English Archives

Continuity and change: Some key moments in the history of junior secondary English in New South Wales

As teachers grapple with a revised English K-10 Syllabus, Professor Jackie Manuel provides a thorough and engaging history of secondary English in NSW…

Introduction

The release of a revised New South Wales (NSW) English K-10 Syllabus (NESA, 2022) is an opportune moment to revisit some of the historical milestones that have shaped the subject over the past 113 years. As Reid (2003) reminds us:

[r]etrieving intellectual history is not an antiquarian pursuit. Anyone wanting to be a well informed professional needs to understand certain continuities that link English curriculum discourses and practices with previous discourses and practices (p. 100).

What follows is a version of a presentation to NSW secondary English teachers in 2023 for the Centre for Professional Learning (CPL) at the NSW Teachers’ Federation. My aim was to highlight just some of the ‘continuities’ between the current and previous 7-10 English syllabus documents and to identify aspects of the conceptualisation of the subject that have shifted over the course of more than a century. In other words: where have we come from; what has changed; and what has endured?

The history of English curriculum in NSW is deep and complex[1]. For that reason, the discussion here is limited to a handful of syllabus documents that provide some insights into the formation, continuities and shifts in secondary English since the early 1900s. I focus on particular features of the:

inaugural Courses for Study in High School released in 1911;
NSW version of ‘Newbolt’ English in the 1953 syllabus;
introduction of film, media, comics in the 1961/1962 syllabus; and the
‘Growth’ 7-10 syllabus of 1971.

Where have we come from?

Secondary English in NSW as we know it today has its roots in the colonial period of the mid-to late 1800s when ‘[e]conomic and social transformation’ in the state ‘prompted a widening of the concept of the purposes of education’ (Hughes & Brock, 2008, p. 16). During this period, public education was increasingly viewed ‘as an important means of creating a skilled workforce to increase Australia’s competitiveness with the rest of the world’ (p. 16). Following the Public Instruction Act of 1880 the administration of public education became vested in the Minster of the Crown, supported by the NSW Department of Public Instruction. For the first time, public primary school education became accessible for all students and the state assumed responsibility for government secondary education (p. 10).

During the subsequent decades of the nineteenth century, however, criticism of state education intensified, leading to a Royal Commission in 1902 under the stewardship of G. H. Knibbs and J. W. Turner (Crane & Walker, 1957). The published findings of this inquiry identified a ‘lack of co-ordination’ within the secondary sector (p. 15), with the only unifying factor in secondary education being the attempts by teachers and students to meet the requirements of the Public Examinations held by the University of Sydney (Wyndham, 1967). While the scope of the Knibbs-Turner Report was limited to the reorganisation of the ‘administration of education’, the major reforms led by the first Director of Education in NSW, Peter Board (appointed in 1905) can be understood to have had the most significant and long-lasting influence on secondary English curriculum in this state (Brock, 1984a; Hughes & Brock, 2008).

1911: Courses of Study for High Schools

Introduced in NSW in 1911, the inaugural Courses of Study for High Schools (Courses) (NSW Department of Public Instruction) was part of the systematic reforms to establish universal, secular and free state-based education. The wide-scale changes taking place in education in NSW during the early twentieth century mirrored the rapid advances in education occurring in many countries, fuelled by the trans-cultural New Education movement (see, for example, Brock, 1984a; 1984b; 1986; Cormack & Green, 2000; Crane & Walker, 1957; Green, 2003; Green & Beavis, 1996; Green & Cormack, 2008; Hughes & Brock, 2008; Manuel & Carter, 2019; Patterson, 2000; Reid, 2002, 2003; Sawyer, 2009a, 2009b, 2010; Selleck, 1968). Hallmarks of the New Education are beliefs, discourses, ‘ideas and practices’ such as:

child-centred education, drawing on the philosophies and perspectives of, for example, Rousseau, Wordsworth, Arnold, Dewey and Newbolt (Sawyer, 2009a);
- the Romantic ideal of the ‘child as artist’ (Mathieson, 1975, p. 56);
- experiential and active education or ‘learning by doing’: ‘students are not to be passive recipients, but active participators – they must be fired to do things’ (Newbolt, 1921, p. 277);
- education that had a close and ‘practical bearing on life’ (Newbolt, 1921, p. 3);
- an emphasis on emotions, creativity, imagination, and interiority (Sawyer, 2009a);
- education as a source of emancipation, optimism and aspiration;
- education for identity formation, including the fostering of citizenship;
- holistic child development that was socially mediated and relational; and
- education as a powerful force in shaping social cohesion.

In NSW, these beliefs, discourses, ‘ideas and practices’ were keenly embraced by Peter Board. His role in championing and carrying forward the spirit and vision of a ‘new education’ system and the innovations occurring in Britain and elsewhere at the time cannot be over-estimated. Board’s determination to establish a centralised system of comprehensive primary and secondary education in NSW was inspired, in large part, by his ‘conversion’ to the New Education during his extensive study tours of England, Scotland, Europe, the United States and Canada between 1903 and 1911. Whilst abroad, he witnessed first-hand the revolutionary ‘ideas and practices’ flourishing in schools in those countries. His growing philosophical and practical commitment to the New Education was unambiguously instantiated in the 1911 Courses.

Figure 1: Facsimile of the cover of Courses of Study for High Schools (NSW Department of Public Instruction, 1911).

One of the more immediately striking features of the Courses (1911) is the relative brevity of the document compared to contemporary NSW syllabus documents. In a modest 100-odd pages, the 1911 document includes a syllabus for 10 subjects (English, History, Mathematics, Science, Geography, Languages, Drawing, Domestic Arts, Music and Economics and Commerce) along with:

a general introduction setting out the aim, rationale and purpose of secondary education;
timetables for each course;
Notes and Suggestions for teachers for each subject; and
prescribed text lists for subjects where relevant.

The Introduction to the Courses, which Board himself wrote and signed, enunciates that:

the aim of secondary education should be to combine the liberal elements of a curriculum with such studies as will furnish the student with a body of knowledge, habits of thought and trend of interests that have a distinctly practical outcome (1911, iv) (Emphasis added).

This belief in the need for education to be at the service of developing every student’s self-activity, interest, freedom of thought and feeling, identity and citizenship is inscribed in the discourse of the Introduction. For instance, it asserts that ‘whatever may be the path to which the teacher has directed the pupil, the pupil himself [sic] has travelled it and made all its features his [sic] own’ (1911, p. 7, p. 8). In fact, the child-centred rhetoric continues throughout the 1911 document in its explicit references to education:

as growth towards ‘self-dependence’;
nurturing the ‘art of independent study’;
cultivating ‘taste’, ‘conduct and character’; and
positioning the student as ‘an investigator, an experimenter’ (NSW Department of Public Instruction, 1911).

For Board, this new model of liberal education for all promised a singular pathway to forging a unified democracy in a new nation. The 1911 Introduction stresses the role of the high school in creating the ‘well educated citizen’ (p. 5) through both the study of certain subjects as ‘common ground’ and the kind of ‘fellowship’ engendered through the school’s social, cultural and intellectual activities: ‘[o]ut of these will grow the self-government … and the cultivation of social obligations, training in organisation and opportunities for leadership’ (1911, p. 8).

The rationale for the curriculum

The rationale for the inclusion of 10 subjects in the curriculum foregrounds the social, cultural, political, economic and epistemological values and agendas of the time, with stratified courses to prepare the professions, white collar workers, blue collar workers and, for the majority of females, domestic life. The gendered, class-based model of curriculum as an authorised but ideological construct functions to ‘preserve and distribute what is perceived to be “legitimate knowledge”’ (Apple, 1979, p. 63) and to ‘confer cultural legitimacy on the knowledge of specific groups’ (p. 63).

At the same time, however, the Introduction lays claim to the non-utilitarian purpose of education: all students were required to study a mandatory common core of subjects in each of the four courses, ‘having no immediate bearing on vocational ends’ (1911, p. 5): namely, English, History, Mathematics and Science. In the hierarchy of this curriculum, these four subjects were ascribed pre-eminent status as the ‘common meeting ground for all students of the High School’ (1911, p. 5). Despite the considerable shifts and advances in curriculum theory and educational research, and enormous socio-cultural changes since 1911, the current Australian Curriculum began with the development of curricula in these same four subjects. This reproduction of a curriculum hierarchy, and the attendant assumptions about the purpose of education that inhere in such a hierarchy, point to the powerful continuities in conceptualisations of secondary education, knowledge and the ‘well educated’ citizen (1911, p. 5).

English as the hub of the curriculum

Of the four mandatory ‘common ground’ subjects in the curriculum, English is singled out as the subject which, through the study of literature, ‘the High School will exercise its highest influence upon the general training of the pupils’ (1911, p. 5). Board’s blueprint for public secondary education, and for English education in particular, relied not only on the tenets of the New Education movement: it also placed a heavy emphasis on the moral, ethical and aesthetic formation of the child and his or her holistic growth, personal experience, creativity, and ‘self-activity’ (Hughes & Brock, 2008, p. 20).

From a total of seven-and-a-half pages, the content for English occupies one-third of the syllabus, while the Notes and Suggestions for teachers comprises two-thirds of the syllabus. The content of the English syllabus is structured in two parts.

Literature – with prescribed text lists for each of the four years of secondary schooling that included:

Fiction
- Poetry
- Drama
- Shakespearian Drama
- Non-fiction (e.g. essays, biographies)

Figure 2: Facsimile of Courses of Study for High Schools (NSW Department of Public Instruction, 1911, p. 16)

Language

(a) Composition – Oral and written.

(b) Grammar, Prosody, Word Composition. Practice in speaking and reading (p. 15).

In contrast to the Literature component of the syllabus, the Language component is brief and general. It discourages the explicit teaching of grammar or decontextualised language skills, emphasising instead the aim of meaningful engagement with language through reading and writing:

Formal instruction in the theory of expression will scarcely be needed. In any case, it is doubtful whether such instruction is effective in securing a good style of composition. The aim in this course is to develop an intelligent interest in the mother tongue and not to acquaint pupils with a body of details (1911, p. 21, p. 22) (Emphasis added).

The syllabus recommends that teachers ‘leave scope for variations in detail of the programmes’ (1911, p. iv) which extends to the practice of encouraging students to choose their own reading materials in addition to those prescribed and initiate their own topics for composition.

The Timetable in the Courses allocates the time to be spent in each subject area (pp. 10-14). The mandating of, and legislation for minimum hours for each subject area in the curriculum has remained a feature of education in NSW to the present, although the allocation of half of the school timetable to the individual student’s pursuits in the 1911 syllabus was steadily eroded as the number of subjects in the curriculum grew substantially in the early decades of the twentieth century.

English is positioned in the syllabus as a subject

having no immediate bearing on vocational ends, but designed to provide for the common needs and the common training for well educated citizenship … it is especially in the use of the mother tongue and the study of its literature that the High School will exercise its highest influence upon the general training of pupils (1911, p. 5, p. 18) (Emphasis added).

The ‘mother tongue’ is of course ‘English’ – and the literature referred to in this excerpt is predominantly British canonical literature. Foreshadowing the Newbolt Report’s (1921) belief in literature as ‘a possession and a source of delight, a personal intimacy and the gaining of personal experience, an end in itself and, at the same time, an equipment for the understanding of life’ (p. 19) is the view of literature conveyed in the 1911 syllabus:

The special educating power of Literature lies in its effect in developing the mind, filling it with high ideals and in its influence on refining and ennobling character’ … the works in the Literature Course have been chosen not merely for their value as a means of information, but as a source of higher pleasures, as a means of knowing life, and for their ethical or their literary value (1911, p. 5, p. 18) (Emphasis added).

Here the English syllabus stakes out the territory and defines the purpose of the subject by proclaiming the ethical, ‘moral, spiritual and intellectual value of reading literature’ (1911, p. 18). Literature, it states, is a ‘source of higher pleasures’, knowledge and understanding. The evangelistic tenor of the early twentieth century debates about the centrality of literature as a civilising force in the education of the young was equally captured in more public conversations such as, for example, in a piece by Professor Perkins published in the NSW Education Gazette in 1905. Perkins declared that ‘in our literature we have the most sacred relics of our race … the love of it idealises and humanises life … in general, unless a taste for literature be acquired in early life, it but rarely lightens our ways in the after times’ (NSW Education Gazette, 1905, p. 137).

Subject English is conceptualised as the curricular path to the ethical, moral, spiritual, intellectual and social development of the student. On this point, a critical dimension of the 1911 English syllabus is the mission to reclaim literature and literary study from what was perceived to be the overly ‘bookish’, ‘too remote from life’ (Newbolt, 1921, p. 165), and elitist nature of the study of Classics. The English syllabus warns that if a ‘book is merely to supply the pupil with something which he [sic] has to learn in order that he [sic] may afterwards reproduce it, the book will hinder rather than help the pupil’s real education’ (1911, p. 7). The belief that the ‘book’ must be at the service of enriching and expanding the student’s experience and knowledge is yet another example of the New Education ideas and values being imprinted in the 1911 English syllabus.

The English teacher as the ‘true starting point and foundation’

In the 1911 English syllabus, the teacher is charged with the primary responsibility for fostering a personalist, inquiry-based and problem-solving approach to teaching. The Introduction to the 1911 Courses advises that this goal can be achieved by the teacher selecting

the material that … will best give them a knowledge of the most influential thoughts of men [sic], what will best stimulate their own thought, what knowledge will best serve the practical purposes of the type of career they are likely to follow (p. 7) (Emphasis added).

The Notes and Suggestions for English, addressed directly to the teacher-as-audience, further reinforce the need for teacher professional judgment, informed by the needs of their students. They shed further light on the conceptualisation of English, the view of the student as an active participant in their own development, and the teacher as what Green and Cormack (2008) describe as a ‘sympathetic figure’ (p. 262) instantiating a Rousseau-inspired vision balancing authority with benevolent intentionality and attentive guidance through the ‘artifice and manipulation of “well-regulated” liberty’ (p. 254).

Summary of key features of the 1911 English syllabus

English as a compulsory subject in the curriculum;
literary study as the core of the syllabus;
prescribed types of texts and a text list for each year of the four years of secondary school;
sustained emphasis on child-centred approaches to teaching and learning that values student agency, choice and growing autonomy;
an aim and purpose that relies on discourses about the moral, spiritual, intellectual, social, physical and ethical development of the student; and
the need for the teacher to ensure student enjoyment, pleasure, aesthetic experience, skill development, knowledge and understanding.

Mid-century reforms: The 1953 syllabus

The 1911 NSW Courses of Study for High Schools and the secondary English syllabus within it, remained relatively unaltered through 15 subsequent editions. In 1953, a reformed secondary curriculum was developed (NSW Board of Secondary School Studies, 1953). Appearing more than 50 years after the inaugural 1911 syllabus, the 1953 English syllabus is widely recognised as the syllabus that enshrined the Newbolt conceptualisation of English in NSW (see Brock 1984a, 1984b, 1996). It served to further embed a set of ‘ideas and practices’, ‘epistemic assumptions’ and ‘disciplinary norms’ (Reid, 2002, p. 21) originating in 1911 that remained largely uncontested in successive syllabus documents in NSW.

As a means of more deliberately integrating the content of English so that the student’s use and understanding of and engagement with language through reading and listening serve as the overarching organising principle, the 1953 English syllabus saw a change in structure from Literature and Languageto:

A. Expression of Thought (speech, writing)

B. Comprehension of Thought (reading, listening)

C. Literature (reading, speaking, listening, composing)

(NSW Board of Secondary School Studies, 1953, p. 1).

The ideological commitment student-centred experiential learning; engagement with literature as a vehicle for expanding language use, knowledge and understanding and thereby self-development; emotions; enjoyment; imagination; and expressing and comprehending their own and others’ thought is clearly evident in the aim and rationale for this syllabus:

Preamble

Intention

The intention of this syllabus is to give pupils an experience of their language as a means of transmitting thought. Thought – its expression and its comprehension – is, therefore, the foundation of the syllabus …

Teachers will not confine themselves to the purely rational processes but will also deal with emotion and fantasy. Emotion and fantasy are the special care of the teacher of English. Literature, within whose province they come, has been made a separate section (p. 1) (Emphasis added).

Interestingly, the syllabus reprises the need for teachers to exercise professional judgment, based on the needs of their students. This syllabus explicitly recognises the diversity of both teachers and students. It unequivocally states that the syllabus is ‘suggestive rather than prescriptive’:

[i]t is recognised that the syllabus will be used by many teachers, each of whom is an individual, instructing many equally individual pupils with widely different abilities and backgrounds. Under these circumstances, teachers should regard it as suggestive rather than prescriptive, and should use it with due regard to the varying needs of the pupils (p. 1) (Emphasis added).

All composition should arise from the needs of the pupil, i.e. from the kind of thought that he (sic) needs to express … opportunity should be provided for personal writing (p. 13) (Emphasis added).

The Literature component of the syllabus continues to highlight the crucial elements of student pleasure and enjoyment, wide reading and the cultivation of ‘taste’:

C. Literature

1. The Objects of the Course in Literature are –

(i) To develop a liking for reading.

(ii) To widen, deepen, and sharpen the literary taste.

General Principles

The first object in teaching literature should be the creation of a liking for reading. No teaching can be held to be successful if it has not encouraged the pupil to read for himself [sic]; and if the pupil has been persuaded to take up a book of his [sic] own accord and read it for pleasure, something has been achieved.

The second object should be the widening, deepening and refining of literary taste. Literature is a humanising influence, a vicarious experience of man’s [sic] thought and actions (p. 18, p. 19) (Emphasis added).

Teachers are advised that ‘Literature should be interpreted very liberally’ (p. 19). For the first time, this syllabus includes film, radio and comics. There is a section on the principles that should guide text selection and these once again underline the need for teacher judgement and autonomy, student ‘taste and interest’, and student enjoyment:

Choice of books
… the teacher should see that both imaginative and non-imaginative literature receive fair representation.
But other things governing the choice must be considered. The suitability of a book can only be determined by the class teachers. The taste and interests of the pupils must be of considerable influence.
Include Modern literature and Australian literature.
The first aim must be to encourage reading by making pupils realise the pleasure and satisfaction they can derive from books (p. 21) (Emphasis added).

As is the case in the 1911 syllabus, the 1953 syllabus pays special attention to the role of the school library in catering for students’ interests and ‘directing them to free reading’. It also carries through the 1911 approach to pedagogy by suggesting that: ‘[a] great deal of the teaching of poetry should be done through performance. Poetry was meant to be read aloud and it is only by reading aloud that pupils can experience the charm of poetic sound’ (p. 29). Importantly, the syllabus encourages students’ active composition of, for instance, poetry and narratives and advises that teachers should select worthwhile drama ‘from all available sources – stage, radio, screen’ (p. 19).

The Notes and Suggestions for teachers remained as Commentary in this syllabus, with the syllabus content on the left-hand page and the Commentary on the right-hand page. As is the case in the 1911 English syllabus, the content comprises around one-third of the syllabus, with the Commentary being two-thirds (with a total of 35 pages, compared to the seven-and-a-half pages in the 1911 English syllabus). The established practice of prescribing texts for each year continued (fiction, poetry, drama, Shakesperean drama, and non-fiction).

Reforms to secondary English in 1961/1962

The revised secondary English syllabus of 1961/1962 (NSW Secondary Schools Board, 1961/1962) includes a number of changes to the structure of the content. The tripartite structure of the 1953 syllabus (Expression of Thought, Comprehension of Thought, and Literature) is replaced by five sections:

The Speaking of English.
1. Reading and Comprehension.
1. Written Expression.
1. Language.
1. Literature – (a) prose (b) poetry (c) drama.

(NSW Secondary Schools Board, 1961/1962, p. 2)

Although the structure is now broader, the syllabus notes that ‘for convenience, the activities of this English course, though intended to be integrated, are set out under separate headings … it is understood that work in the various sections will be simultaneous and cumulative’ (p. 2) (Emphasis added). The other major shift in this syllabus is the removal of prescribed text lists for each year. Instead, types of texts are prescribed with the teacher responsible for selecting the titles within the mandatory categories. The change implemented in this 1961/1962 syllabus for junior secondary has remained in place to the present.

The introductory comments, together with the aim and rationale, resonate with the now familiar discourses from earlier syllabus documents:

This syllabus presents a course in speaking, writing, reading and listening in English. Its primary intention is to develop in pupils, by experience in the use of language, a three-fold skill: the ability to express themselves in speech and writing; the ability to understand the speech and writing of others; and the ability to feel and appreciate the appeal of literature (p. 2).

Aim and Rationale

In its importance to the individual and society, however, the study of English goes far beyond the acquisition of mere skills in the subject. For the pupil, no other form of knowledge can take precedence over a knowledge in English … it is basic to comprehension and progress in all studies; it is, moreover, an important influence in the shaping of personality. … Civilisation is based on people’s awareness of human qualities, problems and values; and there is no better way of gaining this knowledge than through the reading of literature (p. 3) (Emphasis added).

Like the syllabus documents before it, the 1961/1962 syllabus encourages the use of the library for wide reading and personal interest:

To provide pupils with a wide and enjoyable reading experience.
To foster in them a desire to read by cultivating an awareness of the values of reading.
To develop their powers of comprehension and judgment (p. 11).

It also encourages participation in drama as a means of ‘liberating personality and of developing clear and confident expression’ (p. 36).

These discourses about the purpose of English, student-centred, experiential learning, and the critical role of the teacher’s professional judgment and agency are expressed even more fulsomely in the English syllabus that followed in 1971 (NSW Secondary Schools Board).

The 1971 ‘Growth’ English syllabus

A substantial corpus of research and scholarship has focused on the 1971 English syllabus. Sawyer’s extensive contributions to this research and scholarship are particularly significant. Summing up the influences on and the impact of this syllabus, Sawyer states that:

[c]ommentators on the Syllabus have generally agreed that it was: (1) a ‘revolutionary’ document, certainly within NSW itself and (2) an institutionalised manifestation of the ‘growth model’ as then espoused especially by Dixon, Britton and others of the ‘London School’ (Brock 1984, vol. 1, 204; Homer 1973, 212; Watson 1994, 40; Davis and Watson 1990, 159). Brock (1993, 30) has even called it ‘[t]he first “personal growth” model syllabus anywhere in the English speaking world’.

