The Supporting Students with ADHD in K-6 course is designed to support teachers to:
develop an understanding of the wide range of characteristics of students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD);
explore a range of strategies which address the needs of students with ADHD in the areas of language and cognitive development, communication skills and social behaviour;
develop specific strategies to help students with ADHD access the curriculum, and
develop an understanding for the need for explicit instruction in the essential components of literacy in every classroom every day.
Wednesday 28 October 2026, Surry Hills
Wednesday 18 November 2026, online via Zoom
All CPL courses run from 9am to 3pm.
Dr Rose Dixon
Dr Roselyn Dixon has been a special education teacher in both mainstream and special education settings in primary and secondary schools. Rose has been in academia and involved with Inclusive Education for more than 25 years. She has published research in the fields of social skills and behavioural interventions for people with a range of disabilities including students with Oppositional Defiance Disorders and Autism.
She has been actively involved in examining the relationship between digital technologies and pedagogy in special education and inclusive classrooms for students with Autism as well as the implications of the NDIS on people with disabilities in rural and remote communities. Rose is an Honorary Associate Professor at the School of Education, University of Wollongong, where she was previously the Academic Director of Inclusive and Special Education. She continues to support doctoral students in Inclusive and Special education with a focus on Autism.
Primary teachers
Special Education teachers
School Counsellors
Learning and Support Teachers
$220 (Federation members only)
Please note, payment for courses is taken after the course takes place.
Susan McGrath-Champ et al. introduce a series of articles on teachers’ work and working conditions. Their work provides an update to “Understanding work in schools, The Foundation for teaching and learning”, the 2018 report to the NSW Teachers Federation. The report examined the administrative demands that encroach on the work of teachers and impede their capacity to focus on tasks directly related to their teaching and to students’ learning. . .
Across the globe, teachers’ workload is a concern. Internationally (OECD, 2022) and within Australia (Gavin et al., 2021) studies show that workload is having adverse effects on teachers’ health and wellbeing, and is negatively impacting teacher recruitment and retention. Via a series of projects facilitated and funded by the NSW Teachers Federation, our research over the past ten years has exposed the considerable challenges many teachers face in a schooling system that is increasingly segregated by policies that encourage ‘choice’ and inequitable funding schemes. Teachers, through all our research, have called for greater support and recognition from their employer, and wish to feel valued for the important work they do in schools. The hallmark, collaborative study Understanding Work in Schools: A Foundation for Teaching and Learning (McGrath-Champ et al., 2018) revealed the extent of long working hours by teachers, identified unceasing policy changes and demands as a key cause, documented the vast array of work activities carried out by teachers, and identified strategies that are needed to address this workload problem. This provided a basis for the landmark Gallop Inquiry (Gallop et al., 2020) which confirmed these findings and other pressures facing teachers in their work.
Teachers are the heart of students’ learning, and good conditions of work improve the learning conditions of students. It is teachers in NSW public schools who have been, and are, fundamental to our stream of research. The suite of short research summaries in this thematic collection shares with Federation members the key findings of this research so far, with access to full papers and reports made available where possible via reference hyperlinks.1
Partnership with Federation has been, and continues to be, key to quality research (McGrath-Champ et al., 2022). Collaboration ensures meaningful, well-informed findings and insights, and is a crucial step to driving needed change in government policy and in schools. Findings from this research have been actioned via Federation’s advocacy, negotiation and lobbying of various groups, as well as separately through the Work in Schools Research Team making written submissions to parliamentary (e.g. NSW Legislative Council, 2022) and government (e.g. Australian Government Productivity Commission, 2022) bodies.
This brand new section of the Journal of Professional Learning (JPL) consists of four summaries in broad thematic areas which collate and narrate research publications our team has produced via projects supported by the Teachers’ Federation. The first summary, ‘Teacher workload and intensifying demands’, documents work intensification and overload, and deploys a ‘tsunami’ analogy to describe the impact of escalating paperwork and administration which requires teachers to ‘triage’ components of their daily work. Devolution and the neo-liberal drive towards school autonomy are key causes of this workload, which are outlined in the second summary (‘The impact of devolutionary reform on teachers and principals’). Other impacts including growing job insecurity, ‘job scarring’ and increased use of temporary employment are profiled in the third summary (‘Temporary teachers and precarious work’). The final summary (‘Teachers’ voices and their unions’) discusses issues of unionism and professionalisation in teaching.
