportive classroom/school environments that respect diversity and identity and where LGBTIQ students/rainbow families feel safe and have a sense of belonging. This safety should extend to the ability to report marginalisation from others.
recognising significant LGBTIQ community dates including, but not limited to, International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT),Wear It Purple Day and Pride month (June)
knowing where, and how, to refer students for additional information and support, including community LGBTIQ groups, if needed
encouraging, facilitating and incorporating same-sex parents/caregivers in the classroom and school community activities
being visible as an ally, which can be done through the display of LGBTIQ inclusive materials such as posters, and role modelling appropriate language and behaviour

Curriculum

Educational programs should be respectful and inclusive of all students, including those who are LGBTIQ or from rainbow families. Relationships and gender identity may be discussed in many curriculum areas, including PDHPE classes. Topics covering human rights, the changing nature of the law as well as family histories may all include discussion about LGBTIQ perspectives. Such practices are in line with syllabus guidelines and enable students to connect with content that is meaningful to them.

Research has shown that one aspect of LGBTIQ marginalised school environments was limited representations of sexuality and gender diverse individuals. However, teachers who spoke in a positive and supportive manner about sexuality and gender diversity contribute to a positive school environment (Ullman, 2015).

In this report many students felt that their teachers were reluctant to discuss sexuality and gender diversity with them despite student interest to do so, and even in the face of overtly discriminatory behaviours (Ullman, 2015). These findings echo other research and anecdotal reports where teachers have expressed discomfort or reluctance to address LGBTIQ topics due to a lack of direction or support from their educational system or because of fears of becoming targets of the media or broader community (Cumming-Potvin & Martino, 2014; Leonard et al, 2010).

These concerns have been exacerbated for some with claims that the federally funded Safe Schools program and Gayby Baby resource were banned in NSW. However, this has not ever been the case and schools can continue to use both resources, ensuring they adhere to Departmental policy while doing so (particularly the Controversial Issues and Audio-visual Materials Policies).

Research has also found that current sexuality education in many schools is a problem for young people but more so for LGBTIQ young people whose sexual health needs are not acknowledged, or included, and in some cases the messages that are being given are harmful (Hiller et al 2010, Robinson et al 2013). The experience is more isolating for gender diverse and intersex young people who in many cases fail to be represented in teaching topics at all.

The need to also incorporate LGBTIQ inclusive topics in the curriculum in primary schools is highlighted by the facts that at least half same sex attracted young people realise their attraction while in primary school (Hiller et al. 2013), and that there are often rainbow families that are not recognised, or acknowledged, in the stories that are read or the content that is covered in class.

Overall this research indicates that including LGBTIQ inclusive topics in teaching and learning programs contributes to creating safer and more inclusive schools. This results in improvements in students’ wellbeing, their educational engagement and, ultimately, academic achievement.

Steps teachers and schools can take to create a more inclusive curriculum include:

ensuring LGBTIQ and diverse family representations are included in library books and resources
incorporating inclusive and representative materials in both primary and secondary school curricula, which serves to reflect and validate their identity and/or family
incorporating LGBTIQ inclusive material into sexuality education programs
exploring and addressing gender expectations and stereotyping, and incorporating discussion of gender diversity more directly
engaging in professional development to expand knowledge and understanding of LGBTIQ inclusivity in schools

Conclusion

The strategies that have been suggested above are not the only ways to be inclusive of LGBTIQ students, and individual students will respond to different approaches based on their personality, past experiences and interests. It is important that, as educators, we ensure that students (from all different backgrounds) feel safe and part of the school community and that they see themselves in the content that is taught. Doing so leads to more engaged and successful students who flourish and who are more likely to reach their full potential. It also expands other students’ horizons of their own lived experience and builds empathy and understanding of diversity.

References:

Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation 2018. Every student is known, valued and cared for in our schools – an environmental scan, NSW Department of Education, https://www.cese.nsw.gov.au

Clark, T. C., Fleming, T., Bullen, P., Denny, S., Crengle, S., Dyson, B., Fortune, S., Lucassen, M., Peiris-John, R., Robinson, E., Rossen, F., Sheridan, J., Teevale, T., Utter, J. 2013 Youth’12 Overview: The health and wellbeing of New Zealand secondary school students in 2012. Auckland, New Zealand: The University of Auckland

NSW Department of Education and Communities 2015 The Wellbeing Framework for Schools, NSW Department of Education viewed 29/6/2020 https://education.nsw.gov.au/content/dam/main-education/student-wellbeing/whole-school-approach/Wellbeing_Framework_for_Schools.pdf

Cumming-‐Potvin,W. & Martino, W. 2014. Teaching about queer families: surveillance, censorship, and the schooling of sexualities. Teaching Education, 25(3), 309-‐333.