Brock sees the two dominant factors in the creation of the Syllabus, so soon after Dartmouth, as the expansion and influence of the NSW English Teachers’ Association and the personal commitment of the chairman of the Syllabus Committee, Graham Little (Brock 1984, vol. I, 204–5) (Sawyer, 2010, p. 288).

Breaking with tradition, the first page of this syllabus presents 11 quotes taken from contemporary and historical educators and a previous syllabus, with the leading quote being from Dixon’s Growth Through English (1967): ‘English is the meeting point of experience, language and society’. These quotes signal both the new directions of this syllabus and an acknowledgement of the inheritance of a number of principles and philosophies of previous syllabus documents.

The syllabus contains the ‘triangle’ as a representation of the integration of the parts to the whole based on the principles, ideas and intended practices informing the teaching and learning. Little himself designed the triangle (Brock 1984, vol. I, p. 248). It is worth noting that this diagram stands as a precedent, paving the way for other diagrammatic representations of syllabuses to follow.

Figure 3: Facsimile of the triangle from the 1971 English 7-10 Syllabus (Secondary Schools Board, p. 7)

This 1971 syllabus includes Stage and Level Statements (another feature carried through to the present) and is organised according to a new layout and a new structure consisting of seven ‘contexts’:

Language
Literature
Listening and Observing
Speaking
Reading
Writing
Media

Media and Listening and Observing (what we now term as ‘viewing’) are added to the explicit ‘contexts’, thereby elevating their status in the formal curriculum. The syllabus still contains what had previously been known as Notes and Suggestions, and later as Commentary, although the Notes for the 1971 syllabus were updated yearly. The syllabus itself runs to 17 pages, while the Notes total 38 pages.

The Introduction, like those in syllabus documents that preceded it, identifies the rationale, aims and purpose:

Introduction

This syllabus assumes that English for twelve to sixteen year-olds should be an active pursuit: a matter of pupils developing competence by engaging in an abundance of purposeful language activities, enjoyable because they are appropriate to needs, interests and capacities …

For this reason, all objectives of English are stated as the ‘ability to do something’: to listen, read, speak and write and in doing so to interpret, discriminate, communicate, evaluate … to understand and use words to express ideas and personality and experience past and present culture. The competence sought is no mere utilitarian skill, but involves essentially human qualities of thought and feeling, because it is by language that we organise our human experience (p. 2) (Emphasis added).

The discourse here is redolent of that discernible in earlier syllabus documents and clearly instantiates the ideas and principles of the Growth model of English. The Introduction goes on to explicitly recognise the agentic role of the teacher and explicitly states that the syllabus is not prescriptive:

In stating the aims and objectives of English in this way, the syllabus does not prescribe, even by implication, the details of selection and organisation of any English course. Within the broad framework of the syllabus, those responsible for course-planning are free to use their professional judgment to develop their own courses according to the needs of their pupils (p. 2) (Emphasis added).

To those of us accustomed to lengthy, prescriptive syllabus documents, the notion of teachers being ‘free to use their professional judgment to develop their own courses according to the needs of their pupils’ (p. 2) may seem striking. It may also be sobering to reflect on the dramatic shifts in the conceptualisation of, assumptions about and professional regard for the teacher that have occurred since this syllabus was released 50 years ago.

Just as the 1961/1962 syllabus insisted that the component sections of the syllabus should be integrated, the 1971 syllabus emphasises ‘the integration of the various facets of English’ (p. 3). Once again, this principle of integration of the parts to the whole has continued to the present.

The main objective for Reading is the ‘enjoyment of reading’, the use of the library, and the critical role of choice in the selection of reading material:

the choice of appropriate texts is crucial … it is not necessary for the fulfilment of the syllabus objectives that all pupils read the same texts … English should be very closely integrated with the work of the school library … full opportunity should be given to exploratory reading by pupils and the sharing of their responses to reading experiences.

Above all, it is the pupil’s own responses to literature that is to be nurtured (Notes, p. 1) (Emphasis added).

Although the ‘context’ of Literature appears to be on equal footing with the other six contexts, the syllabus states that ‘of all the “contexts” of English, none is more important than literature. For the purposes of the syllabus, the term includes pupils’ own writing’ (Notes, p. 1) (Emphasis added). While the conceptualisation of the subject still relies on the presence of Literature (as it has since 1911), for the first time students’ own writing is formally recognised as part of the Literature continuum. This principle is further evidence of the influence of Growth on this syllabus.

The syllabus continues to mandate the types of texts to be included:

Figure 4: Facsimile of the 1971 syllabus (NSW Secondary Schools Board, p. 13)

Summary

The preceding discussion, albeit partial and at times over-simplified is intended to offer some insights into the providence of secondary English in NSW and to highlight certain features of syllabus documents since 1911 that provide evidence of continuities and shifts in the discourses, ideas, practices and ‘disciplinary norms’ (Reid, 2002, p. 15) shaping the identity of English.

By briefly sampling aspects of key syllabus documents from 1911 to 1971[2], it is possible to glimpse ‘certain continuities that link English curriculum discourses and practices with previous discourses and practices’ (Reid, 2003, p. 100). When we read the Aim and Rationale of the current syllabus (2022), for example, the resonances with past discourses are immediately apparent:

The aim of English in Years K–10 is to enable students to understand and use language effectively. Students learn to appreciate, reflect on and enjoy language, and make meaning in ways that are imaginative, creative, interpretive, critical and powerful.

Rationale

Language and text shape our understanding of ourselves and our world. This allows us to relate with others, and contributes to our intellectual, social and emotional development. In English K–10, students study language in its various textual forms, which develop in complexity, to understand how meaning is shaped, conveyed, interpreted, and reflected.

…

By exploring historic and contemporary texts, representative of a range of cultural and social perspectives, students broaden their experiences and become empowered to express their identities, personal values and ethics.

The development of these interconnected skills and understandings supports students to become confident communicators, critical and imaginative thinkers, and informed and active participants in society (NESA, 2022) (Emphasis added).

Obviously, our context in 2024 is profoundly different to the contexts that produced previous syllabus documents. We now contend with a big data driven approach to education manifesting the ideology of performativity, with vastly increased regulation, surveillance, compliance demands and government and bureaucratic intervention. We are also living with ubiquitous forms of technology that did not exist for most of the twentieth century.

To conclude, I want to summarise the discussion by drawing attention to what has shifted and what has endured since the Courses of Study for High Schools in 1911. The summary is by no means intended to be a comprehensive representation of syllabus documents over the past 113 years.

What has shifted since 1911?

One of the most significant shifts since 1911 is the positioning of the teacher in syllabus document. Most of the syllabus documents from the twentieth century implicitly or explicitly recognise and even celebrate the central role of the teacher. Many are written with a teacher audience in mind. Shifts have occurred in the assumptions about the role of the teacher, especially in terms of teacher professional judgement. From the late twentieth century, there is a steady dilution of discourses that recognise teacher autonomy and agency. It is notable that the teacher as a palpable presence in the syllabus becomes incrementally marginalised and erased from the discourse of syllabus documents of the twenty-first century. By contrast, the student occupies a significant place in current syllabus documents, that now recognise and address students’ language and other backgrounds.

The structure and a number of organisational features of the syllabus have shifted. For example, from the structure of Literature and Language in 1911 successive syllabuses have aimed for a greater integration of the literature and language components of the subject with a widening of content cohering around the principles of student-centred learning and development. Since the mid-twentieth century, there has been a broadening of types of texts for study to include media, multimedia and digital texts and the incorporation of the modes of listening, viewing and representing. Importantly, the syllabus documents since the mid-1900s have recommended the inclusion of ‘modern and Australian’ texts, in contrast to early versions of the syllabus that prescribe text lists dominated by British canonical literature.

The content in syllabus documents is now organised in terms of outcomes and since 1971, they have also included Stage Statements and provision for students from diverse language backgrounds and with special needs. The degree of prescription has not only shifted but also intensified. Current syllabus documents are heavily prescriptive in terms of outcomes, content, types of texts, assessment, and reporting, reflecting the erosion of trust in teacher professional judgement, increasing government intervention, and the standardisation movement. Since 1911, English syllabus and support documents have exponentially ballooned in volume. Until the late twentieth century, standardisation, external testing (7-10) and matters of compliance and surveillance along with performativity measures for teachers did not figure as prominently as they do today. The external examination for the School Certificate at the end of Year 10, however, was phased out after 2011.

All syllabuses for secondary education are contained in one document from 1911 to the mid-1900s when subjects become siloed in separate syllabuses. Hard copies of syllabus documents have been provided for all teachers until the 2022 syllabus. Syllabus and support documents are now online and fragmented. It is up to the teacher to print a hard copy of one or more sections, not only adding to teachers’ workload but also potentially undermining the principle of integration and a holistic perspective on the syllabus.

What has endured from 1911 to the present?

The continuities in junior secondary English from 1911 through to the present are substantial and include, for example:

a student-centred philosophy and set of beliefs about the affordances of English in the curriculum that emphasise the development of students’ skills, knowledge and understanding through increasingly competent and confident language in use;
a focus on English as a vehicle for promoting identity-formation, citizenship, aesthetic appreciation (formerly referred to as ‘taste’), and self-dependence and autonomy;
Literature (texts) and language as the core with mandated types of texts – fiction, poetry, drama, non-fiction, Shakesperean Drama (until 1953), media (since 1971);
reading and wide reading for pleasure and enjoyment, and until recently, attention to the crucial function of the school library;
personal response to reading/texts and writing from personal experience;
learning as an active pursuit through ‘making and doing’;
attention to the centrality of thought, feeling, imagination and creativity; and
an introduction, rationale, aims, content, and prescribed content.

Importantly, the modes of reading and writing in English are still privileged as they have been in syllabus documents for more than a century. Similarly, from 1911 to the present, syllabus development in NSW has continued according to a top-down model, closely managed by arms and agencies of government.

Concluding remarks

The quest to ‘understand certain continuities that link English curriculum discourses and practices with previous discourses and practices’ (Reid, 2003, p. 100) is particularly urgent in our current context as English teachers. As Doecke (2017) argues, when ‘[c]onfronted by a neoliberal culture that is characterised by a loss of historical memory, we need to posit a history in which we might locate our ongoing practice as English teachers’ (p. 236). The pursuit of historical knowledge and understanding is not merely an ‘antiquarian pursuit’ (Reid, 2003, p. 100): rather, it offers us another potent source of collective disciplinary wisdom and professional agency.

References

*References with a particular focus on the history of English curriculum

Apple, M. W. (1979). Ideology and Curriculum. London: Routledge.

*Barcan, A. (1988). Two centuries of education in New South Wales. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.

*Brock, P. (1984a). A History of the development of English syllabuses in New South Wales secondary education, 1953–1976: A ‘continuum’ or a ‘series of new beginnings’? Unpublished PhD thesis. Armidale: University of New England.

*Brock, P. (1984b). Changes in the English syllabus in N.S.W. Australia: Can any American voices be heard?” English Journal, 73(3), pp. 53–58.

*Brock, P. (1996). Telling the story of the NSW secondary English curriculum: 1950–1965. In B. Green & C. Beavis (Eds.). Teaching the English Subjects: Essays on English Curriculum and History in Australian Schooling. (pp. 40-70). Geelong: Deakin University Press.

*Cormack, P. & Green, B. (2000). (Re) Reading the historical record: Curriculum history and the linguistic turn. Paper presented at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Curriculum History, New Orleans, Louisiana. April 23-24.

*Crane, A. R. & Walker, W.G. (1957). Peter Board: His contribution to the development of education in New South Wales. Melbourne: ACER.

*Departmental Committee of the Board of Education (DCBE) (1921). The teaching of English in England: being the report of the departmental committee appointed by the president of the Board of Education to inquire into the position of English in the educational system of England. The Newbolt Report. London: HMSO.

Doecke, B. (2017). What kind of ‘knowledge’ is English? (Re-reading the Newbolt Report). Changing English: Studies in Culture and Education. 24(3), pp. 230-245. DOI: 10.1080/1358684X.2017.1351228

Dixon, J. (1967). Growth through English. Great Britain: National Association for the Teaching of English.

*Green, B. (2003). (Un)changing English – Past, present, future? In B. Doecke, D. Homer & H. Nixon (Eds.), English teachers at work: Narratives, counter-narratives and arguments (pp. 2-13). South Australia: Wakefield Press/Australian Association for the Teaching of English.

*Green, B. & Beavis, C. (Eds.). (1996). Teaching the English subjects: Essays on English curriculum history and Australian schooling. Geelong: Deakin University Press.

*Green, B. & Cormack, P. (2008). Curriculum history, ‘English’ and the New Education; or, installing the empire of English? Pedagogy, Culture and Society. 16(3), pp. 253-267.

*Hughes, J. & Brock, P. (2008). Reform and resistance in NSW public education: Six attempts at major reform, 1905-1995. Sydney: Department of Education and Training.

*Manuel, J. & Carter, D. (2019). Resonant continuities: the influence of the Newbolt Report on the formation of English curriculum in New South Wales, Australia. English in Education. DOI: 10.1080/04250494.2019.1625709

*Manuel, J. & Carter, D. (2017). Inscribing culture: The history of prescribed text lists in senior secondary English in NSW, 1945-1964. In T. Dolin, J. Jones & P. Dowsett (Eds.) Required reading: Literature in Australian schools since 1945 (pp. 78-105). Melbourne: Monash University Press.

Mathieson, M. (1975), The preachers of culture: A study of English and its teachers. London: George Allen and Unwin.

New South Wales Department of Public Instruction (1911). Courses of Study for High Schools. Sydney: NSW Department of Public Instruction.

New South Wales Department of Education (1953). Syllabus in English. Sydney: NSW Department of Education.

New South Wales Department of Education (1961/1962). English Syllabus for Forms I-IV. Sydney: NSW Department of Education.

New South Wales Department of Education (1971). Syllabus in English Years 7-10. Sydney: NSW Department of Education.

New South Wales Education Gazette (1905), Vol. 1 No. 1

New South Wales Education Standards Authority (NESA) (2022). English K-10 Syllabus. Available at: https://curriculum.nsw.edu.au/learning-areas/english/english-k-10-2022/overview

*Patterson, A. (2000). Australia: questions of pedagogy. In R. Peel, A. Patterson, & J. Gerlach (Eds.). Questions of English: ethics, aesthetics, rhetoric and the formation of the subject in England, Australia and the United States (pp. 233–300). London and New York: Routledge.

*Reid, I. (2004). Wordsworth and the formation of English studies. England: Ashgate.

*Reid, I. (2003). The persistent pedagogy of ‘growth’. In B. Doecke, D. Homer, & H. Nixon (Eds.). English teachers at work: Narratives, counter-narratives and arguments (pp. 97-108). South Australia: Wakefield Press/Australian Association for the Teaching of English.

*Reid, I. (2002) Wordsworth institutionalised: the shaping of an educational ideology, History of Education, Journal of the History of Education Society, 31(1), pp. 15-37.

*Sawyer, W. (2010). Structuring the New English in Australia: James Moffett and English teaching in New South Wales. Changing English: Studies in Culture and Education, 17(3), pp. 285-296.

*Sawyer, W. (2009a). Language, literature and lost opportunities: ‘Growth’ as a defining episode in the history of English. In J. Manuel, P. Brock, D. Carter, & W. Sawyer (Eds.), Imagination, Innovation, Creativity: Re-Visioning English in Education (pp. 71-86). Putney: Phoenix Education.

*Sawyer, W. (2009b). The Growth Model of English. In S. Gannon, M. Howie, & W. Sawyer (Eds.), Charged with Meaning: Reviewing English, 3rd Edition (pp. 19-30). Putney: Phoenix Education.

*Selleck, R. J. W. (1968). The new education: the English background 1870-1914. Melbourne: Pitman.

*Wyndham, H. S. (1967). Report of the Committee Appointed to Survey Secondary Education in New South Wales. Sydney: Government Printer.

About the Author

Prof. Jacqueline Manuel is Professor of English Education at the University of Sydney, Aust. She co-ordinates and teaches secondary English curriculum in the Master of Teaching (Secondary) program. Her most recent publications include: International Perspectives on English Teacher Development: From Initial Teacher Education to Highly Accomplished Professional. (Routledge, 2022), co-edited with Goodwyn, Roberts, Scherff, Sawyer, Durrant, and Zancanella.; and Reimagining Shakespeare Education: Teaching and Learning through Collaboration (Cambridge University Press, 2023) co-edited with Liam Semler and Claire Hansen.

[1] For a more detailed understanding of the subject’s lineage, I encourage you to explore the additional material highlighted in the references.

[2] Reforms have certainly occurred since 1971, but for the purposes of this discussion these have not been included.

Continuity-and-Change-Manuel-1 Download

What Are We Going To Do About Writing?The “neglected R”.

Lorraine Beveridge makes the case for high quality writing experiences in every classroom…

A concerning, declining trend in writing national data over time (NSW Department of Education, 2017) suggests that the teaching of writing could possibly be “a neglected R” (Graham, Hebert and Harris, 2015; Korth, et al., 2017 and Sessions, Kang and Womack, 2016). Writing is a literacy skill, relevant to all key learning areas in school and a necessary communication skill in life. Early literacy includes the interdependent skills of reading, writing and oral language, and it has been suggested that the prioritised focus on reading has led to limited attention to teaching writing as well as inadequate research on early writing instruction (Korth et al., 2017). Declining writing results “casts a light on our teaching practice”, (Fisher, Frey and Hattie, 2017 p167), how we teach writing, including the component writing skills and writing processes, our understanding of how students learn to write and suggest a need to investigate writing strategies independent of other literacy skills. Writing is a crucial skill linked to reading and academic success, and engagement in society more broadly (Cutler and Graham, 2008; Gerde, Bingham and Wasik, 2012; Mackenzie and Petriwskyj, 2017). This paper is a result of my research and reflection on practice.

I begin with a focus on an historical overview of learning to write. Then, I outline strategies identified in the literature that work in improving student writing skills and outline examples from my research and the wider literature of best practice in the teaching of writing. The paper concludes with how we, as a teaching profession, can move “onwards and upwards” in ensuring that students are effective written communicators who are also passionate writers and, as a result, their love of writing and chances of success at school and beyond are maximised.

Historical overview of learning to write

Teachers need a shared understanding of how children learn to write as a starting point in improving student writing. (Calkins and Ehrenworth, 2016). Learning to write is often described as a progression from scribbles on a page to conventional text (Genishi and Dyson, 2009), but it is so much more, linked to emotions and communication, and the progression is not always a linear one (Mackenzie and Petriwskyi, 2017). Beginning writing behaviour usually includes exposure to quality texts, models of good writing, classroom talk, drawing and captioning pictures, and tracing over words. In addition to copying captions, students replicate words from around the room and environmental print. Copying print leads to students remembering word forms and writing them independently. At the same time, students are inventing spellings of words that they wish to use in their independent writing, eager to share the stories that are important to them, based on their growing oral language, phonemic awareness, alphabetic knowledge and sight word vocabulary, in doing so, learning about the writing process through writing (Clay, 1979; Fountas and Pinnell, 1996). In the beginning stages, it is common to see pretend writing, scribble, and copying text. By encouraging early writing experimentation, which includes miscellaneous marks as students master letter formations, a range of print conventions and the use of invented spelling, students are encouraged to create meaning from print and share the messages that are important to them, fostering a love of writing and utilising students’ growing graphological and phonological knowledge.

Through partaking in early writing, students are making connections between graphemes (letters) and phonemes (sounds). They are learning about the skills that constitute writing, and that writing is a process that conveys meaning to the reader. Students have a meaningful context to practise and apply their growing awareness of how language works. It can certainly be challenging to decipher students’ early independent writing attempts. However, it is important that we as teachers work hard to determine the message that students are attempting to convey. By seeking to understand students’ intended written message, we are valuing their work, and encouraging them to expand their writing repertoire and take pleasure in it. We are modelling the purpose of writing, which is to convey a message to the reader, “through responding to and composing texts…, and learn(ing) about the power, value and art of the English language for communication, knowledge and enjoyment” (Board of Studies, 2012 p10).

Figure 1: Supporting students’ early independent writing attempts

Student writing can be viewed through a formative assessment lens (Wiliam, 2011, 2016, 2018), as a measure of writing growth, an indicator of the impact of teacher practice and to signpost where to next in writing instruction for individual students. Student writing samples provide rich evidence of learning, reducing the over-reliance on narrow test scores to monitor progress (Mackenzie and Petriwskyi, 2017; Fisher, Frey and Hattie, 2017). By keeping regular chronological logs of student writing, teachers and students have evidence of writing growth, as a basis for where students are at, and where they need to go to next in their learning, “monitoring student success criteria” (Hattie, 2012 p19). Syllabus scope and sequences, as in the NSW English syllabus (NSW Board of Studies, 2012) and the National Literacy Learning Progressions (NLLP) (ACARA, 2018) are useful tools for teachers to identify achievement and plan for individual student instruction across the various elements of literacy. Additionally, the

NLLP are potentially useful for students to determine their own learning intentions and success criteria (Wiliam, 2018), providing a framework for them to self-monitor their progress.

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) released the Literacy Learning Progressions (NLLP) in 2018, to assist Australian teachers in identifying, understanding and addressing students’ literacy learning needs. In NSW, the NLLP, although not mandatory, are an additional tool to support teachers in implementing the English syllabus (NESA, 2012), which drives teaching and learning in classrooms. Teachers use evidence of student writing to appraise practice, drawing on the English syllabus and NLLP to inform decision making on where to next for individual students, in doing so personalising writing instruction. Similarly, by familiarising students with the indicators of the progressions, they have access to tools to monitor their own learning (Fisher, Frey and Hattie, 2017). By students identifying what they can do using their own writing, and using the progressions as a guide, they are formulating future writing learning goals, and taking ownership of their learning. Student self-assessment is identified as a powerful formative assessment technique (William & Leahy, 2015).