In this introduction and the thematic summaries that follow, we have endeavoured, as much as possible, to cite open-access material for both our own and others’ research. Where this is our own work, we have usually linked to an institutional repository. This page will provide a link to the fully published version of the article and, often, a link to a freely-available ‘post-print’ version (where journal embargoes allow). Full publication details are also available in the reference lists provided.
Gavin, M., McGrath-Champ, S., Wilson, R., Fitzgerald, S., & Stacey, M. (2021). Teacher workload in Australia: national reports of intensification and its threats to democracy. In S. Riddle, A. Heffernan, & D. Bright (Eds.), New perspectives on education for democracy (pp. 110-123). Routledge.
Susan McGrath-Champ is Professor in Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney Business School, Australia. She has a PhD from Macquarie University, Sydney and a Masters degree from the University of British Columbia, Canada. Her research includes the geographical aspects of the world of work, employment relations and international human resource management. Recent studies include those of school teachers’ work and working conditions.
Meghan Stacey is a former secondary school teacher and current Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at UNSW Sydney. Meghan’s research interests are in the sociology of education and education policy, with a particular focus on the critical policy sociology of teachers’ work. Her first book, The business of teaching: Becoming a teacher in a market of schools, was published in 2020 with Palgrave Macmillan.
Dr Scott Fitzgerald is an Associate Professor in the School of Management at Curtin Business School, Curtin University. His research interests are in the broad areas of industrial relations, human resource management, organisational behaviour and organisation studies. His research expertise also spans various disciplines: sociology, political economy and media and communication studies. A key focus of Scott’s recent research has been the changing nature of governance, professionalism and work in the education sector.
Mihajla Gavin is a Senior Lecturer in the Business School at the University of Technology Sydney, and has worked as a senior officer in the public sector in Australia across various workplace relations advisory, policy and project roles. Mihajla’s research is concerned with analysing the response of teacher unions to neoliberal education reform that has affected teachers’ conditions of work.
Rachel Wilson is Professor, Social Impact at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research takes a system perspective on design and management of education systems and their workforce. She has expertise in educational assessment, research methods and programme evaluation, with broad interests across educational evidence, policy and practice. She is interested in system-level reform and has been involved in designing, implementing and researching many university and school education reforms.
Mihajla Gavin et al. address the importance of teacher unions as the collective voice of teachers to counter policies that worsen teacher working conditions and student learning environments. . .
The neoliberal reform wave in education
Teachers are one of the most highly unionised professions in Australia and globally. This is despite a challenging industrial, political and legal environment marked by repeated attempts to weaken the power of trade unions.
Over recent decades, teachers and their unions have felt the impact of ‘neoliberal’ policies in education. David Harvey describes neoliberalism as “a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterised by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade” (Harvey 2005). Essentially this means pursuing policies which privilege individualism, choice and competition, and see the state as a constraint on this freedom.
In the state of NSW, we have seen such policies manifest in school education over the last 30-odd years. Some key examples include the now-defunct Local Schools Local Decisions devolutionary reform, and school ‘dezoning’ policies from the 1980s which expanded parental choice.
Market-based and competition style policies have had clear impacts on teachers’ work. As we have described elsewhere in this suite of articles, and as expanded upon in a recent article (Gavin & Stacey, 2023), despite the promise of devolutionary reform in helping to ‘reduce red tape’, in fact, the level of bureaucracy and paperwork has worsened in schools. Teachers’ workload and work hours have exploded and are considered ‘very high’ by international standards. Evidence shows teachers have felt a loss of professional respect (Mockler, 2022). And this is while teachers have worked under a decade-long ‘cap’ on salaries and went to extraordinary lengths to continue students’ learning during the COVID-19 pandemic (Gavin & Stacey, 2022).
Teacher unions are setting the agenda
Asserting the voice of teachers against policies that worsen their conditions and affect public education is important. Unions use a range of tactics and strategies to protect and improve both teachers’ working conditions and students’ learning environments.