Fisher, C.M. and Kauer, S. 2019. National Survey of Australian Secondary Students and Sexual Health 1992 – 2018: Trends Over Time, (ARCSHS Monograph Series No. 118), Bundoora: Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health & Society, La Trobe University.

Fisher, C. M., Waling, A., Kerr, L., Bellamy, R., Ezer, P., Mikolajczak, G., Brown, G., Carman, M. & Lucke, J. 2019. 6th National Survey of Australian Secondary Students and Sexual Health 2018, Bundoora: Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health & Society, La Trobe University.

Hillier, L., Jones, T., Monagle, M., Overton, N., Gahan, L., Blackman, J. and Mitchell, A. 2010. Writing Themselves In 3: The third national study of the sexual health and wellbeing of same-sex attracted and gender questioning young people. The Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health & Society, La Trobe University, Melbourne.

Intersex Human Rights Australia 2013, Australia, accessed 29/6/2020 https://ihra.org.au/16601/intersex-numbers/

Legal Services Directorate 2014. Legal Issues Bulletin, No. 55 Transgender students in schools – legal rights and responsibilities NSW Department of Education, viewed 29/6/2020 https://education.nsw.gov.au/about-us/rights-and-accountability/legal-issues-bulletins/bulletin-55-transgender-students-in-schools

Leonard, W., Marshall, D., Hillier, L., Mitchell, A., & Ward, R. (2010). Beyond homophobia: Meeting the needs of same sex attracted and gender questioning (SSAGQ) young people in Victoria. A policy blueprint. Monograph Series Number 75. The Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health & Society, La Trobe University: Melbourne.

Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (Australia) 2008 Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians, Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, Melbourne.

Robinson, KH, Bansel, P, Denson, N, Ovenden, G & Davies, C 2013, Growing Up Queer:Issues Facing Young Australians Who Are Gender Variant and Sexuality Diverse, Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre, Melbourne.

Ullman,J. 2015. Free to Be?: Exploring the schooling experiences of Australia’s sexuality and gender diverse secondary school students. Centre for Educational Research, School of Education, Western Sydney University, Penrith.

Mel Smith is the Trade Union Training Officer for the NSW Teachers Federation. Her work involves training union representatives and activists as well as organising and conducting conferences for beginning teachers, principals and other specific groups.

Mel also has responsibility for the union’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer (LGBTIQ) Special Interest Group and Restricted Committee, which entails working with NSW public school teachers to address matters affecting LGBTIQ teachers and young people.

Mel worked as a secondary teacher and prior to working for the union she taught a range of HSIE subjects, particularly Commerce, Business Studies and Society & Culture.

What is the Gallery?

The Gallery Themes

Student engagement

Arts pedagogy

Creativity

‘Big Ideas’

What could the Gallery look like in practice?

What does this look like?

Decide on the ‘Big Ideas’ in the topic

Select resources that facilitate drawing out and working through the Big Ideas

Plan a sustained series of arts-based practices that can be employed as a vehicle for students to explore the resource and big ideas

Provide time and various opportunities for students to collaborate and ‘play’ with their ideas through artistic or imaginative expresssion

Ensure a focus on learning, not behaviour and include high cognitive, high effective, high operative experiences. Establish an ongoing community of reflection

Build learning experiences toward an ‘exhibition’ of deep student learning

The Gallery and the ‘bigger pictures’ of student engagement

Why a recital program?

Curriculum beyond the classroom

Overcoming challenges for performers

Last notes

A great deal!

HSC success for students

Patterns of study

Supporting teachers with accreditation

Community wins too!

Chelsea’s story

Alex’s story

An enriched educational journey for all

Where to begin

Newish computers and other hardware

Easy logins for K-2 students

Professional learning in commonly used technology

Clear guidelines around the use of apps

Expert technical support

Next steps

Significant cultural players

All in a day’s work

A team of workers

New pressures

Careers and lives

Final thoughts

Background

Rani: My many different roles supporting quality learning experiences

Belinda: Supporting student voice and choice

Me as mentee

Me as mentor

Introduction

Assessment

Purpose of the paper

Assessment and the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers

Elaborations of Standard 5 of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers

TABLE 1. Knowledge and understanding needed to be able to demonstrate the graduate and proficient standards described in the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers

5.1 Assess student learning:

TABLE 2 Distribution of elaborations by graduate and proficient career levels of Standard 5 of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers

Assessment Literacy and Data Literacy

The Importance of Assessment Literacy and Data Literacy for Teachers

Recognising structural barriers

Defining and redefining leadership

Leading and Leadership

Introduction

Wellbeing

Curriculum

Conclusion

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