In a recent classroom study, Korth et al., (2017) found that it is rare to observe teachers modelling or scaffolding writing for their students, opportunities for students to write in the classroom are decreasing, possibly due to a myriad of pressures on teachers and a crowded curriculum, and most important of all, teachers explicitly modelling writing processes to students makes a difference to student writing progress. Teacher modelling is a form of direct instruction, specifically targeting identified student needs. Through participating in writing in the classroom, teachers are demonstrating the importance of writing and their enjoyment of writing to their students, including drafting, editing and proof-reading. Modelling writing powerfully demonstrates the writing process, providing opportunities for mentoring and instructional sharing of skills in-context (Calkins, 1986). Through teacher modelling, students see the importance of writing through teachers demonstrating their love of writing and, at the same time, explicitly addressing identified student writing needs.

When they write, young children learn to use sounds and corresponding symbols. During composing, beginning writers say words slowly, and stretch words out to identify, then write, the individual sounds that they hear. Early writing attempts often contain grammar errors. These lessen as students’ grammatical competence increases through direct teaching and immersion in quality texts, increasing their oral language, phonemic awareness, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary and comprehension (McCarrier, Pinnell and Fountas, 1999; CIS, 2018), similar skills that students draw on in learning to be readers. Through writing, children manipulate sounds using symbols and learn how written language works.

Figure 2: Example of early writing attempt

Reading and writing are complementary processes. Just as it is important to model early reading skills explicitly for students, it is equally important to model early writing skills. For example, directionality can be taught using quality texts as models, as can the place of spaces between words.

A small number of letters can make many words, drawing on students’ graphological and phonological skills, establishing mental models and increasing their control over written language (Beck and Beck, 2013). Through building on what is already known, students rapidly extend their written vocabulary. Sentence starters are commonly used to teach basic grammatical knowledge and to scaffold students’ early writing attempts. For example, the sentence stem, “Here is…” is an example of the recurring principle (Clay, 1979) that students can build on in their own writing. Many children’s picture books are based on this principle.

Figure 2: Innovation on text using the recurring principle

Holland (2016) encourages teachers to find quality texts containing features that they wish to explore with their students, matching texts to lesson objectives and identified student learning needs, while at the same time providing authentic models for students to draw on whilst writing, propelling them forward in their writing learning journey. ACARA released a text complexity appendix to the NLLP, which explicitly states that “throughout their school years, students will be exposed to texts with a range of complexity” (ACARA, 2018b p2). The text complexity appendix identifies four broad levels of texts, which are simple, predictable, moderately complex and sophisticated texts. These text levels are referenced throughout the NLLP. Simple texts are the simplest form of continuous texts, with common usage vocabulary, language, structure and content. Predictable texts include a more diverse vocabulary than simple texts, there are a range of sentence types and the text structure is usually predictable. Moderately complex texts increase in difficulty in terms of the subject specific language used, use of figurative language and more complex language structures. Finally, the fourth level of texts complexity refers to sophisticated texts, which may draw on academic and extensive technical language. Sophisticated texts contain a wide range of sentence types, complex structures, content and print layout features. The purpose of the text complexity appendix is to encourage teachers to consider the features of texts that they use in their class English programs to ensure that the texts match student identified learning needs and the specific purpose that teachers are targeting in their teaching.

Strategies that improve the teaching and learning of writing

The teaching of writing does need to be a priority. We as a profession need to ensure that those conditions that accelerate student growth in writing are being practised in classrooms and are available to all students. Although it is unrealistic to expect that all strategies would be successful for all students, the literature identifies clear instructional strategies that are more likely to achieve student writing success than others.

Logic dictates that increased, dedicated time to write in schools will improve student writing (Korth et al., 2017; Mo et al., 2014; Bromley, 2007). Mo et al. (2014) calls for a “writing revolution” in which the time spent writing at school is doubled. This strategy not only includes providing regular writing opportunities for students to write frequently and fluently using a growing repertoire of skills, but also teachers providing intentional, regular instruction that addresses students’ specific writing needs, often referred to as point-of-need “mini lessons” (Korth et al., 2017). It is important for students to have time to write daily in an unstructured way, including free personal choice writing that will not be critiqued, writing in which they can engage their emotions and tell the stories that they dearly wish to write about. This may take the form of journal writing or some other developmentally appropriate task for emergent writers, possibly symbolic representations, including “think- draw- write”. By putting school-wide structures and systems in place to ensure that all students write every day, schools are growing a culture that values writing and the messages that students’ writing contain. When students are also provided with explicit and regular feedback on their writing, research suggests that students’ writing skills increase dramatically (Hattie, 2012; Simmerman et al., 2012; Cutler and Graham, 2008).

Undeniably, writing is a complex task. Cutler and Graham (2008) also identify the need to spend more time teaching writing. They find that many teachers take an eclectic approach to teaching writing and call for a more balanced instructional line of attack between time spent independently writing and learning writing skills and processes. There are two clear components to effective writing teaching, the explicit teaching of writing skills, which sits alongside the second, possibly more important component, which is teaching the writing process. Writing instruction focusing on a skills-based approach is not enough. It does not evoke a passion for writing. Writers go through a process, a series of steps to compose a piece of writing that needs to be modelled and taught explicitly. The writing process includes collecting and organising information, writing a draft, revising, editing and rewriting. To learn about the writing process, students require protected time to write, choice over the topic they wish to write about and targeted feedback from teachers (Calkins and Ehrenworth, 2016; Cutler and Graham, 2008; Korth et al., 2017).

Education systems need to do a better job of providing targeted teacher professional learning in writing that addresses school and students’ identified writing needs. (Mo et al., 2014; Cutler and Graham, 2008). A focus of a recent professional learning course for middle school teachers delivered over a term, and spanning 12 schools, was teachers, collaboratively reflecting on the cognitive dimension of teaching writing, as Oz (2011) describes writing as, “the operation of putting information, structured in the brain, into print” (p251) . Teachers were thinking about and sharing how writing is taught in their local context, and brainstorming how they could possibly do it better, an example of the power of collaborative professional learning, in which teachers learn with and from each other (Beveridge, 2015).

Figure 4: Middle Years Writing Course reflection (2017)

In the middle years writing course (Brassil, Bridge and Sindrey, 2012), teachers identified what they regard as going well in the teaching of writing, what still needs be a focus and ideas for improvement. Table 1 below lists participating teachers’ responses as to how they were addressing the teaching of writing in their schools and where they needed to go to next in the teaching of writing in their local contexts to address the learning needs of their particular students.

What’s going well in the teaching of writing?	What still needs to improve?	What are ideas for improvement?
ALARM[1] (cognitive scaffold, framework for writing).	Clarify the learning intention at the lesson outset (and encourage all staff to use this language).	Identifying audience and purpose of writing. Unpacking rubrics together so students are clear about what the task involves. Co-writing rubrics with students drawing on syllabus/ progression indicators to increase student ownership of learning.
SEAL, TXXXC[2] (secondary paragraph writing strategies).	Students to reflect on their writing (self /peer-assess).	Activities and strategies that improve sentence structure. Teacher professional learning on grammar with a shared focus and understanding of how language works.
Using writing tools; a range of writing apps	Discussing ideas together before we begin writing (dialogic teaching).	Identifying the writing demands of the key learning areas and map the commonalities across KLAs.
Sharing of ideas/ writing strategies with staff facilitates professional discussion.	Coherence and consistency of teaching writing across the grades.	Building subject specific vocabulary to draw on when writing. Subject-specific teachers to agree on a consistent approach for teaching writing school-wide.
Making writing a school focus and linking effective teaching of writing to other school foci.	Assessment of writing from a school-wide perspective that all staff share ownership of.	Improving grammar knowledge in context, through explicit teaching and using quality texts as writing models.
Students believe that they can write, irrespective of skill level.	Providing students with quality writing models / texts and explicit quality criteria for writing.	Generating ideas to write about together at the outset of a lesson (in creative ways, to put the magic back in the teaching of writing).

Table 1: Writing in the Middle Years course reflection (2017)

Increasing classroom discourse, where the teacher and students together discuss and clarify complex tasks, has an effect size of .82, double the effect size of .4, which is generally regarded as one year’s teaching for one year’s growth (Fisher, Frey and Hattie, 2017 p3). In the writing classroom, this may look like the students and teacher participating in joint writing construction, and modelling metacognitive processes, which could involve asking self-questions (for metacognition and self-reflection) whilst writing. Self-questions relate to the learning intentions of the lesson, and whether students have explicitly addressed these in their writing.

Figure 5: Tools to support students asking self-questions.

For example, in Figure 5 above, the pedagogical framework strategies “WILF and WALT” provide visual prompts to students of the learning intention: What are we learning today? (WALT), and success criteria: What am I looking for? (WILF). Such lessons support students in self-monitoring and evaluating their writing. Self-questions students may ask from the WILT and WALT framework include:

Have I used adjectives in my writing? Where are they? How do they make my writing more interesting?
Where are my spaces between words, full stops and capital letters? Have I used them correctly? How do they help my writing make sense to the reader?
What language choices have I made to make my writing more interesting? How successful was I in achieving this?

Calkins and Ehrenworth (2016) outline three guiding principles for teachers to keep in mind when teaching writing:

Students are actively involved in the writing process
They share what they write
They perceive themselves as writers.

Increasing classroom discourse may look like students discussing their current performance and the criteria that they will use to measure their writing success. It has been stated that “the more clearly they [students] can see the goals, the more motivated they will be [to achieve them]” (Fisher, Frey and Hattie p43). Overall but not exclusively, the aim of classroom discourse in writing lessons is for teachers to gradually release writing responsibilities to students (Kaya and Ates, 2016, Pearson and Gallagher, 1983). To become expert teachers of writing, teachers must become skilled at supporting students in achieving their (self-) identified success criteria (Hattie, 2012). The NLLP are a useful guide for students to identify what they can do, and where they need to go to next in their writing learning journey.

Writing at school has infinite possibilities to integrate learning across the key learning areas which include various genres inclusive of imaginative, persuasive and information texts (Board of Studies, 2012). An emphasis on writing across different content areas reinforces the integrative nature of writing and its high gravitas in all key learning areas at school, and in life. For example, writing class books about a specific topic or activity, describing the attributes of characters or animals and writing expositional texts in science, are all evidence that writing is much more than narrative. Students need to write arguments and information texts; in fact, a wide range of texts across all subjects. In turn, teachers need to clearly state how writing skills learned in one classroom or key learning area can support developing writing skills and processes in another, making explicit and strengthening the writing links across the key learning areas for students.

School leaders have a responsibility to facilitate the organisation of opportunities for teachers and students to develop and share what good writing looks like. This can be achieved through ensuring teachers have time to collaboratively plan for and review student writing. This could involve using the samples provided in the Assessment Resource Centre as authoritative sources, analysing student exemplars locally and collectively studying published writing and quality texts. By developing shared teacher understandings of what good writing looks like across the school, writing expectations for students are aligned and cohere, clarifying and democratising writing instruction from one classroom to another (Wiggins, 2000).

Through exposure to and deconstruction of a range of quality texts, students learn writing strategies through engaging with real authors and identifying how they engage readers in their texts. At the Australian Literacy Educators (ALEA) National Conference in Adelaide in 2016, I attended a writing session presented by an Australian Capital Territory (ACT) community of schools. The schools reported that the most significant factor that contributed to their collective, improved and sustained writing results, and increased student engagement in writing, was a shared “Visiting Children’s Author Program” in which students learned to “write like a writer”. Exposure to quality texts improves student writing through providing inspiration that they talk about, share and build on in their own writing. A rich diet of a wide variety of texts provides opportunities for critical and creative thinking, and sustained conversations about authors, real texts and aspects of texts that engage readers (Haland, 2016).

At a recent middle school writers’ workshop at a local high school, it was reported to me that the first activity of the day involved students voting with their feet. They moved to a specific corner of the room if they enjoyed writing at school and considered themselves good writers. Similarly, students who considered themselves poor writers and didn’t enjoy writing at school moved to the opposite corner. Students placed themselves along the human continuum based on their feelings about writing in the school context. Overwhelmingly, the vast majority of the group of around 90 students from the local high school and its primary feeder schools, regarded themselves as poor writers who did not enjoy writing at school.

Whether this informal poll is generalisable data is admittedly dubious. However, when I arrived at the school at the end of the day for teacher professional learning, I found a group of highly engaged, happy and proud students, eager to share their writing with me. The lucky students had spent the day being motivated to write by a high profile children’s author who shared his authentic secret business in relation to “writing like a writer” with the students. He provided them with insights and writing models from (his) quality texts, narrative, humour and multimodality that totally engaged and engrossed students in the writing process. Students’ shared excitement and pride in their writing efforts and their successes were tangible and infectious. The students had been mentored in writing by a “real” writer, providing a genuine context for their writing. The author worked hard in encouraging students to weave their emotions into their writing, delving into the affective domain, which involved a coming together of their hearts and minds in the act of writing.

It is suggested that the creativity and originality that promotes imagination, expressiveness and risk taking in the writing process is what is missing in the way that writing is taught in schools today, possibly as a result of the way writing is currently measured (Ewing, 2018, Frawley and McLean-Davis, 2015). Increasingly, the decline in writing results Australia-wide is attributed to the movement away from students engaging with processes linked to the creative arts, including imagination, creativity, flexibility and problem solving, processes that have transformative potential (Rieber and Carton, 1987). It has been suggested that the creative magic of writing is possibly what is missing in the teaching of writing in schools today. “What if we brought the magic back into the teaching of writing? It’s in teachers’ hands” (Adoniou, 2018).

Figure 6: Middle Years Writing workshop (2017)

Teaching writing in the digital age

Our students are products of a digital world, and they seem to not respond well to the writing teaching practices of the past (Johnson, 2016; Kaya and Ates, 2016; Vue et al., 2016, Engestrom, 2001). Table 2 below shows how our digitally mediated culture has impacted the way we teach writing, classified by Engestrom (2001) as the old and new way to teach writing. Teaching writing with new technologies requires a shift in how teachers conceptualise writing teaching in their classrooms.

This is now	That was then
Process approach sits alongside writing skills focus.	Product based approach.
Draws on methods and motivators used by published authors. Learning to “write like a writer”.	Teaching writing usually the domain of the classroom teacher.
Both writing skills and processes taught together.	Skills-based focus.
Writing tasks have real-world purpose. Focus on communicative action/ meaning.	Compliance discourse, for example, praise for product.
New understandings and models of authoring and publishing texts. Focus on how language works. Functional view of grammar.	Grammar focus.
Use of an increasing range of digital writing tools and web based apps and programs.	Pencil/pen and paper writing tools.
Writing and sharing to a wider [often electronic] audience.	Traditional publishing of stories and books.
Authentic writing tasks across all key learning areas.	Writing was the domain of subject English.
Need to combine digital and non-digital media in teaching writing.	Writing was taught using non-digital media.

Table 2: Writing in a digitally mediated culture (adapted from Engestrom, 2001)

Students (and adults) are forever writing, in the forms of text messages, blogs, emails, snapchats, Facebook posts, Tweets, Instagram posts and so on, suggesting high and increased engagement in, and importance of, writing as a result of our digitally mediated culture. The use of digital tools has changed the composing and publishing process. Yet there seems to be a divide between school writing, typified by low engagement and writing in the real world, typically a high engagement task. We need to build a bridge between school and home writing, so teachers and students alike see the high gravitas of both as forms of written communication and making meaning. Digital tools are increasingly part of our world. Well-considered professional development and support is required, to address teacher dispositions in relation to using digital tools in the writing process while, at the same time, building teacher and student skills and expertise that will be sustained and built upon in practice.

As we discover more about neuroscience and human cognition, we are increasingly learning about how multiple formats of texts (multimedia) have a positive effect on learning through reducing the cognitive load on working memory, resulting in improved information processing and understanding (Johnson, 2016; Vue et al., 2016; Wilson and Czik, 2016). Computers do need to be a more integral part of the writing classroom. However, we need to authentically integrate them into learning tasks to improve pedagogy (Cutler and Graham, 2008). Most students have access to digital technology and use it to stay connected. It is their preferred mode of text-based communication. The challenge as we learn more through research seems to be how we can increasingly integrate digital tools to promote quality writing through real-world, authentic and semiotic (meaning-making) writing tasks; and at the same time “hook into” the high student engagement associated with digitally mediated communication (Johnson, 2016; Jones, 2015).

I witnessed one school’s attempt to span the home-school writing divide, similar to the “bridgeable knowledge gap” (Hattie and Yates, 2013). Stage 3 students wrote stories, illustrated them, captured them digitally, they then displayed them as QR codes in their classrooms accessed via their mobile phones. In this way, the old and new ways of teaching writing come together in an engaging format, easily shared both locally and with a wider electronic audience.
However, focusing on digital tools in the writing process is not enough, as these can fail on application, and students need to be independently competent written communicators, to succeed at school and in life. The goal is for students to achieve capability writing in authentic ways, to the real world. Authentic writing involves students understanding the relevance and importance of what they are writing, often publishing to a wider, electronic audience.

Turning around school writing results: a case study

In 2013, I surveyed 160 schools and from these data, selected 4 case-study schools to determine the impact and sustainability of collaborative professional learning (Beveridge, 2015). One of these schools had an ongoing focus on the teaching of writing which resulted in a significant and sustained “turn around” in their writing results. They achieved this enviable outcome through a range of whole school strategies that other schools could possibly learn from, and are worthy of sharing to a wider education audience.
The school is classified as a metropolitan government primary school, with an enrolment of 166 students (ACARA, 2012). There are seven full-time teaching staff, a non-teaching principal and one class per grade. It is a small country school, situated on the outskirts of a large regional centre. Contrary to the extant literature (Little, 2006; Louis, Marks and Kruse, 1996; Stoll et al., 2006), I did not find that school size is a clear determinant of whether professional learning is sustained, as this school, as well as a large high school case study, both sustained their learning over a number of years, whilst my other two case study schools did not. It seemed to have more to do with a school culture of collaboration and sharing that facilitated the changes that resulted in professional learning being sustained (Beveridge, 2016).

Specific strategies the school had firmly in place that supported a sustained improvement in writing, are loosely coupled to the framework of factors that sustain collaborative professional learning (Beveridge, 2016), and include:

Leadership strategies

The Principal was engaged in professional learning as an equal partner, and participated in team teaching sessions alongside teachers.
The school leadership team monitored teacher workloads to prevent teachers from taking on too much change at any one time.
Teachers were allocated 30 minutes additional release, to discuss and focus on the writing progress of three targeted students per week with the Principal.
The Principal and the class teacher jointly monitored student writing data.
The Principal was aware of and actively interested in students’ writing progress.

School-level strategies

Writing time was a priority in all classrooms, at a set time, every day.
There was whole school buy-in of a spelling program that staff co-designed, daily, at an assigned time. There was ongoing reflection on and adjustment of the spelling program based on formative assessment data and identified student learning needs.
Teacher professional learning was regarded as a high priority. Regular collaborative professional learning meetings where teachers discussed latest research, how to implement relevant writing strategies in their classrooms and what they looked like in practice, was facilitated by an external literacy coach. The literacy coach worked towards making herself redundant by building school capacity that would remain in the school when she moved on.
Teachers had between session tasks to complete in their classroom, concretely linking theory with their daily practice of teaching writing.
Collaborative reflection on what worked in the local context, based on evidence, was a feature of professional learning meetings.
Professional learning cohered with the school plan and focused on one target at a time, with leadership support.

Teacher-level strategies

A literacy coach worked in-class, shoulder to shoulder alongside teachers. She also had timetabled one-to-one regular release time with teachers to reflect, and provide feedback on their individual goals, teaching practice and student learning.
The class teacher targeted three students per week to discuss writing goals with the Principal and literacy coach, who supported them in-class in achieving their goals. In this way, over a term, each student received specific, intensive individualised writing instruction in addition to their regular class support.
Teachers organised and implemented their own peer evaluation and feedback sessions with whomever they felt most comfortable among their colleagues. Peer observation and feedback sessions were timetabled regularly.
The literacy coach observed teachers’ lessons, and provided targeted feedback to assist them in achieving their jointly planned professional learning goals. Class teachers put a lot of effort into showing the literacy coach that they were using her advice in practice. Professional trust was tangible.
A range of multimodal writing tools were used by teachers and students to create texts, share their texts with a wider audience and stay connected both inside and outside the classroom.

I have viewed a number of conference presentations and teach-meets at which teachers from the school presented their writing program, and shared their exemplary practice with wider educational audience. The staff and students shared a love of writing. The strategies that the staff learned were firmly embedded in their daily practice, have been expanded and built upon, and are now regarded as “the way we do things around here” (Deal and Kennedy, 1982; Fullan and Hargreaves, 1991; Schuck, et al, 2012). Additionally, other schools visit the school to view first-hand teaching practice that resulted in them not only “turning around” their writing results but also sustaining their improved results over time. In opening up their writing classrooms to others, teachers were sharing the good news about what works in the teaching of writing across the broader education landscape.

…we collect data for writing and it’s really specific data for each student. Every student in my class gets feedback at least once a week on a piece of writing and that’s all part of what we’re doing. It’s hard. You see the improvement in student outcomes and it’s so worth every bit. (Natalie, team leader)

There was a clear, coherent developmental path to improving writing. It had both an individual and collective focus. There was ongoing teacher support from colleagues, a literacy coach, who was a “knowledgeable outsider” (Beveridge, Mockler and Gore, 2017) and acted as a critical friend to the school, as well as supportive school leadership. Strategies such as timetabled teacher meetings and team teaching sessions with the literacy coach, as well as data tracking meetings with the Principal, ensured that teachers were supported and learning was targeted to address both teacher and student needs. Professional learning which focused on improving student writing was like a continuum, a complex
interplay of affect, cognition, and metacognition, where teachers acted and collaboratively reflected on learning processes and ways to improve them in an ongoing cycle of improvement and reflexivity.

The “neglected R”: onwards and upwards

Reading and writing are complementary processes. Like reading, writing needs to be a priority across all grades and key learning areas, every day… both electronic and traditional writing, to get our message across and make ourselves understood. Too often in the literature it is termed “the neglected R” (Mo et al., 2014; Sessions, Kang and Womack, 2016; Graham, Hebert and Harris, 2015). A stronger systems focus on teaching writing is required to move and improve student writing results.
Teachers are in a privileged position to be able to ignite students’ passions in writing, and “put the magic back” (Adoniou, 2018) into the teaching of writing. One means of fostering a love of writing is by engaging students in writing through drawing on quality texts. In this way, students know and experience what great writing looks like, and jointly (and individually) experience the emotions that quality writing evoke. Through dialogic instruction, teachers are able to explicitly teach those skills that students demonstrate that they need in their independent writing, at the same time ensuring that there is designated, frequent class time for students to write and share their own written messages. Students require regular, authentic opportunities to write and share their work with others because writing is a communicative tool, the goal of which is to convey meaning to the reader and engage readers in meaning making
Do you think our identities as teachers of English and literacy more closely align with reading than writing? Have we unconsciously devalued writing?
(Frawley and McLean-Davis, 2015)

[1] ALARM is a learning and responding matrix to support student learning.