Looking beyond Australia, we’ve seen vivid examples of teachers being fed up with current policy environments and demanding better conditions and professional respect. In the USA, educators led an historic upsurge in work stoppages in the #RedforEd strikes in 2018-19 (Blanc, 2020). Teachers across mainly Republican-dominated states – some even with bans on public sector strikes – pushed back against austerity and privatisation agendas that were negatively impacting public schools. Educators were successful in winning many key improvements on pay, conditions, and school funding. This activism was mirrored in the NSW Teachers’ Federation ‘More Than Thanks’ campaign where NSW teachers took historic strike action to fight against workload burdens and declining professional salaries.
At other times, other strategies may be more necessary or effective to defend teachers’ work and public education. In a chapter looking at changes to professional accreditation in NSW, we examined how governments have used professional standards to hold teachers accountable for the quality of education systems (McGrath-Champ et al., 2020). We explored how the NSW Teachers’ Federation used a strategy of ‘professional unionism’ in working with government and Department to support a standards-based accreditation system at a time when we have seen credentialism and professionalism under threat. An interview with a senior officer for this research described how introducing a standards-based system in NSW would make it “more difficult for governments to come after qualified teachers” and help to prevent a “race to the bottom”. This is important given examples witnessed in other countries where lower paid ‘teaching assistants’ have increasingly replaced the work of teachers.
A great example of this ‘professionalisation’ strategy has also been building the work of the NSW Teachers’ Federation in other areas, such as the Centre for Professional Learning, which helps to provide high-quality training for teachers, as well as this very journal which shares key resources and articles for teachers to enhance their learning across topics. This kind of work by unions is critical and reflects an important way that teachers can build their knowledge and skills about unions and issues in their profession.
Elsewhere, we see examples of unions using evidence from academic research as a platform to campaign for better working conditions for teachers and improvements to public education. In an article on academics collaborating with teacher unions to drive policy impact, we showed how a collaborative research project on teacher workload with the NSW Teachers Federation established an evidence base to draw attention to the work demands on teachers and campaign for better conditions (McGrath-Champ et al., 2022). Unions have also supported influential independent public inquiries into public education, such as the Gallop Inquiry (Gallop et al., 2020).
Another key strategy of teacher unionism has been striving for social justice and equality – not only in public education but across society more broadly. In an article on women-activists’ participation in teacher unions, we wrote about the importance of unions advancing gender equality by elevating the voice of women in union decision-making and representation (Gavin et al., 2022). Unions, like the NSW Teachers’ Federation, have been forerunners in promoting women’s participation in the union through initiatives such as the annual Women’s Conference and the Anna Stewart Program. But activism is challenging, and our article highlights a number of strains that women continue to face not only in their union work, but in the labour market and broader society. One union officer for this research explained how ‘women still carry the bulk of caring responsibilities, teaching full-time…while balancing teaching and family.’ With women now more highly unionised than men in Australia than ever before, striving for the goal of gender equality remains ever important – not only for unions but across the fabric of society.
Let’s continue to raise teachers’ voices
Teachers work in one of the world’s most important professions globally, helping to educate and prepare children for their future lives and to be good citizens for a democratic society. But they are working in challenging and increasingly demanding times, marked by a distinct lack of professional respect. Unions play a vital role in continuing to advance and advocate not only for teachers, but for students and public education more broadly.
Gavin, M., McGrath-Champ, S., Stacey, M., & Wilson, R. (2022). The ‘triple burden’ in teaching: implications for women’s work as teachers and unionists. Economic and Industrial Democracy 43(2), 830-852.https://doi.org/10.1177/0143831X20958481
Gavin, M., & Stacey, M. (2023). Enacting autonomy reform in schools: the re-shaping of roles and relationships under Local Schools, Local Decisions. Journal of Educational Change 24 (501-523). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-022-09455-5
Harvey, D. A Brief History of Neoliberalism (2005) Oxford: Oxford University Pres
McGrath-Champ, S., Gavin, M., & Stacey, M. (2020). Strategy and policy: the case of an Australian teachers’ union. In R. Lansbury, A. Johnson, & D. Van den Broek (Eds.), Contemporary issues in work and organisations: An integrated approach (pp. 110-126). Routledge.