[2] SEAL and TXXXC are student writing scaffolds.

Adoniou, M. (19 October, 2018). Writing: Where has the Magic Gone? Keynote presentation at Writing the Future, Writing Intensive, Primary English Teachers Association of Australia (PETAA), University of Canberra, ACT.
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Beveridge, L., Mockler, N. and Gore, J. (2017). An Australian View of the Academic Partner Role in Schools. Retrieved 15 October 2018 from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2017.1290538
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Calkins, L. and Ehrenworth, M. (2016). Growing Extraordinary Writers: Leadership Decisions to Raise the Level of Writing Across a School and a District. The Reading Teacher, 70(1), 7- 18.
Clay, M. (1979). What did I write? Beginning Writing Behaviour. Auckland, N.Z., Heinemann Books.
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Deal, T. and Kennedy, A. (1982). Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Engestrom, Y. (2001). Expansive Learning at Work: Toward an Activity Theoretical Reconceptualization. Journal of Education and Work, 14(1), 133-156.
Ewing, R. (2018). (20 October). Creative Writing as an Art Form: “Woodworking” Keynote presentation at Writing the Future, Writing Intensive, Primary English Teachers Association of Australia (PETAA), University of Canberra, ACT.
Fisher, D., Frey, N., and Hattie, J. (2017). Teaching Literacy in the Visible Learning classroom: K-5 Classroom Companion to Visible Learning for Literacy. Thousand Oaks, CAL. Corwin.
Fountas, I. and Pinnell, G. (1996). Guided reading: good first teaching for all children. Heinemann. Portsmouth, NH.
Frawley, E., McLean Davies, L. (2015). Assessing the field: Students and teachers of writing in high-stakes literacy testing in Australia, English Teaching: Practice & Critique 14(2),83-99, https://doi.org/10.1108/ETPC-01-2015-0001
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Graham, S., Hebert, M. and Harris, K. (2015). Formative Assessment and Writing. The Elementary School Journal, 15(4), 523-547.
Hattie, J. (2012). Visible learning for teachers: maximizing impact on learning. London. Routledge.
Hattie, J. and Yates, G. (2013). Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn. Thousand Oaks, CAL. Corwin.
Holland, R. (2016). Deeper Writing: Quick Writes and Mentor Texts to Illuminate New Possibilities. Thousand Oaks, CAL. Corwin Press.
Johnson, L. (2016). Writing 2.0: How English Teachers Conceptualise Writing with Digital Technologies. English Education, 49(1), 28-62.
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Mo, Y., Kopke, R., Hawkins, L., Troia, G. and Olinghouse, N. (2014). The Neglected “R” in a Time of Common Core. The Reading Teacher, 67(6), 445- 453.
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Dr Lorraine Beveridge has been a NSWTF member for all of her 35 years teaching in the NSW Department of Education. She has held a range of executive roles, both in schools and supporting schools, building teacher capacity across the state. She currently works in curriculum. Her passion is building a love of literacy in students and teachers, and Quality Teaching. Lorraine’s PhD research is in the area of collaborative teacher professional learning.

Lorraine-Beveridge-For-Your-Future-What-Are-We-Going-To-Do-About-Writing_The-neglect-of-R Download

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NSW Syllabus: A Celebration of Public Education

The recent introduction of a new syllabus spurred this English Faculty to build and embed trust, transparency, and collaboration as the drivers of a cohesive and effective staffroom. Amy Peace and Louise Turk take us through the processes…

How To Build A Harmonious And Productive Workplace Culture

The celebration of the new English Syllabus began with the formation of a circle of colleagues, at Woonona High School, a co-educational secondary school in the northern suburbs of the Illawarra, NSW, on Dharawal Country. Each member of the English Faculty introduced themselves and their favourite reading text to other teachers within the school, and to guests from the wider educational community.

The circle was a metaphor. It was a symbol of equality amongst those who made the formation and a powerful emblem for the potential of transforming student thinking through a dynamic educational framework. Most importantly, it was an authentic circle. Its geometric simplicity was underpinned by an edifice which had taken leadership direction and considerable time to develop.

Before the launch day in November 2023, during which the English Faculty shared its new programming and resolute forward vision with the school community, a purposeful and steady change in work culture had been taking place. Faculty Head Teacher (acting), Ms Amy Peace, led a transformation to foster collaboration amongst Faculty members, and to develop their skills to respond to rapid change in the workplace. It involved providing opportunities for colleagues to build trust, innervating the sharing of ideas and knowledge and the desire to work together.

Building relational trust was the primary goal in equipping teachers to deal with the demands of preparing to introduce a new English Syllabus while, simultaneously, teaching the current syllabus (Hawkins, 2020). Peace, who is undertaking a Masters in Educational Leadership, understood the importance of creating a climate in which Faculty members could take necessary risks and experiment with innovation, and engage in robust professional dialogue (Barsade, 2002; Goleman,1999; Lipscombe et.al. 2020). The English Faculty needed to become an environment of transparency and accountability and one in which there was shared responsibility. She set to work.

We relied on each other for logistical and emotional support. Having a collective approach to the syllabus implementation helped to reduce the cognitive load and stress of programming and helped to create more comprehensive and exciting learning opportunities as we used each other as soundboards to generate new learning experiences and projects.

-Mr Jack Stranger, English classroom teacher

Peace focused on managing the wellbeing of the staff and developing a strong sense of Faculty identity (Goleman, 1999). The design and creation of a Faculty logo, with the visual imagery of an open book sprouting knowledge through metaphorical flowers, helped to create a sense of cohesion and foster a sense of pride amongst staff. The logo was proudly emblazoned on work shirts and was used as a watermark on digital resources. Its calming forest green palette became the thematic colour when the English classroom doors were repainted, transforming them from a less inspiring beige tint. Peace designed a Faculty flag, embedded with the logo, which was displayed at whole school meetings.

The physical environment of the staffroom was de-cluttered and purposefully organised, with all Faculty members sharing the responsibility for keeping the space clean and tidy. Ergonomic chairs were purchased. Fragrant reed diffusers, a coffee machine, a soda machine, and a hand-towel dispenser were added to the staffroom space. A display box in the English corridor featured professional photos of Faculty members. Small additions, one may ponder, but not insignificant when you are building a workplace culture of happiness and inclusion (Hawkins, 2020). Staff birthdays were celebrated with cake. The success of staff was celebrated weekly in school newsletters, bulletins, faculty meetings and with handmade cards, designed and crafted by the Woonona High School Principal, Ms Caroline David. David hand-wrote congratulatory messages inside the card and left the messages of acknowledgement on staff desks (across the school) with chocolate or home baked brownies. She frequently matched the photos or motifs around which she designed the cards to a personal connection with a staff member. David knew your favourite colour and which beach was closest to the coastal town where you grew up. It was the accumulation of these small but very deliberate and consistent affirmations towards staff that made coming to work a joyful process.

I love coming to work! My colleagues are the best and I really care about each one of them. I feel totally supported. I have never worked in a faculty that works so harmoniously together while also being honest and clear with each other – it is really refreshing. Amy (Peace) fosters this approach and is clear and kind to all of us in a calm and considered way.

-Ms Louisa Smith, English Faculty, second in charge

The English Faculty culture at Woonona High School is one that is built upon a steadfast foundation of a love for literature and the everlasting joys that come from this lifelong engagement. I believe that this bedrock is conducive to English as a subject being held in popular regard by students and staff within the school community, as the infectious nature of this mutually-held passion is an example in which students can, and do, follow. Further, the level of collegial support is unparalleled, both professionally and interpersonally. Genuine care and kindness are never absent, and again, it is this ethos, as set by the English staff at Woonona High School, that inspires students and staff alike to strive to be “Lifelong Learners”.

-Mr Saxon Penn, English classroom teacher

The next step in creating a workplace culture ready for rapid change was to introduce processes that would reduce the cognitive load for teachers (Sweller,1988). Clear and transparent processes were necessary to create an equitable teaching environment in which every individual understood their role and contribution. New templates were created for learning programs and scope and sequences. The role of year coordinators was clearly defined. The sharing of programs and resources on the Faculty Google Drive was refined to make the location of information more streamlined.

At the start of the implementation phase of the new syllabus in 2023, the Faculty designed a collaborative timeline for the next twelve months. This collaborative and critically reflective process allowed for a visualisation of the journey ahead (Jefferson, 2017). Time in Faculty meetings was devoted to assessing how current programs could be modified to meet the requirements of the new syllabus.

Collaboration within the Woonona High School English Faculty and collaboration between six schools in the Illawarra; Dapto, Illawarra Sports, Kiama, Lake Illawarra and Warrawong High Schools (known as the Curriculum Network Illawarra (CNI) Professional Learning Network) ensured the transition between syllabi was an efficient process. The slow and methodical systems and processes resulted in accuracy, agency and accountability.

The first step was to audit our programs to identify the gaps and opportunities in our current scope and sequence. I initially found myself quite confused and overwhelmed at how we would navigate this process and found that taking the initiative to collaboratively design processes was the best way to visualise where we were at and where we needed to go. By creating a syllabus outcomes checklist, we were able to evaluate our programs in a comprehensive and consistent way which made it easier to “respoke the wheel” as opposed to starting from scratch.

-Mr Jack Stranger, English classroom teacher

Time in Faculty meetings to discuss changes, State-wide professional learning and staff development days with a focus on new directions, new texts, and the wording of outcomes really helped to clarify my understanding of the new syllabus.

-Mrs Marnie Whidden, English classroom teacher

The mood of the launch of the new English Syllabus last November can best be described as incandescent. Staff from across all Faculties at Woonona High School, the executive of the school, student representatives, and community representatives including the NSW Teachers Federation President, Mr Henry Rajendra and NSW Teachers’ Federation Organiser, Mr Duncan McDonald, were united in an exciting vision for the future.

That vision includes creating an educational landscape in which student voice and agency are at the forefront of the English classroom. Was the plan to build relational capability within the English Faculty at Woonona High School a success and, ultimately, will it make a difference to the social and academic progress of students? The last word goes to classroom teacher, Mr Shane Pratt.

I feel confident moving forward and implementing changes. One of the largest reasons I feel this confidence is because I feel supported by my faculty and my head teacher. I feel empowered to try new ideas and implement my own flair to programming and don’t feel restricted or inhibited to make the program my own.

If we have teachers feeling confident and empowered in the workplace, then this will only lead to increased positive outcomes for our students.

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA] (2018). National Literacy Learning Progression (adapted for NSW Syllabuses). https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/wcm/connect/32837681-1ffc-49b3-8069-c756611ff054/national-literacy-learning-progression.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=

Barsade, S. G. (2002). The Ripple Effect: Emotional Contagion and its Influence on Group Behavior. Administrative Science Quarterly, 47(4), 644-675. https://doi.org/10.2307/3094912

Goleman, D. (1999) Working with Emotional Intelligence, Bloomsbury, England.

Hattie, J. (2011) Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximising Impact on Learning. Taylor & Frances Ltd, England.

Hawkins, G. (2020) Mentally At Work, Mentally At Work, Melbourne, Australia.

Jefferson, M. & Anderson, M. (2017) Transforming Schools: Creativity, Critical Reflection, Communication, Collaboration. Bloomsbury, Australia

Lipscombe, K., Bennett, S., Kidson, P., Gardiner, P. & McIntyre, A. (2020). Leadership for Learning Frameworks. Sydney: NSW School Leadership Institute. https://ro.uow.edu.au/asshpapers/150

NSW Education Standards Authority (2022) English K-10 Syllabus https://curriculum.nsw.edu.au/learning-areas/english/english-k-10-2022/overview

John Sweller ( 1988 April – June) Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning Cognitive Science Vol 12 Issue 2 257 -285

– Cognitive Load Theory – an explanation:

https://wind4change.com/cognitive-load-theory-john-sweller-instructional-design/
https://leadinglearnerdotme.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/3-cognitive-load-theory-sweller-via-cese.pdf

Louise Turk is a classroom teacher and 2iC in the English Faculty at Woonona High School. She is a Higher School Certificate marker in English Advanced and English Standard. This is her ninth year teaching English for the NSW Department of Education. Turk is a former Fairfax journalist.

Amy Peace is the Head Teacher (rel.) of English at Woonona High School. She has been championing Public Education for sixteen years in various roles, including Teachers’ Federation Women’s Contact, Curriculum Network Illawarra (CNI) Leader and Higher School Certificate marker. Her passions are improving equity in teaching and learning and driving systemic change to improve conditions for teachers and students.

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Different implementation approaches to the new English syllabus

English Head Teachers, Emma Campbell, Steve Henry, and Rosemary Henzell, share the motivators and contextual variables that were the driving force behind their approach to planning and programming for the new 7-10 English Syllabus. . .

Much like new homeowners facing a house quaintly described as “well-loved and full of character”, faculties facing a new English syllabus must ask themselves a single question: “Repaint, renovate, or rebuild?” For some, the thought of doing any more than a quick update will be overwhelming, while others may see it as a chance to fix issues that have been bothering them for years. A total overhaul offers us an opportunity to completely reconfigure our programs to fit our current world: a huge amount of work initially, but with the possibility of a wonderful final product. Regardless of where we sit along this spectrum, however, we must not allow fittings, fixtures, and furniture to distract us from the core purpose of such an endeavour: to build a home for ideas, student thinking and deep engagement with texts and language. This is, and always has been, our priority.

In her keynote address at last year’s CPL Secondary English Conference (2023), Jackie Manuel traced the through lines of the NSW English syllabus, from its origins in 1911 to its most recent iterations. Using Jeanette Winterson’s observation that ‘everything is forever imprinted with what it once was’ (The Stone Gods, 2008), Jackie reminded us of the echoic nature of our syllabus, from the original statement that it is in the ‘study of . . . literature that the High School will exercise its highest influence upon the general training of pupils’ (NSW Department of Public Instruction,1911, p. 5, p. 18) to the most recent aim of the syllabus where students learn to ‘appreciate, reflect on and enjoy language, and make meaning in ways that are imaginative . . . and powerful.’

The notion that we, as teachers, may be able to embody these ideals and affect the lives of the next generation in ways that are lasting, profound and enriching, still motivates young people to enter the classroom and our profession. Jackie’s reminder of our educational inheritance then becomes an important touchstone for the tackling of the new syllabus over the last twelve months and it is these broader aims of the new syllabus, rather than the more performative measures of ATAR or HSC band analysis that are our starting point.

Emma Campbell and Steve Henry (Head Teachers of English: Cherrybrook Technology High)

Where are we now?

Working in an English faculty, with some genuine stability and experience at the heart of the staffing roster, and with a large student cohort that is generally motivated and socially privileged, our approach to the new syllabus was equivalent to a home renovation. Yes, there were going to be drop sheets and dust and some demolition, scraping, smells of paint and turpentine but the structure of our programs would remain largely intact.

New syllabus as opportunity

Looking back over the years, the regular changes to the syllabus stand out, but there are other changes that have affected us as well and it’s worthwhile pondering these shifts in order to put the new syllabus in context. At the national level we’ve had the push for a national curriculum, but NSW has held fast to its commitment to the HSC, so it has felt less like a tidal shift and more like an insistent current. More profound has been the siloing of our schools and faculties, firstly with the loss of a structured approach to local networks of English teachers, then with Covid and now with the teacher shortage and the sheer exhaustion of administrative overload. We have all, it seems, been attempting the impossible: to develop our own networks, to connect where we can, to learn, discuss, tinker, sweep away the old, renovate, rebuild or re-shape our programs within the time and personnel limitations of our schools and system. Has it been possible to see this as more opportunity than burden? Talking with others and moving through this process, we think so. Perhaps we are limited in our own siloed experience or, perhaps, the simple fact is that the English teachers of NSW regularly do the impossible. For us, the opportunity to refresh and re-shape has been welcome, particularly given the obvious shifts within the lives of our teens, artificial intelligence, the distractions and distorting effects of social media, the rise of anxiety and the deficits left by covid. But to tell this story, it might be better to move away from a building metaphor to an image that is less static.

The car, and the kid in the passenger seat

At the centre of our review, then, we placed the students. Our classrooms demanded a new curriculum because the students sitting in them have been buffeted by these enormous forces, reforming their ways of engaging in the world. Our goals: encourage closer reading, deeper engagement, and authentic composition, so students could harness that power we have for so long been encouraging.

The new syllabus, freed from some of the clutter, offered a chance to slow down our program. Metaphorically, we wanted to upgrade the car. We wanted to take the students from passive passengers( glued to their phones in the front seat, eventually squinting into sunlight, wondering where they were and how they ended up there) to being the ones who ask for the keys.

The syllabus, with its focus areas of reading, understanding, and responding, has allowed multiple points of entry, because English, as a discipline, does not have a clear start and end point. Our students are cast as readers, who grow to critique others’ work, and develop the confidence to compose their own, before going back to read some more to help refine their writing. We want them to stop thinking about learning as a passive journey that their teachers are navigating for them from A to B to C. Instead, opening a book is being dropped at any point of the map and navigating their way back to clarity.

A clean car with seat warmers and safety cameras is offering us the best opportunity to reacquaint our teens with the power and magic of language. Upon returning to the classroom after online learning, our students were hesitant to take charge of their learning – reluctant to answer questions, mulishly splitting up a group task into four individual responses, politely asking how many quotes they need in each paragraph to get an A, before they’d actually read the end of the novel. Paring back our units, focusing on structured discussion, allowing space for confusion to grow into understanding, is, we hope, teaching them how to drive.

Rosemary Henzell (Head Teacher English: Canterbury Girls High School)

Where should we start?

Coming into a new faculty on the brink of a new syllabus was both a blessing and a curse. Having just arrived, I hadn’t had a chance to see most of the programs in action before I needed to begin discussions about what our approach should be. On the other hand, early conversations with teachers revealed the need for significant changes as well as a readiness to revamp and renew. Our school was in a Local Government Area (LGA) of concern during COVID, and the aftereffects of strict lockdowns were evident in disconnection between students and in the decline of some faculty processes, compounded by changes in staff. We settled on an ambitious but necessary project: a complete knock-down and rebuild of our 7-10 programs, recycling some quality materials where possible, but integrating them into a brand new build.

Planning our ‘dream home’

Like for Steve and Emma, the new syllabus, therefore, became a marvellous opportunity. It invited us to have reflective and evaluative conversations about our values, our expectations for our students and what we cherished about our role as English teachers. These conversations, at the beginning of 2023, centred around four key questions:

Where are we at right now?
Where do we want to go?
What does ‘excellence’ look like for us?
Why do we want to go there?

These discussions were instrumental in allowing us to drill down into what mattered most to us, and what we felt our students needed in today’s world. Similar to Cherrybrook, deeper engagement with reading, developing students’ critical thinking, and supporting them to find their personal voice through authentic writing opportunities were at the forefront of our plans. We also considered social-emotional development in our choice of concepts, ensuring positive and affirming ideas were present to balance out the dark, and providing opportunities to tackle big issues in authentic and productive ways. Armed with Jane Sherlock and Deb Macpherson’s incredible list of suggested texts from the 2022 CPL Secondary English Conference, we embarked on a revamp of our book room.

A brand new 7-10 scope and sequence, backward-mapped from Year 11 and 12, became our schematics. Introducing a conceptual framework approach, I led small faculty teams through the creation and structuring of units during once-a term planning days. Release time was hard to come by, but we were supported, wherever possible, by the Executive to achieve this. This rebuild was only made possible by the incredible dedication of our faculty, and it is a testament to those collective efforts that by the time we wrapped up in 2023, we had completed programs for all units, including assessment tasks drafts and conceptual introduction resources. The house was built…but there wasn’t a lot of furnishing in place yet!

Resisting the one-size-fits-all McMansion

I am a firm believer that programming lies at the heart of our work as English teachers. The process of interpreting a syllabus through the creation of structured, meaningful and experiential learning activities relevant to my particular content and cohort of students has always been one of my greatest joys, and methods of development, as a teacher. Collaboration with our colleagues through co-creation turns a scope and sequence into a living, breathing entity that is capable of growth, evolution and innovation. As we teach, we become what Steve calls the embodied syllabus – we are the vehicle and vessel for student learning, deep thinking, questioning, creation and reflection. Let me be clear – I’m not suggesting that every program in every school must be built from scratch, and the sharing of units and resources is central to our practice (and survival!). However, if we are not cultivating our programming skills, or supporting others to cultivate theirs, we risk losing our ability to synthesise future shifts in syllabus focus with the enduring truths and values of our subject. We must remain connected to our history, our core purpose and beliefs as English teachers, perhaps drawing inspiration from Charles Olson (1997) when he says:

whatever you have to say, leave
the roots on, let them
dangle.

And the dirt

Just to make clear
where they come from

Let us always remember where we have come from, and cherish the dirt beneath our fingernails that is a sign of our dedication and efforts.

New South Wales Department of Public Instruction, (1911) NSW English Syllabus

Olson, C., (1997) These Days from The Collected poems of Charles Olson University of California Press

Winterson, J., (2008) The Stone Gods Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Steve Henry is currently Head Teacher of English at Cherrybrook Technology High School and has taught senior English for many years. Steve has been the Supervisor of Marking in the Texts and Human experiences module.

He has been involved in writing study guides and articles for the Sydney Morning Herald and the ETA on a range of HSC topics. Steve has a love for creative and innovative writing.

Emma Campbell is currently Head Teacher of English at Cherrybrook Technology High School. She has been involved in HSC marking, syllabus development, and pre-service teacher education. She is currently in the process of implementing whole school literacy and writing programs to empower students’ authentic engagement with literature.