McGrath-Champ, S., Gavin, M., Stacey, M., & Wilson, R. (2022). Collaborating for policy impact: Academic-practitioner collaboration in industrial relations research. Journal of Industrial Relations 64(5), 759-784. journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00221856221094887
Mihajla Gavin is a Senior Lecturer in the Business School at the University of Technology Sydney, and has worked as a senior officer in the public sector in Australia across various workplace relations advisory, policy and project roles. Mihajla’s research is concerned with analysing the response of teacher unions to neoliberal education reform that has affected teachers’ conditions of work.
Dr Scott Fitzgerald is an Associate Professor in the School of Management at Curtin Business School, Curtin University. His research interests are in the broad areas of industrial relations, human resource management, organisational behaviour and organisation studies. His research expertise also spans various disciplines: sociology, political economy and media and communication studies. A key focus of Scott’s recent research has been the changing nature of governance, professionalism and work in the education sector.
Susan McGrath-Champ is Professor in Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney Business School, Australia. She has a PhD from Macquarie University, Sydney and a Masters degree from the University of British Columbia, Canada. Her research includes the geographical aspects of the world of work, employment relations and international human resource management. Recent studies include those of schoolteachers’ work and working conditions.
Meghan Stacey is a former secondary school teacher and current Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at UNSW Sydney. Meghan’s research interests are in the sociology of education and education policy, with a particular focus on the critical policy sociology of teachers’ work. Her first book, The business of teaching: Becoming a teacher in a market of schools, was published in 2020 with Palgrave Macmillan.
Rachel Wilson is Professor, Social Impact at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research takes a system perspective on design and management of education systems and their workforce. She has expertise in educational assessment, research methods and programme evaluation, with broad interests across educational evidence, policy and practice. She is interested in system-level reform and has been involved in designing, implementing and researching many university and school education reforms.
Meghan Stacey et al. provide a historical context to the introduction of the temporary teacher category and its implications of precariousness of work and the impact on workload and career expectations. . .
Recently, around 5500 temporary teachers and support staff in NSW accepted a conversion to permanent status (NSW Government, 2023). This announcement represents new gains in the effort to address what we refer to below as the ‘recommodification’ of the teaching profession over the past twenty years, through growing work insecurity. In this article, we explore the origins and effects of the ‘temporary’ category of teaching work in NSW public schools.
The rise of temporary teaching work in NSW
In a recent journal article (McGrath-Champ et al., 2022), we used historical case and contemporary survey data to explore how the category of temporary teaching work has grown since its creation.
Established in 2001, the temporary teaching category was initially introduced in response to the ‘commodification’ of teaching labour that was taking place through a growth in casual work throughout the 1980s and 1990s, when the proportion of casual employment grew to 20%. This had considerable implications for teachers, and especially women teachers, with women engaged in childbearing effectively forced to resign from their permanent roles and return as casual teachers when their caring responsibilities allowed. There were, additionally, concerns that long-term casuals were completing very similar work to that of permanent teachers, but without appropriate recompense. The temporary teaching category presented a clear improvement on this situation.
Fast-forward to 2017, however, and while the casual proportion of the workforce had remained relatively stable since the introduction of the temporary category, at around 10%, analysis of union membership figures indicated that temporary teachers had grown to account for around 20% of the workforce, while permanent positions had declined from around 85% to about 70%. According to the NSW Government, the proportion of permanency has since been even lower, sitting at around 63% (NSW Government, 2023). The introduction of the temporary category, initially established in an effort to ‘decommodify’ the teaching profession, had instead led to an overall increase in precarity across the workforce, through what we describe as a process of ‘recommodification’.
The union has taken a range of actions over the past twenty years to manage this recommodification of work. This has included negotiations with the Department to achieve or maintain provisions under the three-yearly Staffing Agreement; monitoring of, and court action to ensure, the appointment of teachers to permanent instead of temporary positions; and efforts to secure professional development provisions for early career teachers in temporary roles. The announcement of the conversion of a further 5500 teachers and support staff to permanent status so far this year, and with more slated to come, represents but the latest response to a series of efforts made in this area by the union.
Impacts of temporary work on job quality and career progression
In a second recent article on this topic (Stacey et al., 2022), we conducted a deep-dive analysis of our survey data to explore the impacts of fixed-term contract work for temporary teachers.