Rosemary Henzell is currently Head Teacher English at Canterbury Girls High School. She has contributed to the Journal of Professional Learning as well as CPL podcasts, and has been published in the Journal for Adolescent and Adult Literacy. She has a keen interest in Load Reduction Instruction as a means to manage cognitive load and Project Zero’s work in Creating Cultures of Thinking.

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Teaching English to Teenage Tourists

Steve Henry offers some reflections on the challenges faced by English teachers in a time when social media has an all-encompassing influence on the students they seek to engage . . .

It was 2011. An English teacher in Sydney woke up, brewed his coffee and enjoyed a podcast as he drove his little white Yaris to work. Things seemed normal as he tried to avoid eye contact with the ‘talker’ at the sign-on book and then looked hopefully at the table in the English staffroom for any sign of baked goods. Period 1, his Year 10 class wandered in and sat down, but something was different.

The English teacher looked closely, they seemed . . . glazed. ‘Krispy Kreme students’ he thought.

‘You guys lose a bit of sleep last night?’ he asked.

They stared back at him like stoned goldfish.

Later he shared his donut joke with a younger teacher.

‘Oh, you just need to click the ‘like’ button,’ she said.

‘What’s a ‘like’ button?’

The next day he found a big thumbs up button at the front of the room. Whenever a student volunteered an answer or read out some of their writing he’d sidle over to it, tap it, and wow wouldn’t their ears perk up? Wouldn’t their eyes light up? What was there not to like about the ‘like’ button?

Still, he couldn’t help but notice that the ‘like’ button was placed front and centre of the room. Was it possible to be jealous of a button?

Agents of Online Culture

Someone has left open the door to our teenagers’ rooms and Online Culture Agents have snuck in and set up camp. They sing their seductive little TikTok songs, the glow of their campfire screens keeps our teens awake and all the talk is of Snapchat romances and insta-friendships. Their culture is replete with its own filters, rituals, skillsets and values. They are sneaky good.

Now when our teenagers arrive at their classroom some of them behave as if they are tourists.

Glazed. Homesick for their online world.

We become what we behold (Father John Culkin)

Warning: Mixed metaphors ahead.

In 2021, Facebook admitted that Instagram was toxic for teenage girls. A Roy Morgan survey showed that Australian teenage girls on average spend nearly two hours a day on social media (Morgan, 2018). American adults touch their phones 2,617 times a day (Naftulin, 2016). Classes have fallen silent, fake news now travels six times faster on Twitter than real news. COVID-19 has exacerbated the already parlous mental wellbeing of teens who are being hospitalised for self-harm in record numbers (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2023). Social media notifications are no longer novelties, they are little devils that demand to be fed at all times. The technology of distraction has ceased being a home invader – it’s now bringing us coffee so we can stay up and watch another YouTube clip or wait for another ‘like’. The algorithm that baits the social media hooks has determined that the negative emotions of outrage and anger will keep us right there . . . stoned goldfish.

Behold, our students are becoming what they are beholding.

Martin Gurri and Jonathan Haidt have talked about the way social media can be a type of ‘universal solvent’ (Haidt, 2022) at once dissolving many of the barriers behind which abuse and injustice have lain hidden but also eating away at the mortar of institutional trust and challenging the significance of those shared rituals that are foundational to our collective values and identity. We tend to consider these things in isolation, the danger of Instagram, the increasing pace of life, mobile phones for children, invasive educational data, notifications and family filters. A sociologist would consider the way online culture has sought to fill a young person’s life with ‘entertainment’, removing time previously spent bored or in reverie or imaginative play or in face-to-face communication with family and friends. A psychologist would be rightly concerned at the impact of social media on the mental health of our young people, many of whom are exhausted by their inability to escape from the online world of heightened emotional response, cyber bullying, hyper-alertness and fractured attention. Parents worry about the lurking dangers of online predators and the closed bedroom doors of the online world their teens inhabit.

An English teacher has concerns as well, not just at the decay of basic skills and long-form reading, but with the subtle forms of narcissism and objectification that are entrenched in the online communication skillset.

The year is 2022. Our teacher is back in the Yaris and back to the classroom after two years of pandemic disruption and wretched attempts at getting students to speak or participate in zoom classrooms. He organises his Year 9 class into randomised groups to view and discuss film clips. Most groups work well, laughing and talking about the clip of Don and Peggy from Madmen, or the ‘Commander of the Felix Legions’ from Gladiator, or the ‘make him an offer he can’t refuse’ Godfather clip. But one group of boys sits there and stares awkwardly at one another . . . for five minutes, for ten minutes.

‘Come on you lot, get talking, get to work.’

‘But we don’t know each other sir. Can’t we work with our friends?’

‘No, you can’t. Introduce yourselves, ask questions, speak, talk, get at it.’

They sit there in their misery. ‘Like glassy little billiard balls’, he thinks to himself.

Back in the staffroom he relates his experience.

One teacher says that she changes the seating plan of her Year 8 class around every three weeks for this very reason.

Another English teacher, Mr Brennan (likewise a Yaris owner), explains that he has developed a series of sayings in reaction to the student obsession with staying connected.

‘No Snapchat, no backchat. We don’t Facebook, we face our books. Forget social media, try antisocial media.’ The ‘Brennanism’ is born.

Perhaps when Marshall McLuhan (1964) declared that ‘The medium is the message’ he envisaged something of what technology might bring with it. I suspect, however, that even he would be surprised at the seductive weight of both medium and message of online culture: stealing time and focus and, increasingly, our young people’s ability to think critically, relate open heartedly and listen carefully.

The skills and values of the English classroom

Speaking and Listening

Most English classrooms are set up to facilitate discussion. The classic ‘double horseshoe’ where students all face each other, or desks arranged in small groups. Students venture their opinions in an environment where random thoughts, whimsicality, philosophical musings, wry humour and tentative speculations are all welcomed as grist for the collective mill. The skill is in catching new ideas and putting them into words, developing deeper, more complex thinking and new perspectives and giving them shape, testing them out. The underlying values are the dignity and worth of each individual, a recognition that the class is better for the input of a variety of students.

What about formal debating? Two teams are sent off with a topic. They need to adopt a firm position on the topic, clarify and define, research and discuss, develop coherent arguments and summaries, make notes and collaborate. Then, they face their classmates and they disagree, armed with rational argument and clever rhetoric. They listen carefully to opposition points and do their best to counter and rebut. After the debate is over, they listen to the adjudication, accept defeat graciously or celebrate victory, thank each other and then sit down as colleagues. The formal debate privileges the skills of rationality, well-chosen example, and collaborative effort, it insists that an opposition argument is worth careful attention and the person who offers it is not to be mocked or belittled or sneered at. A debate takes students deep into relevant topics and asks them to wrestle with new ideas and possible solutions to current issues.

There are online forums and courses that aim to foster these same skills. However, the mediation of the screen and the potential for an almost unlimited audience immediately introduces troubling elements of anonymity, deception and spiteful feedback. Cacophony becomes default. Many apps have, as their foundational principle, the notion that someone else is only worth listening to, or engaging with, if they look cool, or interesting, or beautiful . . . hey, otherwise, just move on, just swipe left (or right, our English teacher isn’t sure). The fast pace of the medium means that for the most part, students don’t have the time or opportunity to formulate coherent rational arguments and, even if they did, they couldn’t be sure that they would be listened to. No, better, to shout, better the loud insult than the nuanced argument, better to sell product as an influencer with hundreds of thousands of subscribers than to lose a debate.

Reading and Writing

It’s not all Krispy Kreme and billiards for our English teacher however. There are still many of THOSE moments, when a class is caught up in a story or play, drawing a collective breath when the rock plummets towards Piggy, screwing up their faces and trying not to leak at the end of The Book Thief. They walk out of the classroom taller, sadder, wiser, more reflective, more at one with their fellow students.

When a teacher challenges a class to read a Dickens novel, when they ask them to dig deeper into the poetry of Plath or Oodgeroo, they are asserting a set of values: that a novel is worth investing hours of their time into because it will cause them to think differently about life and people, that time spent in different worlds where they are not the centre of attention is well spent indeed.

Research has shown that reading long form fiction creates new neural pathways, strengthening brain activity, it reduces stress, amplifies our ability to empathise and helps alleviate symptoms of depression (Stanborough, 2019). The reading and study of poetry will likewise reward them, bring them to an understanding of how beautiful language can be when it harmonises form and freedom, careful word choice and unspeakable emotion, painful history and glimmers of hope and beauty, immortal visions and flickering mortality.

Our teacher suspects that the Online Agents are using books for their campfires. But where would they get them from? So many bookshops have closed.

‘Two old people are sitting on their porch. There’s a table between them and there is a pot of tea and some other item on the table. Write down what you see in your mind’s eye, the detail.’ Our English teacher begins another creative writing lesson. Thirty students, all in their school uniform have walked in, but within two minutes, each of them is developing a unique world, giving imaginative shape and texture to the sketched image their teacher has presented them with. The object on the table? A postcard, a gun, a porcelain dog, a newspaper, a linen bag, a single flower, a water pipe, a seashell, a fortune cookie, a pair of broken glasses, an empty photo frame. The students read out their pieces, listen, laugh, applaud or sit there, puzzled. No answer is dismissed, these are beginnings of stories and histories. They move on, experimenting with setting, form, character and plot.

Later that year, our teacher leads the students through the art of the formal essay. Some of them complain that they are confused. ‘Good’, he answers. ‘Stay in that valley until you find clarity, then write your way out.’

The way we read has changed with the broken-dam-deluge of information that overwhelms us. We scan text for things of immediate interest, skimming texts instead of engaging with them. The algorithm that filters texts for our consumption is not geared for nuanced perspectives, worthy literature or balanced world view and the deep focus and flow states that are an enriching part of novel reading are sacrificed for the assumption that anything that doesn’t capture our attention in the first few seconds is of lesser value. Johann Hari (2022) tells us that this move away from sustained reading ‘creates a different relationship with reading. It stops being a form of pleasurable immersion in another world and becomes more like dashing around a busy supermarket to grab what you need and then get out again.’

The corporate values that are the impulse of major media corporations also provide the impetus for the writing that succeeds in this culture: fast, emotionally manipulative, accusatory, spin-laden and catchy. Online Culture (OC) creates space for important conversations and shines its light into dark corners of abuse and prejudice, but it is also the breeding ground for shallow comparison and envy, untested theories and obvious untruth. While the immediate potential of a world-wide audience has its egalitarian element, there is considerable risk for today’s shy teen who writes themselves onto the screen and then sits there, tragically isolated in the 24/7 glare, unable to hide from cyber nasties and trolls.

Why have we accepted the hairy-chested intrusion of surveillance capitalism and the self-referential algorithm into the lives of our children? These cultural bullies seek to elbow physical reality aside and replace the contemplative and creative disciplines of reading and writing with grunting emojis, narcissistic posing and a billion snippets of vacuous trivia and forgettable TikTok performances. If we really think our children are somehow safe from the trillion-dollar social media culture agents then perhaps we should ask ourselves how well we’ve done with it, whether we, the ‘adults in the room’ have been able to resist the constant distractions that have fractured our attention and fostered our obsessive focus on small screens on trains.

A classroom counterstep

Where does all of this leave our teacher? Tasked with teaching a set of skills, passing on a love of literature and fostering the accompanying values that are increasingly being relegated to the margins of a dominant OC, he feels that his subject, far from being regarded as central to learning and life, is now becoming niche. He feels like one of those guerrilla gardeners, sneaking into the concrete landscapes that OC agents have constructed in his students’ lives, hoping to plant some fragile little seed.

Or, perhaps he should just join them. Trade up for a car that is more corporate and a job that is more in tune with the pace and monetised values of the online culture.

Or perhaps English teaching is now more important than ever

Every culture, every religion or system of thought, every artistic or artisanal endeavour, every scientific breakthrough relies on the teacher student nexus to survive into the next generation. Mentors and mentees, masters and apprentices, professors and students, teachers and disciples, the aged and the young, the key is to be found not in the method, but in the nature of that ageless, archetypal relationship. Set against the emotional fragility or explosive echo chambers of online connections, are the robust interactions between a teacher and student. The best learning has always been cocooned within the teacher student relationship. My contentions here are that:

English teaching is increasingly a counter cultural activity.
The antidote to some of the damage done by online culture can be found within the stable learning environment of the teacher student relationship. Culture, skills and knowledge mediated not by screen or algorithm, but by a teacher.

Healthy teacher student relationships exist when a student is challenged to grow and learn but can find support in the process. They exist where students are celebrated for their uniqueness and are expected to rejoice in the difference of others and the richness that brings. They exist when students are helped towards clarity, not popularity. Disagreement and argument will naturally exist within a classroom, but a robust student teacher connection will humanise it and provide students with avenues for asserting their perspective, listening to others and growing in understanding. Texts are introduced into the relationship, not with the aim of added screentime or the promotion of moral superiority, but with the hope they will touch something deep in the student and provoke self-reflection, greater wisdom and empathy. Healthy teacher student relationships include moments of catharsis, they develop their own rituals and routines and foster resilience. They feel safe and inspiring in equal measure, they mitigate against extremes, they force students to recognise their own knowledge and skill deficit and challenge them into pathways of growth. The dynamics of classroom relationships requires students to submit to authority and requires authority to bow to the needs of students. Tasks are attempted, the syllabus is followed, the imagination is engaged, mistakes are made, reflection is required, apologies are offered, lessons are learned, jokes are laughed at, skills are cultivated, day after day, year after year.

This face-to-face relationship remains the best model we have for passing on the best we have to offer to all of the next generation, regardless of social position.

In a nutshell, our teachers, not our textbooks, are the embodiment of the finest things that we want for our next generation. They lead, they serve.

This is why our teacher should puff out his chest when he wakes up and gets into his Yaris tomorrow morning. English teaching (and all teaching) is more important now than ever. The challenges faced are of a different scale and the task is increasingly difficult but more urgent. Educational policy must not first be one of data or corporate values but must recognise that the student teacher relationship must be privileged.

And if he walks into Year 9 and sees a student take out their phone he will say, ‘Put that away and get ready to listen carefully, to read and think deeply, speak thoughtfully and write beautifully.’ He will mutter his favourite Brennanism, ‘Instagram? I don’t give a damn’ to himself and then say to the class:

‘Alright everyone, today we are going to start with this question. In The Book Thief, when Liesel Meminger’s world descends into chaos, why is it that she chooses books to steal? Eh? Why books?’

*This article was originally published in mETAphor in 2022

References

Haidt, J., (2022, May) Why the Past 10 Years of American Life have been Uniquely Stupid The Atlantic, May 2022

Hari, J., (2022, January ) Stolen Focus Bloomsbury Publishing

McLuhan, M., (1964) Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man,

Morgan, R. (2018, May 14). Young Women the Queens of Social Media in Australia. Blog: http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/7584-social-media-minutes-by-gender-age-march-2018-201805110812#:~:text=The%20average%20Australian%20aged%2014,of%20one%20type%20or%20another.

Naftulin,J. (2016, July 13), Here’s how many times we touch our phones every day, Business Insider, 13 July 2016, https://www.businessinsider.in/Research-shows-we-touch-our-cell-phones-2617-times-per-day/articleshow/53197026.cms

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data. Retrieved March 12, 2023, from https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/populations-age-groups/intentional-self-harm-hospitalisations-among-young

Stanborough, R, J. Benefits of Reading Books: How It Can Positively Affect Your Life, Healthline, October 15, 2019 https://www.healthline.com/health/benefits-of-reading-books

Steve Henry is currently Head Teacher of English at Cherrybrook Technology High School and has taught senior English for many years. Steve has been the Supervisor of Marking in the Texts and Human Experiences module.

He has been involved in writing study guides and articles for the Sydney Morning Herald and for the English Teachers’ Association (ETA) on a range of topics.

Steve has a love for creative and innovative writing.

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‘A word after a word is power’: Reflections on reading in Secondary English

Jackie Manuel reflects on the nature of, and importance of, teaching reading in Secondary English. She encourages teachers to utilise their students’ experiences to increase their engagement in reading for pleasure . . .

Introduction

When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young. Maya Angelou

As English teachers, one of our abiding aspirations is to foster our students’ intrinsic motivation to read. We know that this intrinsic motivation is sparked when students derive personal rewards, satisfaction and enjoyment from their growing command and confident use of language. We also know that the motivation to read depends on a purpose that has meaning for the individual (cf. Dickenson, 2014).

We may read for myriad reasons including for pleasure, curiosity, information, connection, solace or sanctuary, or to be transported beyond the ordinary. So, in every sense, the act of reading can be understood as part of the identity work that lies at the heart of English.

Some decades ago, Scholes (1985) encapsulated this relationship between language, reading, writing and identity when he argued that:

… reading and writing are important because we read and write our world as well as our texts and are read and written by them in turn. Texts are places where power and weakness become visible and discussable, where learning and ignorance manifest themselves, where the structures that enable and constrain our thoughts and actions become palpable. This is why the humble subject ‘English’ is so important (p. xi).

His insights still resonate, perhaps with even greater force in our fast-faced, technology-driven, language-dense and image-laden context. The assumptions embedded in this rationale are worth considering for their enduring relevance and include:

a view of students as active meaning-makers, reading and writing their identity and their world;
the symbiotic relationship between reading, writing, interiority and agency;
reading and writing as social and communal (‘our’ / ‘we’) as well as individual pursuits; and
the political implications of reading and writing for expanding and empowering, or conversely, constraining ‘our thoughts and actions’.

In this article, I share some reflections on teaching reading in secondary English. These reflections formed part of the first session of the 2022 Centre for Professional Learning Secondary English Conference.

Starting with the self

Garth Boomer, the eminent Australian educator, wrote that:

[w]e are in hard times, when money and imagination is short; patience must be long. In order to make struggle and survival possible, we need to make explicit to ourselves and others (in so far as we can) the way the world is wagging (1991, n.p.).

It may come as a surprise to know that Boomer made this observation thirty-two years ago (1991). That his words speak to our present moment perhaps suggests the extent to which ‘struggle and survival’ are ever-present to some extent in our work as English teachers. Boomer’s message about the way through is plain: start with (and keep returning to) the self as the literal and metaphorical ‘still point’ that can enable us to sustain our passion, drive and aspirations. Articulating our philosophy, beliefs and values can reconnect us with those generative forces that shaped our initial decision to teach. It can also clarify and fortify our purpose when navigating ‘hard times’.

When it comes to reading, ‘starting with the self’ means taking the time to reflect on our own practices, preferences and attitudes. The prompts below may assist you and your students to consider the characteristics of your reading lives and to then explore the implications of your responses for your teaching and students’ learning.

Your reading life: Reflection prompts

Do you read?
Do you read regularly beyond the administrative and assessment demands of work?
If so, how often do you read and what kinds of reading to you prefer?
How would you describe yourself as a reader?
What conditions do you require to read?

Do you believe reading for pleasure is important. If so, why? If not, why not?
Do you read to/with your students? If so, how often?
Do you share your reading experiences, practices and preferences with others, including students?
Do you prefer to read on a device or read a hard copy, or a combination of both?

As teachers, our philosophy necessarily includes, and indeed influences, our pedagogical beliefs and actions. For this reason, it is also instructive to reflect on our current approach to teaching reading by asking questions such as those suggested here.

Teaching reading: Reflection prompts

What is your rationale and philosophy for teaching reading?

Do you make visible, regular time in class for reading?
How much of the in-class reading material is selected by you?
Do students have any choice in what they read in English?
Do you know what your students’ reading habits and preferences are?
How much student reading is tied to assessment and why?

Do students engage in reading a diverse range of texts?
Do students have the opportunity to read for pleasure and do you explicitly model and encourage this?
What are your strategies for supporting disengaged, reluctant or resistant readers?
Do students usually have a purpose for reading that is explicitly linked to their worlds?
Is there class time available for individual and/or shared reading and discussion about reading that is not linked to assessment?

Do your students prefer reading on devices or with a hard copy, or a combination of both?

Implicit in a number of these reflection prompts is the premise that learning best occurs when we activate, and then harness, the capital each learner brings to new situations or contexts. By capital, I mean the store of distinctive personal knowledge, skills and understandings shaped by:

lived experience;
passions and interests;

memories;
observations; and
imagination.

The work of Gee (1996) offers additional insights into the value of students’ language and experience capital – what he terms ‘Primary Discourses’ – as the basis for acquiring skills and knowledge to meet the more formal language demands of the classroom and society more broadly (Secondary Discourses). As Gee explains, Discourses are:

ways of being in the world, or forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, gestures, attitudes and social identities … A Discourse is a sort of identity kit, which comes complete with the appropriate … instructions on how to act, talk, and often write, so as to take on a particular social role that others will recognise (1996, p. 127).

He describes Primary discourses as ‘those to which people are apprenticed early in life … as members of particular families within their sociocultural settings … [They] constitute our first social identity. They form our initial taken-for-granted understandings of who we are’ (Gee,1996, p. 127).

In contrast, Secondary Discourses ‘are those to which people are apprenticed as part of their socialisations within various … groups and institutions outside early home and peer-group socialisation … They constitute the meaningfulness of our ‘public’ (more formal) acts’ (Gee, 1996, p. 137).

Students come to secondary school with ownership of, and confidence in, using the Primary Discourses they have developed through their everyday lives beyond school. Success in school, however, requires the increasing mastery of Secondary Discourses. These, for example, are the specialist discourses of subjects, essays, assessments and examinations. These discourses must be taught and learned.

Effective pedagogy recognises and builds on a student’s Primary Discourses as the foundation for initiating them into the necessary Secondary Discourses of the worlds of school, work and society more broadly. This, in turn, develops students’ understanding of how language functions to produce, reproduce or challenge power; and to exclude, include or marginalise. Without skill and mastery in language, we can be denied entry to the layered structures and systems of society.

A critical component of teaching, then, is to create connections between a student’s Primary Discourses – their unique lived experience, passions and interests, memories, observations, and imagination – and the generally unfamiliar Secondary Discourses we are aiming to equip them with through our teaching.

The capital that students bring to the classroom is often under-utilised or treated as peripheral when it should in fact constitute the wellspring for all learning.

In the discussion that follows, I explore this idea of student capital, along with a number of principles and conditions for optimising students’ engagement with the ‘magic world’ of reading.

The benefits of reading

We have plenty of research evidence to guide us in our approach to teaching reading in secondary English. Foremost is the understanding that ‘reading for pleasure has the most powerful positive impact of any factor on a young person’s life chances. So if you want to change their lives, make books and reading central to everything you do. And let them enjoy it’ (Kohn, n.d.).

There is a host of cognitive and affective benefits of reading – especially reading fiction for pleasure. Emerging research in neuroscience, for example, points to the far-reaching, positive impact of reading fiction on brain development, personality, Theory of Mind, social and emotional intelligence, and decision-making (Berns, 2022; Zunshine, 2006).

The Centre for Youth Literature (CYL, 2009) reports that from studies of the brain, neuroscience has ‘discovered that dynamic activity in the brain continues (beyond the age of six, when the brain is already 95% of its adult size) and the thickening of the thinking part of the brain doesn’t peak until around 11 years of age in girls, and 12 in boys’ (p. 12). Thus, at the time when students are making the transition from primary to secondary school, the neural pathways and connections that are stimulated will continue to grow, while those that are not will be thwarted:

[s]o, if 10 to 13-year-olds are not reading for pleasure, they

are likely to lose the brain connections; the hard-wiring

that would have kept them reading as adults. Reading

after this age could become an unnatural chore, affecting

young people’s ability to study at a tertiary level

and perform well in the workplace (CYL, 2009 pp. 11–12).

The same CYL report (2009) affirms that reading for pleasure:

supports literacy and learning in school;
enables young people to develop their own, better informed perspective on life;
is a safe, inexpensive, pleasurable way to spend time;
allows young readers to understand and empathise with the lives of those in different situations, times and cultures – to walk in the shoes of others; and

improves educational outcomes and employment prospects (p. 11).

Other studies, such as those conducted by Organisation of Economic and Co-operation and Development (OECD), establish a clear correlation between the quantity and quality of students’ reading for pleasure and their level of achievement in reading assessments. This is especially evident in reading assessments that require higher-order capacities for sustained engagement in ‘continuous’ texts, interpretation, empathising, speculation, reflection and evaluation (Australian Council of Educational Research [ACER], 2018).

From the Australian report on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) (ACER, 2018) it is worth dwelling for a moment on the finding that those students who indicated that they read widely and diversely had higher mean scores in PISA than those students who indicated a negative attitude to reading and a lack of breadth and diversity in their reading choices. Importantly, regardless of background and parental occupational status, those students who were highly engaged in reading achieved reading scores that were significantly above the OECD average (ACER, 2018).

For educators, parents and carers, the takeaway message from research and reports on programs such as PISA is the critical role we can play in nurturing young people’s proclivity to read, including reading for pleasure. Jackie French argues that it is the ‘make or break’ task of the adult to attentively guide, model and support the development of students’ sustained reading engagement, enjoyment and confidence. French insists that success in reading depends on the ‘young person + the right book + the adult who can teach them how to find it’ (French, 2019, p. 9). This ‘winning equation’ depends on the oft-neglected variables of individual taste, motivations and purposes for reading. Just as French has no desire ‘to read about the sex life of cricketers, any politician who isn’t dead, or any [book] with a blurb that includes “the ultimate weapon against mankind [sic]”’ (2019, p. 8), so too does each individual student come to reading with their own interests, appetites and antipathies (Manuel, 2012a, 2012b). Or, as Kohn (n.d.) puts it:

Students will become good readers when they read more.

Students will read more when they enjoy reading.

They will enjoy reading when they enjoy their reading material.

They will enjoy their reading material when they are left to choose it themselves.

These insights affirm what we as English teachers know: that reading widely, regularly and deeply has a profound impact on a student’s life chances.

Creating opportunities for student choice

Of course, the realities of syllabus requirements and classroom practice mean that what students read, their purpose for reading, and how they read in our classes (and beyond) is necessarily influenced by teachers’ judicious selection of texts and pedagogical choices. This expert curation of reading material and experiences by the teacher does not, however, preclude opportunities for students to exercise some degree of choice in the what, why, how and when of their reading.

Remembering that choice is the most critical factor in generating motivation, reading engagement, confidence and achievement, an effective and balanced reading program should provide access to a wide variety of reading materials so all students can experience: whole class or shared reading; small group or pairs reading; and individual reading.

In practice, this means designing a reading program that incorporates four strands.

Teacher-selected materials, based on the teacher’s understanding and awareness of the students’ needs, interests and capacities and the resources available to them.

Teacher-student negotiated materials – individuals or groups of students discuss and plan their reading choices and reading goals with the teacher.

Student-student negotiated selections – for example, Literature Circles, reading groups and Book Clubs.

Student self-selected reading material, as part of a wide reading program.

Time is a friend of reading

We understand from research that ‘students cannot become experienced until they actually engage in sustained periods of reading. This can be facilitated only when students are provided time to read and access to books they really can read’ (Ivey, 1999, p. 374). Establishing regular, dedicated time in class for reading (by the teacher and by students) is a key ingredient for developing young people’s motivation, reading habits and reading accomplishment. Even modest amounts of time allocated to reading – shared reading and individual reading – can yield substantial flow-through rewards, including that vital sense of belonging to a community of readers.

The power of modelling

One of the crucial roles of the teacher when it comes to reading is modelling: modelling reading practices, attitudes, habits and enthusiasm. Through modelling and using whole texts regularly (e.g. stories, poems, plays, articles) rather than fragments of text, the teacher can demonstrate that reading is a process of making meaning, embodied semantics, elixir for the heart and mind, and ‘bodybuilding for the brain’ (French, 2019, p. 9): reading is far more than merely the application of a series of sub-skills in standardised literacy tests.

The simple act of reading aloud to students can be a catalyst for a whole range of short- and longer-term benefits that include, but are not limited to:

Language development

Reading aloud to students helps to improve their language skills, including vocabulary, grammar, and syntax. It exposes them to new words and sentence structures, which they may not have encountered otherwise.

Cognitive development

Reading aloud helps to develop a student’s cognitive skills, including attention, memory, and critical thinking. It also helps to improve their ability to understand and interpret information.

Imagination and creativity

Reading aloud can stimulate a student’s imagination and creativity. It can transport them to new worlds, introduce them to different characters and situations, and encourage them to imagine new horizons.

Emotional development

Reading aloud can help to develop a student’s emotional intelligence by exposing them to different emotions and situations. It can help them to develop empathy and understanding of others’ ways of seeing and living in the world.

Relationship building

Reading aloud can provide an opportunity for shared experience and can contribute to stronger relationships between students and between students and the teacher.

Creating an optimal environment and nurturing a community of readers

In an optimal learning environment students feel invested in their learning by actively participating in shaping their own reading practices and experiences. A classroom environment that values and celebrates reading by ensuring it is visible, low-risk and enjoyable serves to bolster students’ readiness to engage with reading and other readers and, in turn, experience the social and personal affordances that reading can offer.

Creating an optimal environment means normalising the range and diversity of types of reading in everyday life. It means demystifying the reading process by modelling reading, reading often and understanding that reading is socially mediated. Familiarising students with otherwise unfamiliar texts and unfamiliar ways of reading is an essential component of strengthening each student’s reading proficiency and, as a consequence, their receptivity to new textual experiences.

Cultivating a community of readers means encouraging students to become curious, critical thinkers and meaning-makers, honing skills of prediction, anticipation, speculation, interpretation, reflection and evaluation through the shared experience of reading and talking about reading. Strategies that promote students’ active engagement with and response to reading include, for example:

The Four Roles of the Reader (Freebody & Luke, 1990).
Before reading, during reading and after reading tactics (cf. MyRead, Reading Rockets).
Reading contracts, reading wish-lists and Literature Circles.

Dramatic readings, representations and interpretations of texts.

Making connections

Earlier on, I briefly explored the principle of ‘starting with the self’ and the importance of getting to know and then utilising students’ capital as the basis for learning. Recognising and fostering the literacy and experiential capital of each and every student is a deliberate pedagogical approach that aims to engage students in learning by connecting the known with the new. Often, this approach can be realised through pre-reading/pre-viewing strategies, or what is otherwise referred to as ‘getting ready for the text’.

For example, strategies intended to arouse interest in the text, activate prior knowledge and experience and prompt speculation about the text can be as straightforward as using the text’s cover, title, images or blurbs to stimulate hypothesising, predicting and anticipation. Students do not require specialist knowledge or discourses to engage in discussion about what the cover or title of a text may suggest about its content and what it may remind them of. They draw on what they already know and understand in order to generate connections between their world and their initial ideas about the potential world of the text.

Other effective pre-reading/pre-viewing strategies include:

Creating a mystery box filled with items relevant to the ideas, action or characters of the text. Take one item at a time out of the mystery box and invite students to speculate on who it may belong to, what it reminds them of, what historical period it may come from, etc. This not only sparks students’ anticipation for the text: it also generates a lively and enjoyable discussion.

Engaging in role-play, scenarios or dialogue that have relevance to the ideas, themes, characters, or plot of the text.
Using an extract from the text, have students predict what may occur next, write the next scene, dramatise the scene or poem, discuss what the text may be about, based on the extract, etc.
Taking a key idea/issue/experience/theme explored in the text and inviting students to brainstorm and discuss their experience and understanding of this idea/issue/experience/theme in their own lives and in the world around them. For example: revenge, compassion, conflict, friendship, or overcoming adversity.

Concluding reflections

In a recent conversation, an English teacher shared an experience he had with a student who had just completed the HSC English examination. The student was elated. Why? Not because he had completed his school education in English but because, in his words: ‘I’ll never have to read another book again’. Unfortunately, this sentiment may be a familiar one to some or many of us. It can certainly prompt us to step back for a moment, to ‘look again’ (Boomer, 1991) at the principles, conditions and strategies that may help us to shift students’ negative attitudes to reading: to refocus on our guiding philosophy and aspirations. What do we want our students to remember about our English classes? What do we hope they will carry for their lifetime, because of our teaching? What will be our legacy?

If, like Margaret Atwood, we believe that ‘a word after a word after a word is power’, then there can be few greater life-changing and life-giving gifts than the gift of the English teacher in championing, enacting and inspiring a love of reading.

End notes:

* The first line of the heading is a quote from Margaret Atwood in 2019

Atwood, M., (2019) A word after a word after a word is power – documentary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj8P8yvvLNs (trailer)

Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). (2018). National PISA Reports 2018. https://www.acer.org/au/pisa/publications-and-data

Berns, G. (2022). The Self Delusion: The New Neuroscience of How We Invent and Reinvent. NY: Hachette Book Group.

Boomer, G. (1991). Closing Address to the Australian Reading Association national conference. Adelaide.

Centre for Youth Literature (2009). Keeping Young Australians Reading. Victoria: State Library of Victoria.

Dickenson, D. (2014). Children and Reading: Literature Review. Canberra: Australia Council.

Freebody, P., & Luke, A. (1990). Literacies programs: Debates and demands in cultural context. Prospect: Australian Journal of TESOL, 5(7), pp. 7-16.

French, J. (2019). The secret friends and deep immersion of a book. Literacy Learning: The Middle Years, 27 (2), pp. 7-14.

Gee, J. (1996). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideologies in discourses (2nd ed.). NY: Routledge Falmer.

Ivey, G. (1999). Reflections on teaching struggling middle school readers. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. 42 (5), 372-381.

Kohn, A. (n.d.). https://www.alfiekohn.org/

Manuel, J. (2012a). Reading lives: Teenagers’ reading practices and preferences. In J. Manuel & S. Brindley (Eds.), Teenagers and reading: Literary heritages, cultural contexts and contemporary reading practices (pp. 12-37). South Australia: Wakefield Press/AATE.

Manuel, J. (2012b). Teenagers and reading: Literary heritages, cultural contexts and contemporary reading practices. In J. Manuel & S. Brindley (Eds.) Teenagers and reading: Literary heritages, cultural contexts and contemporary reading practices (pp. 1–4). South Australia: Wakefield Press/AATE.

Reading Rockets (n.d.). https://www.readingrockets.org/strategies#:~:text=%E2%80%9CBefore%E2%80%9D%20strategies%20activate%20students’,discuss%2C%20and%20respond%20to%20text.

Scholes, R. (1985). Textual Power: Literary Theory and the Teaching of English. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Zunshine, L. (2006). Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel. Ohio: Ohio State University Press.

About the Author

Jacqueline Manuel is Professor of English Education at the University of Sydney, Aust. She co-ordinates and teaches secondary English curriculum in the Master of Teaching (Secondary) program.

Her most recent publications include: International Perspectives on English Teacher Development: From Initial Teacher Education to Highly Accomplished Professional. (Routledge, 2022), co-edited with Goodwyn, Roberts, Scherff, Sawyer, Durrant, and Zancanella.; and Reimagining Shakespeare Education: Teaching and Learning through Collaboration (Cambridge University Press, 2023) co-edited with Liam Semler and Claire Hansen.

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A century of professional learning: Teachers Federation Library Centenary 2022

Mary Schmidt guides us through the history of the Federation Library that this year celebrated its centenary. She shares with us her knowledge of the items in the Treasures collection held by our library . . .

HISTORY OF THE TEACHERS FEDERATION LIBRARY

The Teachers Federation Library has a key role in supporting the work of the union. It has an established role in supporting the union’s campaigning on industrial and equity issues; the professional learning of members, and an emerging role in preserving the union’s cultural and heritage artefacts (NSW Teachers Federation, 2008, p. 51).

How the library was founded is a fascinating story and involves generosity, the dedication of many, and sustained support from the union and its members.

Origins of library 1890s

The foundation collection of the library belonged to a school inspector with the NSW Department of Public Instruction, David Cooper. For more than a decade (1890-1901) he was a district inspector in Goulburn. (“Tragic Death of Mr. D.J. Cooper, M.A.,” 1909). Library folklore, handed down over the last century, is that he travelled by horse and buggy visiting schools in the Goulburn district and always had some volumes from his personal collection of literature, history and professional learning resources to lend to isolated teachers.

David John Cooper 1848-1909, the founder of the Cooper Library. Australian Town and Country Journal Wednesday 17 November 1909, p. 53.

David Cooper died suddenly while giving a speech at Fort Street School on November 12, 1909. He was 61 years of age (“Obituary: Sudden Death,” 1909).

David John Cooper was very highly regarded. At the unveiling of a monument to his memory at Waverley Cemetery on 12 November 1910, exactly one year after his death, the Under-Secretary for Education Mr. Peter Board, praised the late Principal Senior Inspector’s achievements, particularly his organization of the technical education system in NSW and the founding of the teachers’ library (“The Late Mr. D. J. Cooper,” 1910).

The Teachers Federation acquires Cooper Library

In May 1910, the Public School Teachers’ Association of New South Wales accepted the offer of the Cooper collection, from the Western and North-western Inspectorial Associations, on condition that the library be called “The Cooper Library” (“A Teachers’ Library,” 1910; “Teachers Association,” 1910).

The Public School Teachers’ Association of NSW was a founding Association of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation (Mitchell, 1975, p. 45). When the Teachers Federation was formed in 1918, the collection was transferred to the Federation. Consideration was given to the “installation of the Cooper Library, already the Federation property”, at a meeting of the Teachers’ Institute Sub-Committee in September 1920 (Berman, 1920, p. 296).

At the time of the Sub-committee’s deliberations in 1920, the Cooper Library was at Sydney Girls’ High School. The library was open on Friday evenings for books to be borrowed (“The Cooper Library,” 1910) but in 1921, when that school relocated from the Castlereagh Street premises, to its current location in Moore Park “the Committee directed the removal of the Cooper Library therefrom to the Federation Office” (“Teachers’ Institute Committee: Report to Council,” 1921, p. 15).

Official opening 1922

The Cooper Library, as the Teachers Federation Library was originally known, was officially opened on the 24February 1922 at the Federation rooms (“A Pleasant Evening at the Cooper Library,” 1922),

12 O’Connell Street, Sydney (“Cooper Library,” 1922).

At the official opening, the chairman of the Library Committee, Mr. P. Bennett, presided in the unavoidable absence of Mr. Dash, the President. There were many distinguished guests. The Assistant Under-Secretary for Education Mr. Smith promoted the virtues of books and bookmen and pointed out that it was not sufficient for a good library to have books on the shelves to be looked at, they must be “well thumbed.” Mr. Inspector Finney echoed this sentiment stating that books “were nothing to him, but valuable only where they brought out and improved the mind and character of the individual who read them.” (“A Pleasant Evening at the Cooper Library”, 1922, p. 8).

To add to the festivities, Fisher Library at the University of Sydney, loaned a number of exhibits, including facsimiles of the Book of Kells and the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead.

The late Mr Cooper was represented by two of his sons and a daughter, the last of whom declared the Library open (“A Pleasant Evening at the Cooper Library”, 1922, p. 8).

Growth of the library

The collection of the Cooper Library transferred to the Teachers Federation numbered some 300 volumes (Taylor, 1922). The first accession register lists the titles transferred, principally, history, English literature, philosophy and education texts (N.S.W.P.S.T.F. Cooper Library Accession Book: 1 – 10,000, n.d.).

The union applied considerable resources to get the books of the Cooper Library into the hands of teachers. From the beginning there were regular features in Education: The Official Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation listing the books and journals available from the library. The July and August 1922 issues published a list of the library’s holdings (“Author List of Books in the Cooper Library”, 1922, July 15; August 15).

The Cooper Library rules and regulations for 1922 included provision for a postal service. Federation paid the outwards postage, with the return postage paid by the borrower. The loan period was 14 days for city-based members. Country members could request an additional 14 days. There was a fine of one penny a day for each day a book was overdue (Bennett, 1922).

In August 1931, the Federation’s Executive made a special grant of £100 to build up a collection of Australiana. The collection numbered 6,000 volumes (Hancock, 1931). The move to O’Brien House, Young Street, Sydney, about October 1931, benefited the library, with new shelving and extras such as a clock and a carpet (Hastings, 1968).

In 1933, the Federation published a printed catalogue of the books and journals held by the library (Taylor, 1933) some 7,000 titles. Members could purchase this catalogue for 2 shillings at the counter (“Library Catalogue,” 1934).

“Federation has been forced to move five times owing to the growing pains of the Cooper Library,” claimed General Secretary Bill Hendry at the 1935 Annual Conference. The library had 8,420 books, (“Observations,” 1936, p. 102) having grown from 675 books in June 1922 (“Cooper Library: Report,” 1923).

In 1936 the Commonwealth Savings Bank of Australia made a gift of £100 worth of books in recognition of teachers’ services with school banking. This support continued for many years, well into the 1970s (“Gift to Cooper Library,” 1936). In 1968 a special grant of $2,000.00 was made by the Bank to commemorate the Federation’s move to Sussex Street (Hastings, 1968). In later years, the books purchased with these funds had an elaborate book plate.

Commonwealth Savings Bank of Australia bookplate

1938 marked the completion of the Federation’s own building in Phillip Street, Sydney (“NSW Public School Teachers’ Federation,”1938, p. 7). The library was located at the rear portion of the 7th floor (“Federation House,” 1939).

Folklore handed down by former library staff, is that in the Phillip Street building, there were separate reading rooms for men and women. Early plans for a Teachers Building published in Education in September 1920, includes “as an irreducible minimum by way of conveniences, a Reading Room and Library; a common room for women members with retiring room; a smoke room extended into a billiard room with retiring room” (presumably for men), which lends substance to this (Berman, 1920, p. 296).

At the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation Annual Conference, held in December 1940, Miss Bocking of the Girls’ Mistresses Association, moved, and it was agreed to, that the name of the library be changed to Teachers’ Federation Library (“General Business,” 1941, p. 94), in recognition of its growth from small beginnings to become a significant part of the Federation’s activities (Hastings, 1968).

The Teachers Federation moved to 300 Sussex Street, Sydney in 1967, with a spacious library on the 2nd floor (NSW Teachers’ Federation, 1967, p. 4). The library occupied two-thirds of the second floor, adjacent to a lounge and reading room area. The photographer Max Dupain photographed the occasion (“Federation House,” 1967).

The New Library, photo by Max Dupain. *Education: journal of the New South Wales Teachers’ Federation*, 48 (20) 29 November 1967, page 167

In the thirty years before the Federation’s move to Sussex Street, the library’s book stock increased to over 23,000 volumes, writes Valmai Hastings, Librarian (Hastings, 1968).

From the 1970s through to the mid-1980s the Promotion Reading List, advertised in the library column of the Federation’s journal, Education, and prepared by the library, was sought after by members. This publication listed texts which would assist members preparing for assessment for promotion.

In the 1960s and 1970s through its postal service, and by acquiring relevant texts, the library supported members who were upgrading their teaching qualifications, by studying externally at university. (“Federation Library,” 1979).

From the mid-1970s, the focus of the library gradually expanded to include support for the industrial and campaigning work of the union, as well as professional learning for members (Schmidt & Stanish, 2001; Fitzgerald, 2011, pp. 196-197; Doran, 2019, p. 280).

The NSWTF headquarters moved to Mary Street, Surry Hills in December 1998 (NSW Teachers Federation, 1999, p. 11) and the library’s location in close proximity to the Federation’s Centre for Professional Learning assists the library in understanding member’s professional learning needs and in delivering relevant services.

The library in 2022 has a stock of 14,500 physical items, mostly books (NSW Teachers Federation, 2022, p. 65).

NOTABLE LIBRARIANS

Several prominent librarians have held the position of Librarian at the NSW Teachers Federation. The position was hotly contested from the very start. Among the librarians are:

A. Vernon Taylor, Librarian 1921-1933; 1935-1941

The Executive chose Mr. A. Vernon Taylor from Fisher Library, at the University of Sydney, as the first Librarian. Vernon Taylor was born on the Isle of Man and served as a Private in the A.I.F. in France during the First World War from 1916-1918. Under the A.I.F. Education Scheme, he attended a course in cataloguing at the Central Public Library, Portsmouth, prior to demobilisation. He was employed as a Librarian at Fisher Library, University of Sydney from 1920-1939 (University of Sydney, 2021). When the part-time appointment was announced at Council on 5 November 1921, some members opposed the appointment of an outsider (“Council Meeting,” 1921a, p. 18). The Assistants’ Association was disappointed that Mr. H.J. Munro, who had managed the collection in an honorary capacity for 8 years was overlooked by an applicant who was neither a Federation member nor a teacher (S.E.H., 1921).

At the Council meeting of 3 December 1921, Mr. Bendeich, of the Assistants’ Association moved “that the appointment be reviewed, a month’s notice given, and fresh applications be called.” Following a “heated discussion” the motion was lost after the President, Mr. Dash, stated that Council had authorised the Library Committee to make the appointment (“Council Meeting,” 1921b, p. 27).

The annual salary was £52, and initially Mr Taylor was required to attend each Friday from 7.30 pm until 9 pm and to undertake other duties as directed (“New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation,” 1921). By 1929, the Assistant Librarian, Miss Synnott attended all day until 5pm, and Mr Taylor, who was also employed at Fisher Library at the University of Sydney, attended the Cooper Library at 42 Bridge Street, every evening until 9 pm and on every Saturday morning (Acorn, 1929, p. 243).

But Librarian Taylor’s troubles were not over.

In 1933 Mr Taylor was given notice that his engagement with the Federation would be terminated (“N.S.W.P.S. Teachers’ Federation,” 1933, p. 36).

There were protests from the Isolated Teachers’ Association, the Assistants’ Association, the Cookery Teachers’ Association, the Infants’ Mistresses Association, and the Women Assistant Teachers’ Association, to no avail. The General Secretary advised that the termination of Mr. Taylor’s engagement had been carefully considered by the Executive and Council and was part of the reorganisation of the Federation office. (“N.S.W.P.S. Teachers’ Federation,” 1933, p. 39).

Wilma Radford (1912-2005), Librarian 1933-1935

From 56 applicants, the Executive and the President of the Library Committee chose Miss Wilma Radford, 21 years of age (a former university lecturer of mine) as the next Librarian at an annual salary of £200. She was employed from September 1933 (“N.S.W.P.S. Teachers’ Federation,” 1933, p. 36), and her resignation was accepted by the Council in April 1935 (“N.S.W. Teachers’ Federation: Council Meeting,” 1935, p. 227).

Miss Radford had a distinguished career. One of her many achievements was in 1968 when she was appointed Professor of Librarianship at the University of NSW, the first chair of librarianship in Australia (Jones & Radford, 2005).

Miss Wallace, the assistant librarian managed the library until Mr. Taylor’s reappointment (“Minutes of Executive Meeting,” 1935, p. 323). At the May 1935 Council meeting, it was moved by Mr. Murray, seconded by Miss Rose, and carried by 34 votes to 13 that the matter be referred back to Executive (who had endorsed the employment of another librarian), with a recommendation that Mr. Taylor be appointed (“Minutes of Adjourned Council Meeting,” 1935).

Librarian A. Vernon Taylor retired on 30 June 1941, (New South Wales Teachers’ Federation,1941) and a great debt is owed to him for his organisation of, and dedication to, the library.

Eric Richard (Dick) Edwards, Librarian 1941-1945

In 1937 the position of Assistant Librarian was advertised. The position was open only to male applicants 17-25 years of age. (“Positions Vacant,” 1937). Mr. Eric Richard (Dick) Edwards was appointed. (“Minutes of Council Meeting,” 1937, p. 432). From the pages of the Federation’s journal, Education, in which he is referred to as the Librarian from October 1941, it is apparent that he succeeded Mr. Taylor. He relinquished the Librarian position in October 1945, to setup in business (NSW Public School Teachers’ Federation, 1945, p. 20).

With a friend, Rod Shaw, he established, while still at the Federation, Barn on the Hill Press in 1939. This was re-named Edwards & Shaw in 1945. Both a printery and publisher, Edwards & Shaw’s customers included publishers, universities, architects, designers, artists, art galleries, the NSW Teachers’ Federation, and the NSW Teachers’ Federation Health Society (Stein, 1996). In 1994, Dick Edwards was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for services to the Australian printing and publishing industry.

Dorothy Peake, Librarian 1954-1956

In the succeeding years a number of librarians were appointed, including Miss Dorothy Peake, who judging by the pages of Education, held the position for two years 1954-1956. Like Wilma Radford, she later became a prominent figure in Australian librarianship, becoming the foundation University Librarian of the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) and a pioneer in implementing automated systems and electronic networking of Australian Libraries (Maguire & Schmidmaier, 2015).

Editor’s note:

You will notice, at the end of this article, that Mary makes only a one sentence comment about her time as Federation Librarian. This is not enough acknowledgement for someone who has dedicated over forty years’ service to the Federation Library.

Hence the addendum below (written by Graeme Smart, Federation’s Deputy Librarian):

Mary Schmidt, Librarian 1975-present

Mary completed her Graduate Diploma in Librarianship at the University of NSW in 1973. After relatively short spells at the UNSW Law Library and Sydney Teachers College, she became Federation Librarian in 1975, succeeding Miss Valmai Hastings. Unbeknownst to her at the time, she already had a connection with the library; one of her lecturers in 1973 had been Professor Wilma Radford, the Federation Librarian 40 years earlier, between 1933 and 1935.

Library staff numbers have varied over the years, but in Mary’s early years, she was supported by a library technician and two library assistants; since 2015, the staff has comprised a Librarian (Mary) and a Deputy Librarian. From the mid-1980s, when her children were born, until 1999, Mary job-shared the Librarian position, after which she resumed the role full time.

Mary’s time at the Federation has coincided with the emergence of computer technology, which has transformed the storage and dissemination of information. Reflecting this change, the library has shifted its focus, becoming an information and research service in addition to performing its traditional role as a lender of books (NSW Teachers Federation, 1993, p. 77).

Mary has responded to the rapidity of change in the provision of library services in the twenty-first century with indefatigable enthusiasm and thoughtfulness. She is always looking to improve the relevance and quality of the library collection and ensuring that the information needs of Federation Officers, members and staff are met in a timely and appropriate fashion. At the same time, she has never lost sight of the importance of the union’s history and has overseen the preservation of a great variety of artefacts (banners, posters, photographs, documents, etc). But these are not hidden away; many are digitised and can be viewed on the library catalogue, and some are always on display in the library. Their accessibility ensures that the union’s history lives.

Although Mary would be the first to observe that the librarians, like the Federation itself, work in union, it cannot be denied that her own contribution to the Teachers Federation Library has been immeasurable – truly, a notable librarian.

OTHER TEACHER UNION LIBRARIES

Teacher union libraries were established in other Australian states.

1922 NSW Teachers Federation

It appears that the Cooper Library in 1922 was the first teacher union library established in Australia. If NSW was not the first, it was certainly a leader.

1924 State School Teachers’ Union (Tasmania)

The Daily Telegraph (Launceston) on 31.10.1924, reported that at a meeting of the Executive of the State School Teachers Union, “It was decided to institute a circulating library which would be available to members throughout the state” (“School Teachers’ Union,” 1924).

1929 South Australian Public Teachers’ Union

The Advertiser reported on 23 August 1929 that the “South Australian Public Teachers’ Union has established a fine library” and there are 500 volumes on the shelves (“Teachers’ Union Library,” 1929).

1938 Queensland Teachers’ Union

The Queensland Teachers’ Union officially opened its library on 1 July 1938.

Two officers from the Queensland Teachers’ Union visited the Teachers’ Federation Cooper Library in 1934 to assess its suitability as a model for a library for Queensland teachers. Their initial report back to the Queensland Teachers Union was that it was too expensive, particularly the postal service, but eventually in 1938 the Queensland Teachers Union did establish a library for members, which included a postal service (Spaull & Sullivan, 1989, p. 206).

TREASURES

To commemorate the Federation Library’s centenary in February this year, a special Friday Forum, Treasures, was held (on Friday, 18February 2022 at Teachers Federation House) in order to display many of the Federation’s precious cultural and heritage artefacts. Volunteer guides, drawn from Federation Officers and staff, assisted visitors to find their way and with interpreting the heritage artefacts.

A growth area of the library’s work is the conservation, preservation and celebration of the union’s cultural and heritage artefacts. There are now nearly 600 Treasures, including badges, banners, medals, pictures, posters, objects and sculptures in the library’s Artworks Collection.

Images of the Treasures may be viewed on the library catalogue, by selecting the Artworks button on the main menu. https://library.nswtf.org.au/libero/WebOpac.cls

Historic posters

Heritage poster, *Progress in public education demands federal finance*. Sydney: NSWTF, 1965. Printed by Edwards and Shaw.

The library has a collection of over 300 posters in the Artworks Collection, stored archivally in plan cabinets. As display is inherently damaging to fragile originals, fine art reproductions, made from digitised originals, are provided for display throughout Federation House at Mary Street, Surry Hills, and in regional offices.

Historic banners

The library has a collection of over 30 historic NSW Teachers Federation banners. Rolled storage, on archival cylinders, is used to protect the larger banners. Smaller banners are stored flat in plan cabinets.

For the NSW Teachers Federation centenary in 2018, 14 bannerettes, made of silk, were created to highlight the historic sectional Associations, that once comprised the Federation.

The NSW Public School Cookery Teachers Association, which predated the Federation, being founded in 1912, was very active. The Association produced several successful cookery and domestic science books for pupils in public schools and assisted with raising funds for the war effort, Red Cross and other charitable institutions. The teachers involved also provided food for invalids during the 1919 influenza pandemic (“N.S.W. Public School Cookery Teachers’ Association,” 1919).

Historic volumes

The library has many historic volumes, and still has books from the original Cooper collection (N.S.W.P.S.T.F. Cooper Library Accession Book: 1-10,000, n.d.). Many of the older books are quite worn and were rebound to extend their life, which lessens their value in dollar terms and their intrinsic value as artefacts. However, the founders of the library could take satisfaction in that the books that were in their care are ‘well thumbed’ as they intended.

The first book listed in the library’s accession register from the Cooper collection is a Primer of logic, by Emily Elizabeth Constance Jones, published London, 1905. The early librarians were thorough in their record keeping and this book is noted as missing in 1940, and not seen since.

Helen Keller

Frontispiece portrait of Miss Keller and her teacher 1895.

However, the second book accessioned, The story of my life, by Helen Keller, published London, 1906, is still part of the library collection. Born in Alabama in the United States of America, Helen Keller was deaf, blind and mute at an early age and overcame these adversities to become a special educator and authored a number of works. This book includes several quality black and white plates, photographs of her as a child, and later with Alexander Graham Bell and Mark Twain. The stamp of the Cooper Library is on the title page and the volume is notated ‘No. 2” inside the front cover (Keller, 1906).

Maria Montessori

The library is fortunate to have several texts from the early 20^th century by, and about, the work of Maria Montessori, a pioneer in the development of early childhood education. Her reforms are still instructive today and sought by Federation members. The Montessori principles and practice: A book for parents and teachers by E. P. Culverwell, 2^nd edition, published London, in 1914, has many charming black and white plates featuring children, with captions such as “Putting the chair down quietly” (Culverwell, 1914, p. 225)

Sir Henry Parkes

Of all the historic volumes held by the library one of the most appreciated is Fifty years in the making of Australian history by Sir Henry Parkes, five times Premier of NSW between 1872 and 1891. The book was published in London by Longmans, Green in 1892 (Parkes, 1892).

This book is significant as it contains The Tenterfield Oration, seen as the first appeal to the public rather than politicians for a federation of Australian states.

Also in this book, Henry Parkes outlines the struggles to achieve the passing of the Public Instruction Act of 1880 through the NSW Parliament, an Act which established the Department of Public Instruction, and made for compulsory education for children 6-14 years.

Researchers and historians are aided by having an eBook version freely available from the University of Sydneyⁱ minus the portraits, and a digital facsimile, with portraits, from the National Library of Australiaⁱⁱ but there is something compelling and inspirational in having the original text.

All of these texts are available for viewing in the library.

TROVE partnership

The library works to preserve the union’s cultural heritage through the TROVE partnership with the National Library of Australia. In 2017, with the assistance of the State Library of NSW, the library commenced digitisation of the Federation’s publication, Education, which has been in publication since 1919. The archive from 1919 – 2019 is available on TROVE, the National Library of Australia’s platform for digital resources. This preserves this unique and fragile resource, brings it to an international audience, and makes accessible the rich history contained within its pages (Education, 1919-).

Dash Archive

Illuminated address presented to Ebenezer Dash by NSW Public School Teachers Federation 1925

In 2019, five grandsons and one great-great-grandson of Ebenezer Dash, the Federation’s second President, donated a collection of photographs, illuminated addresses, letters, scrap books and other items that belonged to Ebenezer Dash. These items which date from 1892, are on permanent display in the Dash Archive in the library (Coomber, 2019).

Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal

In 2013, Susie Preston, the daughter of the Federation’s former President, Dr Eric Pearson, donated her father’s Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal, awarded (posthumously) to Dr. Eric Pearson, in 1977, for service to the trade union movement. (Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal, 1977)

Federation members and members of the general public have shown trust in the Federation and the library to care for and appreciate their precious artefacts. Perhaps it’s not just the artefacts that comprise the Treasure, but also the trust transferred with them.

Mary Schmidt has been the Federation’s Librarian since 1975.

My thanks to Mr. Graeme Smart, the Federation’s Deputy Librarian, for extensive research support.

i Parkes, H. (1892). Fifty years in the making of Australian history. Sydney: University of Sydney Library, Scholarly Electronic Text and Image Service, 2000. Digital edition. https://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/ozlit/pdf/fed0024.pdf

ii Parkes, H. (1892). Fifty years in the making of Australian history. Longman Green. National Library of Australia digitised item. Facsimile edition. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3578896/view?partId=nla.obj-4109097#page/n58/mode/1up

Find out more about the Cooper Library and the Teachers Federation Library in the library’s catalogue https://library.nswtf.org.au/libero/WebOpac.cls

Acorn. (1929, May 15). Federation library. Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 10(7), 243-244. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-531758096/view?partId=nla.obj-531808477#page/n28/mode/1up

Author list of books in the Cooper Library [A-L]. (1922, July 15). Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 3(9),25-27. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-572024841/view?partId=nla.obj-572063636#page/n26/mode/1up

Author list of books in the Cooper Library [L-Y]. (1922, August 15). Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 3(10),30-31. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-572024864/view?partId=nla.obj-572070425#page/n39/mode/1up

Bennett, P. J. (1922, June 15). Cooper Library: Rules and regulations. Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 3(8), 6. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-572024829/view?partId=nla.obj-572056244#page/n7/mode/1up

Berman, F. (1920, September 15). Teachers’ Institute: Sub-committee’s progress report. Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 1(11), 294-296. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-530069878/view?partId=nla.obj-530115416#page/n23/mode/1up

Coomber, S. (2019, March 13). Dash of history to be preserved in library. Education. https://news.nswtf.org.au/blog/news/2019/03/dash-history-be-preserved-library

The Cooper Library. (1910, July 26). Sydney Morning Herald, 3. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/15166830#

Cooper Library. (1922, February 15). Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 3(4), 9. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-572024745/view?partId=nla.obj-572040988#page/n10/mode/1up

Cooper Library: Report for year ending July 31^st, 1923. (1923, September 15). Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 4(11), 5. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-530314417/view?partId=nla.obj-530397916#page/n6/mode/1up

Council meeting. (1921a, November 15). Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 3(1), 18-19. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-572024685/view?partId=nla.obj-572027679#page/n19/mode/1up

Council meeting. (1921b, December 15). Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 3(2), 26-27. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-572024700/view?partId=nla.obj-572033432#page/n27/mode/1up

Culverwell, E. P. (1914). The Montessori principles and practice: A book for parents and teachers (2^nd ed.). G. Bell & Sons.

Doran, S. (2019). On the voices: 100 years of women activists for public education. John Dixon [for NSW Teachers Federation].

Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation. (1919-). https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-525471579

Federation House: A two purpose building designed to accommodate club premises and commercial offices. (1939, March 1). Decoration and Glass: A Journal for Architects, Builders and Decorators, 4(10), 10-15. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-374111330/view?partId=nla.obj-374563077#page/n11/mode/1up

Federation House. (1967, November 29). Education: Journal of the New South Wales Teachers’ Federation, 48(20), 167. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-710434295/view?partId=nla.obj-710471049#page/n6/mode/1up

Federation Library: Services to members. (1979, February 14). Education: Journal of the NSW Teachers’ Federation, 60(2), 41. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-721805454/view?partId=nla.obj-721866279#page/n16/mode/1up

Fitzgerald, D. (2011). Teachers and their times: History and the Teachers Federation. University of New South Wales Press.

General business: Various matters debated during later hours of conference. (1941, January 28). Education: Official Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 22(3), 87-96. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-531917337/view?partId=nla.obj-531943712#page/n24/m ode/1up

Gift to Cooper Library. (1936, August 15). Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 17(10), 319. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-531758814/view?partId=nla.obj-531886953#page/n8/mode/1up

Hancock, H. S. (1931, September 15). Cooper Library. Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 12(11), 355. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-533182648/view?partId=nla.obj-533274908#page/n22/mode/1up

Hastings, V. (1968, December 4). Federation library. Education: Journal of the New South Wales Teachers’ Federation, 49(20), viii. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-717087475/view?partId=nla.obj-717129136#page/n10/mode/1up

Jones, D. J. & Radford, N. A. (2005). Radford, Wilma (1912-2005). Obituaries Australia. https://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/radford-wilma-14113

Keller, H. (1906). The story of my life: With her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan by John Albert Macy. Hodder & Stoughton.

The late Mr. D. J. Cooper: Memorial at Waverley. (1910, November 14). Sydney Morning Herald, 8. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/15207658#

Library catalogue. (1934, November 15). Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 16(3), 25. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-530448660/view?partId=nla.obj-530521837#page/n26/mode/1up

Maguire, C. & Schmidmaier, D. (2015). Dorothy Peake 1930-2014: Inspirational librarian, visionary leader, artist. Australian Academic & Research Libraries, 46(2), 135-137. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00048623.2015.1040149

Minutes of adjourned Council meeting, held at 9 a.m., Saturday, 25^th May, in the Assembly Hall, Education Department. (1935, June 15). Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 16(8), 269. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-530448802/view?partId=nla.obj-530561706#page/n38/mode/1up

Minutes of Council meeting, held in Science House, Gloucester Street, on Saturday, October 9, at 9 a. m. (1937, November 15). Education: Official Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 19(1), 432-434. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-534083414/view?partId=nla.obj-534108688#page/n33/mode/1up

Minutes of Executive meeting held in the Federation Club Rooms, O’Brien House, July 26, 1935. (1935, August 15). Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 16(10), 323-326, 340-341. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-530448844/view?partId=nla.obj-530569891#page/n12/mode/1up

Mitchell, B. (1975). Teachers, education and politics: A history of organizations of public school teachers in New South Wales. University of Queensland Press.

New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation. (1921, September 15). Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 2(11), 32. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-571297941/view?partId=nla.obj-571303404#page/n37/mode/1up

N.S.W. Public School Cookery Teachers’ Association. (1919, December 15). Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 1(2), 42. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-530069699/view?partId=nla.obj-530077740#page/n19/mode/1up

NSW Public School Teachers’ Federation. (1938). Annual report and agenda paper.

NSW Public School Teachers’ Federation. (1941, June 7). Report of Library Investigation Committee to Council on Saturday 7^th June 1941. NSW Teachers Federation Documents collection (No. 502), Sydney, NSW.

NSW Public School Teachers’ Federation. (1945). Annual report.

NSW Teachers’ Federation. (1967). Annual report.

NSW Teachers Federation. (1993). Annual report.

NSW Teachers’ Federation. (1999). Annual report.

NSW Teachers Federation. (2008). Annual report.

NSW Teachers Federation. (2022). Annual report.

N.S.W. Teachers’ Federation: Council meeting. (1935, May 6). Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 16(7), 225-228. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-530448781/view?partId=nla.obj-530555014#page/n26/mode/1up

N.S.W.P.S. Teachers’ Federation: Executive report of 22^nd and 25^th September to Council, 6^th Oct. (1933, December 15). Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 15(2), 36-39. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-530447190/view?partId=nla.obj-acce530469353#page/n5/mode/1up

N.S.W.P.S.T.F. Cooper Library accession book: 1 – 10,000. (n.d.).

Obituary: Sudden death of Mr. D. J. Cooper, M. A. (1909, November 17). Australian Town and Country Journal, 79(2076), 53. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/263710468?searchTerm=%22sudden%20death%20of%20mr.%20d.%20j.%20cooper%22

Observations. (1936, January 29). Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 17(3), 102-103. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-531758653/view?partId=nla.obj-531831190#page/n39/mode/1up

Parkes, H. (1892). Fifty years in the making of Australian history. Longmans, Green.

A pleasant evening at the Cooper Library. (1922, March 15). Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 3(5), 8-9. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-572024768/view?partId=nla.obj-572044490#page/n9/mode/1up

Positions vacant. (1937, July 17) Daily Telegraph [Sydney], 14.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/247220448?searchTerm=advertisement%20librarian%20%22cooper%20library%22#

Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal. (1977). https://library.nswtf.org.au/libero/WebOpac.cls?VERSION=2&ACTION=DISPLAY&RSN=16462&DATA=TFB&TOKEN=keCm9WMJqv6304&Z=1&SET=1

Schmidt, M. & Carr, K. (2022). Library books its place in history. Education Quarterly: Journal of the New South Wales Teachers Federation, 2022(1), 30-31. https://news.nswtf.org.au/education/editions/education-quarterly-online?c=issue-1-2022-quarterly-magazine&page=30

Schmidt, M., & Stanish, F. (2001, March). From horse and cart to heritage building. Incite: Magazine of the Australian Library and Information Association, 22(3), 18. https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/journals/inCiteALIA/2001/37.html#

School teachers’ union. (1924, October 31). The Daily Telegraph [Launceston], 4.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/153704520?searchTerm=%22State%20School%20Teachers%20Union%22%20AND%20%22library%22

S.E.H. (1921, December 15). Assistants’ Association. Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 3(2), 12. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-572024700/view?partId=nla.obj-572031615#page/n13/mode/1up

Spaull, A. & Sullivan, M. (1989). A history of the Queensland Teachers Union. Allen & Unwin.

Stein, H. (1996). From the Barn on the Hill to Edwards & Shaw: 1939-1983: The story of two young men who built a master printery and publishing house that became a major influence on printing and book design in Australia. State Library of New south Wales Press.

Taylor, A. V. (1922, February 15). The Cooper Library. Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 3(4), 9. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-572024745/view?partId=nla.obj-572040988#page/n10/mode/1up

Taylor, A. V. (Compiler). (1933). A short title class list with an author & a subject index of the books in the Cooper Library. N.S.W. Public School Teachers’ Federation.

Teachers’ Association. (1910, May 18). Daily Telegraph [Sydney], 15. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/239402225

Teachers’ Institute Committee: Report to council. (1921, August 15). Education: The Organ of the New South Wales Public School Teachers’ Federation, 2(10), 14-15. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-529384765/view?partId=nla.obj-529438509#page/n15/mode/1up

A teachers’ library. (1910, May 11). Daily Telegraph [Sydney], 12. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/239397125

Teachers’ union library. (1929, August 23). The Advertiser, 19. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/29616046?searchTerm=%22teachers%20union%20library%22

Tragic death of Mr. D. J. Cooper, M.A. (1909, November 13). Sydney Morning Herald, 10. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/15110704?browse=ndp%3Abrowse%2Ftitle%2FS%2Ftitle%2F35%2F1909%2F11%2F13%2Fpage%2F1306473%2Farticle%2F15110704

The University of Sydney. (2021, March 2). Beyond 1914: The University of Sydney and the Great War. https://heuristplus.sydney.edu.au/heurist/?db=ExpertNation&ll=Beyond1914

Policy

In 2007 the Executive of the Federation confirmed the library’s role in supporting the work of the Federation, assisting in recruitment of new members, supporting the professional development needs of members, and conserving and preserving the cultural and heritage artefacts of the union (NSW Teachers Federation, 2008, p. 51).

Online catalogue

Since 2013 the library’s Web based Libero catalogue has enabled members anywhere to discover the library’s resources and make a request online for resources to be posted to them. In a way this is nothing new. In 1933, the library’s catalogue was made available to members throughout the state in printed form. Using current technology, the catalogue is delivered to members online, the commitment to member professional learning continues.

Postal service

Members can have resources posted to them at no cost. If members need assistance with returning resources to the library, pre-paid mail satchels are provided for returning borrowed items.

Recommendations for purchase

Members can also make recommendations for purchase of new resources, not held by the library. Professional learning resources are expensive, and this service, where members can access the resources they need, without any cost to them, offers great support for members’ professional learning.

Hot Topics

Members can discover the library’s resources through the online Libero catalogue. Another convenient way for members to discover the library’s resources is by using the library’s Hot Topics guides. These short guides, lead members to the most popular and up-to-date resources on professional learning themes. The library currently maintains nearly 90 Hot Topics, which are available to members both online and in print form.

Synergy

After refurbishment of the 1st floor in 2017 the library is now situated in close proximity to colleagues from the Centre for Professional Learning (CPL) which provides for a synergy between library and professional learning activities. Hot Topics on relevant themes and class sets of resources are provided to support members attending Centre for Professional Learning courses.

The library works closely with the Aboriginal Education Coordinator, the Women’s Coordinator, the Multicultural Officer, and the Trade Union Training Officer to develop collections of relevant resources and focused Hot Topics guides to support members attending their training programs and events.

Library tours and briefings on library services, are provided to members participating in training, targeted to their interests. This also provides the library with the opportunity to meet and interact with active Federation members and learn directly about their interests and information needs.

Support for Councilors

The library provides a specific service for Councilors attending the Federation’s Saturday Council meetings. The library is open, and a Library Bulletin of new resources is distributed to delegates. Many delegates are from country areas, distant from any library. Access to the library for professional reasons, for Federation business, or recreation, is a valuable opportunity.

Library facilities

Members may visit the library for relaxation or study. A comfortable lounge area is provided, as well as computers, WiFi and study areas. Members may book the library meeting room at no cost.

The library premises are open to members throughout the year, including during vacations. The library opens from 9 am – 5 pm Monday to Friday. The library also opens on the Saturdays when the Federation Council meets, from 9 am – 1.30 pm.

Mary Schmidt is the Federation’s librarian.

Mary completed a Bachelor of arts Degree at the University of Queensland in 1972, followed by a Graduate Diploma of Librarianship at the University of NSW in 1973.

Having worked in the University of NSW Law Library while a student, and after graduation at Sydney Teachers College, Mary commenced work at the NSW Teachers Federation in 1975, International Women’s Year, an inspiring time to begin work with one of Australia’s leading trade unions.

Highlights include: the expansion of the library’s services to include support for the union’s industrial and campaigning work, as well as providing professional learning resources for members; the publication of the library’s online catalogue in 2013; digitisation of the Federation’s journal, Education, in partnership with the National Library of Australia, for the Federation’s centenary in 2018. Currently, the archive from 1919-2019 is available on TROVE.

A-Century-of-Professional-Learning-Mary-Schmidt Download

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Teaching Drama in Primary School

Natalie Lopes examines the reasons why teaching Drama in primary school classrooms is so important. She writes about the benefits brought by Drama for students’ learning and development as well as the joy it brings to them . . .

I have a clear memory of my seven-year-old self running home from my first speech and drama lesson to set up my bedroom like the room in which my teacher taught. Sarah, from across the road, came over to play and I tried to give her the lesson I’d just experienced, much to her annoyance. From that moment on drama and performance became my strongest passion and I relished any opportunity for them.

We did very little drama at my primary school, but I had my weekly lessons outside of school. I studied Drama at high school and completed a Bachelor of Arts (Acting for the Stage and Screen) at university. When faced with the choice between Honours or a Diploma of Education (Secondary Drama) I chose the Dip Ed, knowing that, as a performer in Australia, I’d need a day job. I always felt teaching Drama would be more fulfilling than being a waitress. I never planned to be a full-time teacher; it would be suitable work whilst I was waiting for the phone to ring.

After five years as a casual teacher, I was offered a Drama RFF teaching role in a primary school. I decided to take it because securing part time work in the summer school holidays was becoming tiresome. Sixteen years later I am still at the same primary school teaching Drama.

When I was asked to write this article I immediately panicked, and my imposter syndrome reared its ugly head. I’ve taught Drama for many years, but what do I know really? I didn’t plan to be a primary school teacher, and always thought I’d end up in a high school. I decided to talk to my students about it. ‘Why do you think Drama is important in primary school?’ I asked them. ‘What does Drama mean to you?’ Their answers helped inspire what I realised I could share with you.

‘Drama is great because you can escape the real world and jump into a different reality.’ – A Year 5 student

Drama allows its participants to pretend. Young children love to engage in make believe role playing when they play together, and drama is an extension of this natural ability. Drama is a chance to play, to imagine, to create characters and act like other people, to create ideas, stories, worlds. Playing roles also gives students the option to use the role as a shield, where they can let themselves go in a manner they wouldn’t be able to if they weren’t ‘playing a role’.

‘It lets me reach out and stretch my imagination and creativity.’ – A Year 5 student

Drama is an imaginative experience where the students are constantly creating. When students improvise and devise their own performances, they are using critical and creative thinking to do so. The ability to spontaneously improvise and really ‘be in the moment’ is an amazing skill to develop. Students learn to resist the temptation to pre-plan what they will do when performing. One must surrender to the experience.

‘It boosts your confidence and lets your emotions out with joy.’ – A Year 6 student

More people in this world fear public speaking than death. This means, (I tell my students regularly) that more of the population would rather die than get up in front of an audience and perform. If you can do that confidently from a young age that is an excellent skill to have. Drama, when taught in a safe environment (and by safe, I mean a space where students feel they can explore and present ideas without ridicule and extreme judgment), helps to foster self-confidence in students. Each time they participate in a drama activity their confidence grows. Students develop trust with the space, with each other and with the teacher. A safe creative environment cannot operate successfully without a level of trust. Students know they won’t be ‘wrong’ if they participate. They can always grow and improve, but the space is a safe one to experiment and take risks. Drama also becomes a safe space to explore feelings and emotions that they might not feel comfortable expressing in real life.

‘Drama helps me understand what characters are thinking.’ – A Year 4 student

Drama helps students to develop empathy. By looking at situations from different characters’ points of view, they begin to understand that all humans deal with life differently: that we are complex beings and that we respond to experiences with varying feelings and emotions. When we play characters, we put ourselves in other’s shoes. Empathy and understanding grow because of this.

‘I like working with others. You can show all your ideas and have fun.’ – A Year 6 student

Drama is a group-based subject. In my classroom the students know that to devise in a group they must do the three C’s – Collaborate, co-operate, and compromise.

Collaborate – they need to creatively work together as a team.

Co-operate – they need to cohesively work together as a team. Save the drama for the stage!

Compromise – they must meet in the middle with their ideas. This is often the trickiest skill to develop when you have several passionate group members who want to be in creative control of the idea.

Group Drama activities call on these skills to be in constant use and the students develop confidence in using them for group work. Group devising in Drama allows students to develop their ability to problem solve.

‘You can be whoever you want to be.’ – A Year 6 student

Drama is fun! Whether students are improvising and creating their own stories, playing Drama games, or acting out scripts or texts others have written, Drama is a joyful experience that most children love. Drama is not competitive in the classroom and can be a subject students realise they enjoy and are good at, despite their ability in other areas. Drama is an organic subject – you don’t need anything to do it except yourself. Drama is for everyone. Experiencing and participating in Drama is not just about rehearsing for a performance. That is, of course, one part of it – and a rewarding and fun part of it indeed – but the benefits of exploring drama in the classroom go much deeper than simply the ability to perform well. The confidence, creativity and imagination, problem solving skills and ability to work in a team are lifelong skills that benefit all students.

A specialist Drama teacher RFF role in a primary school is a privileged position and I can appreciate that not all schools can accommodate this. However, there are many ways that Drama can be incorporated into a primary school teacher’s lesson.

These are a few suggestions for ways to use more Drama in your classroom.

As a physical activity often linked to PDHPE. There are numerous Drama games and activities that involve using your body. These are well suited as warm up games at the start of a PDHPE lesson. K-2 students enjoy games like Traffic Lights and Knights in the Museum whilst 3-6 students love Wolf in a House and Zombie Tag. They can also be great as brain breaks in the classroom, for example, Knife and Fork, What Are You Doing? and can be utilised to get students using their bodies to help fire up their creativity and imagination when brainstorming.

As a literacy tool. Drama and literacy are intrinsically linked and the use of Drama when exploring texts in the classroom is a way of developing a deeper understanding whilst having fun. Having the chance to move and/or act like a character from a text can bring it to life. Simple storytelling games where students retell the events of a story can enhance the students understanding of the plot and characters. Improvising and acting out scenes that happen in the text, as well as creating scenes that do not happen in the text (for example, alternative endings) provide wonderful opportunities for students to delve deeper into the text.

As a devising tool. Improvisation can be used to help plan stories and scripts. It is also a valuable tool when students are beginning group work in a range of subject areas. For example, students might improvise a story for the Drama activity of Typewriter where they narrate the story out loud. Later, they might use that story as a first draft for a piece of creative writing. A group of students might improvise a television commercial they are planning for the product/service they have created in a unit of work in HSIE.

For more suggestions of how to use Drama in the primary school classroom check out the following resources – Act Ease and Arts Unit here

‘Drama’s just the best…yeah that’s all.’ – A Year 6 student

It’s hard not to feel inspired about why Drama is important in the primary school classroom when you see the joy it brings the students. I hope this article has helped to highlight the importance and some of the many benefits of utilising Drama in your classroom.

NSW Department of Education (2020) Act Ease https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/curriculum/creative-arts/early-stage-1-to-stage-3/drama

NSW Department of Education Arts Unit: https://artsunit.nsw.edu.au/digital-resources/drama

Natalie Lopes is a drama teacher at Stanmore Public School where she teaches RFF Drama to students in K-6. She also runs an after-school Drama program for students in Years 3-12. Natalie also works as an actor, writer and director in the theatre and TV industry, however the arrival of two small thespians of her own have meant less time for this area of her life in recent years.

Teaching-Drama-in-Primary-School-Natalie-Lopes Download

Tell Me Your Story: Supporting EAL/D Students from K-8

Overview

You can attend 1, 2 or 3 days of this course. Please apply using the online application form and then email us at cpl@nswtf.org.au to let us know your preferences.

Day 1 – Speaking and Listening

Day 2 – Reading

Day 3 – Writing

We will focus on oral language development as the basis for developing literacy through the cyclical use of a range of strategies. This will be achieved through consideration of how students need to make meaning in curriculum contexts with a particular emphasis on developing knowledge about language, particularly grammar and vocabulary.

The focus of this three day course presented by Kathy Rushton and Joanne Rossbridge is to develop understandings and strategies for participants who support EAL/D students in both small groups and mainstream classrooms.

Practical strategies will be provided to foster the use of English Language (L2) while encouraging students to use all the linguistic resources that they bring to school, including the use of their first language (L1). Consideration will be given to the wellbeing framework and supporting students in an inclusive environment which honours and confirms their identity, language, and culture.

Open All

Surry Hills (3 Days, Term 4)

Day 1 – Friday 31 October 2025

Day 2 – Friday 14 November 2025

Day 3 – Friday 28 November 2025

Federation House

23-33 Mary St, Surry Hills, NSW 2010

All CPL courses run from 9am to 3pm.

Day 1 – Speaking and Listening

Principles of second language learning
Lexical density and grammatical intricacy: The relationship between grammar and vocabulary development
The Mode Continuum
Elaborated and restricted codes and the relationship between L1 and L2
Strategies for developing oral language through planning and the cyclical use of range of activities, e.g. communicative activities, group work, drama, rhymes, chants, poems. Link back to the mode continuum.
Select a picture book and, based on today’s session, prepare strategies. Explanation of task for Session 2.

Day 2 – Reading

Introduction of Field, Tenor and Mode.
Before, during and after reading and in preparation for writing with a focus on:
– field building activities to acknowledge and build on cultural knowledge (before)
– intonation, pronunciation, punctuation and spelling (during)
– inferential comprehension (after)
Strategies for categorising vocabulary and working with language features
Share strategies for selected picture book with a small group
Explanation of task for Session 3.

Day 3 – Writing

The teaching and learning cycle
Identifying strategies for developing writing through a joint construction.
Strategies for supporting written like text, eg Readers Theatre, Dictogloss, Running dictation, Advance /Detail
Making links to the community through writing for a purpose
Prepare notes for the joint construction of a Literary Recount and an Exposition using selected text.

Joanne Rossbridge

Joanne Rossbridge is an independent language and literacy consultant working in both primary and secondary schools and with teachers across Australia. She has worked as a classroom teacher and literacy consultant with the DET (NSW). Her expertise and much of her experience is in working with students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Joanne is particularly interested in student and teacher talk and how talk about language can assist the development of language and literacy.

Kathy Rushton

Kathy Rushton is interested in the development of language and literacy especially in disadvantaged communities. She has worked as a classroom teacher and literacy consultant and provides professional learning for teachers in the areas of language and literacy development. Her current research projects include a study of multilingual pre-service teachers and the impact that teacher professional learning has on the development of a creative pedagogical stance which supports translanguaging and student identity and wellbeing.

Day 1

Completing Tell Me Your Story: Supporting EAL/D Students from K-8 (Speaking and Listening) will contribute 5 hours of NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) Accredited PD in the priority area of Delivery and Assessment of NSW Curriculum/EYLF addressing standard descriptors 1.3.2, 2.5.2 & 3.3.2 from the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers towards maintaining Proficient Teacher Accreditation in NSW.

Day 2

Completing Tell Me Your Story: Supporting EAL/D Students from K-8 (Reading) will contribute 5 hours of NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) Accredited PD in the priority area of Delivery and Assessment of NSW Curriculum/EYLF addressing standard descriptors 1.3.2, 2.5.2, 3.3.2 from the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers towards maintaining Proficient Teacher Accreditation in NSW.

Day 3

Completing Tell Me Your Story: Supporting EAL/D Students from K-8 (Writing) will contribute 5 hours of NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) Accredited PD in the priority area of Delivery and Assessment of NSW Curriculum/EYLF addressing standard descriptors 1.3.2, 2.5.2, 3.3.2 from the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers towards maintaining Proficient Teacher Accreditation in NSW.

Primary and Secondary teachers who support EAL/D students in both small groups and mainstream classrooms.

$660 for 3 days

Please note, payment for courses is taken after the course takes place.

Three whole day workshops with participants actively engaged in each session and undertaking reading and assignments between sessions.

The NSW Teachers Federation Conference Centre is a registered COVID safe business, and all courses are run in compliance with the Federation’s COVID safety plan.

“Perfect balance of theory vs practical strategies. The theories and strategies will be impossible to forget – putting it into practice between session was great.”

“Loved the depth of knowledge on all aspects of literacy in the context of EAL/D learners.”

“So glad I attended – have learnt so much and feel inspired to share what I have learnt.”

“Presenters are absolutely fabulous! The perfect amount of banter and professionalism. They are experts in their field, and it shows. They invite the learner in – whatever level of knowledge they are coming with.”

JPL Articles

Critical Literacy in English and History: Stages 3 & 4

Helping Your Students to Become Better Writers

Tell Me Your Story: Working with EAL/D Students in Mainstream Classrooms

Assessment Literacy for School Teachers

The CPL and The University of Sydney’s Centre for Educational Measurement and Assessment (CEMA) have entered into a collaborative partnership to deliver professional learning Literacy modules for all K-12 teachers.

About the Assessment Literacy modules

The six modules include video presentations by Professor Jim Tognolini, downloadable PDF files, formative self-assessment, reflective questions, recommended short readings, and collaborative webinar opportunities.

Each module will take you between four and six hours to complete and achieve the requisite PD hours towards maintenance of accreditation.

You will be able to: develop an understanding that assessment involves professional judgement based upon an image formed by the collection of information and is used to locate student performance on a developmental continuum; contextualise the role of assessment in teaching, and know, understand and use assessment related terms and strategies including reliability, validity, assessment for learning, assessment of learning, performance standards, and normreferenced assessment. Modules also include a specific consideration of the standards referenced system used in NSW, predicated on a measurement model.

Module 1 – Modern assessment theory including standards referencing

Module 2 – Constructing selected response and short-answer items including Higher Order Thinking Skill (HOTS) items

Module 3 – Constructing extended response and performance tasks, and writing analytic and holistic rubrics

Module 4 – Evaluating the function and classroom assessment tasks and tests

Module 5 – Examining the impact of feedback on learning

Module 6 – Exploring the role of moderation and reporting in classroom assessment

A leading expert in educational assessment has designed the modules
You can start the fully-online modules when convenient and complete them at your own pace
Each module is competitively priced
Each module is accredited
Modules address Standard Descriptors in Proficient Teacher Standard 5: Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning (5.1.2, 5.2.2, 5.3.2, 5.4.2, 5.5.2)
The University of Sydney has approved the modules for articulation to postgraduate award courses. Details are available on the Centre for Educational Measurement and Assessment’s website

Please click here for further details on Assessment and Data Literacy.
Data Literacy modules will be available at a later date.

$300 for each module.

Federation financial members are eligible to receive a 10% discount on each module.

On confirmation of your financial membership with the NSW Teachers Federation, you will be sent further details on how to register for the modules.

All Teachers K-12

These modules are delivered online and can be completed at your own pace.

As teachers grapple with a revised English K-10 Syllabus, Professor Jackie Manuel provides a thorough and engaging history of secondary English in NSW…

Introduction

Where have we come from?

1911: Courses of Study for High Schools

The rationale for the curriculum

English as the hub of the curriculum

The English teacher as the ‘true starting point and foundation’

Summary of key features of the 1911 English syllabus

Mid-century reforms: The 1953 syllabus

The 1971 ‘Growth’ English syllabus

Summary

What has shifted since 1911?

What has endured from 1911 to the present?

Concluding remarks

About the Author

Lorraine Beveridge makes the case for high quality writing experiences in every classroom…

Historical overview of learning to write

Strategies that improve the teaching and learning of writing

Teaching writing in the digital age

Turning around school writing results: a case study

Leadership strategies

School-level strategies

Teacher-level strategies

The “neglected R”: onwards and upwards

Endnotes

References

About the author

The recent introduction of a new syllabus spurred this English Faculty to build and embed trust, transparency, and collaboration as the drivers of a cohesive and effective staffroom. Amy Peace and Louise Turk take us through the processes…

How To Build A Harmonious And Productive Workplace Culture

References

About the authors

English Head Teachers, Emma Campbell, Steve Henry, and Rosemary Henzell, share the motivators and contextual variables that were the driving force behind their approach to planning and programming for the new 7-10 English Syllabus. . .

Emma Campbell and Steve Henry (Head Teachers of English: Cherrybrook Technology High)

Where are we now?

New syllabus as opportunity

The car, and the kid in the passenger seat

Rosemary Henzell (Head Teacher English: Canterbury Girls High School)

Where should we start?

Planning our ‘dream home’

Resisting the one-size-fits-all McMansion

References

About the authors

Steve Henry offers some reflections on the challenges faced by English teachers in a time when social media has an all-encompassing influence on the students they seek to engage . . .

Agents of Online Culture

We become what we behold (Father John Culkin)

The skills and values of the English classroom

Speaking and Listening

Reading and Writing

A classroom counterstep

Or perhaps English teaching is now more important than ever

References

About the author

Jackie Manuel reflects on the nature of, and importance of, teaching reading in Secondary English. She encourages teachers to utilise their students’ experiences to increase their engagement in reading for pleasure . . .

Introduction

Starting with the self

Your reading life: Reflection prompts

Teaching reading: Reflection prompts

The benefits of reading

Creating opportunities for student choice

Time is a friend of reading

The power of modelling

Creating an optimal environment and nurturing a community of readers

Making connections

Concluding reflections

References

About the author

About the Author

Mary Schmidt guides us through the history of the Federation Library that this year celebrated its centenary. She shares with us her knowledge of the items in the Treasures collection held by our library . . .

HISTORY OF THE TEACHERS FEDERATION LIBRARY

Origins of library 1890s

The Teachers Federation acquires Cooper Library

Official opening 1922

Growth of the library

NOTABLE LIBRARIANS

A. Vernon Taylor, Librarian 1921-1933; 1935-1941

Wilma Radford (1912-2005), Librarian 1933-1935

Eric Richard (Dick) Edwards, Librarian 1941-1945

Dorothy Peake, Librarian 1954-1956

Mary Schmidt, Librarian 1975-present

OTHER TEACHER UNION LIBRARIES