Workload data indicates that teachers employed in a fixed-term capacity (i.e. in a ‘temporary engagement’) undertake a similar nature and amount of work to those in permanent roles, especially when compared with teachers working in a casual capacity. For example, while 72% of permanent teachers and 70% of temporary teachers felt their work ‘always’ requires them to ‘work very hard’, only 58% of casual teachers felt this way. Similarly, while 36% of permanent and 37% of temporary staff felt their work required ‘too great an effort’, this was true for only 27% of casual staff.
Yet interestingly, although temporary teachers were undertaking similar amounts of work to permanent teachers, they sometimes felt as though they were actually working harder. We understand this reflects a perception that they needed to ‘do more’ than permanent employees to keep their jobs. As one respondent explained, “there is a huge expectation that teachers put their hand up for extra roles … which adds to the pressure [teachers] (particularly temp teachers as we do more) feel”. Teachers’ careers were felt to be “at the whim of principals who pick and choose according to who toes the line … jumping through hoops to retain their position and add to their CV in order to gain permanency”. This loss of control over work negatively impacts job quality, as teachers described having to “take whatever is handed to you” as “workload rules go out the window”.
Overall, respondents expressed a frustration that they were not “deemed worthy of permanent employment”. Indeed, only 27% of respondents in fixed-term contract positions indicated that they were in these roles by choice. There are also gendered implications here, with women respondents much more likely to be temporary than men, suggesting potential, gendered ‘scarring’ effects on women teachers’ career progression.
The future of employment security in teaching
It has been heartening, in recent months, to see that the NSW Government is working with the Federation to continue to address the concerns raised by fixed-term contract work in teaching. Promoting the attractiveness of teaching as a career is a particularly important priority today, and employment security is a key part of what has, historically, made school teaching a high-quality job. Protecting this feature of the profession is essential if the workforce is to be effectively supported moving forward.
McGrath-Champ S, Fitzgerald S, Gavin M, Stacey M and Wilson R. (2023) Labour commodification in the employment heartland: Union responses to teachers’ temporary work. Work, Employment and Society, 37(5): 1165-1185. Published online 8 March 2022.DOI: 10.1177/09500170211069854
Stacey, M., Fitzgerald, S., Wilson, R., McGrath-Champ, S., & Gavin, M. (2022). Teachers, fixed-term contracts and school leadership: toeing the line and jumping through hoops. Journal of Educational Administration and History 54(1), 54-68. doi.org/10.1080/00220620.2021.1906633
Meghan Stacey is a former secondary school teacher and current Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at UNSW Sydney. Meghan’s research interests are in the sociology of education and education policy, with a particular focus on the critical policy sociology of teachers’ work. Her first book, The business of teaching: Becoming a teacher in a market of schools, was published in 2020 with Palgrave Macmillan.
Rachel Wilson is Professor, Social Impact at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research takes a system perspective on design and management of education systems and their workforce. She has expertise in educational assessment, research methods and programme evaluation, with broad interests across educational evidence, policy and practice. She is interested in system-level reform and has been involved in designing, implementing and researching many university and school education reforms.
Dr Scott Fitzgerald is an Associate Professor in the School of Management at Curtin Business School, Curtin University. His research interests are in the broad areas of industrial relations, human resource management, organisational behaviour and organisation studies. His research expertise also spans various disciplines: sociology, political economy and media and communication studies. A key focus of Scott’s recent research has been the changing nature of governance, professionalism and work in the education sector.
Mihajla Gavin is a Senior Lecturer in the Business School at the University of Technology Sydney, and has worked as a senior officer in the public sector in Australia across various workplace relations advisory, policy and project roles. Mihajla’s research is concerned with analysing the response of teacher unions to neoliberal education reform that has affected teachers’ conditions of work.
Susan McGrath-Champ is Professor in Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney Business School, Australia. She has a PhD from Macquarie University, Sydney and a Masters degree from the University of British Columbia, Canada. Her research includes the geographical aspects of the world of work, employment relations and international human resource management. Recent studies include those of schoolteachers’ work and working conditions.
Scott Fitzgerald et al. reflect on the shift from centralised decision-making to increased school autonomy and the resultant impact on teachers and principals . . .
Over the last decade in Australia, devolution and school autonomy have affected teachers’ and principals’ roles, workloads and working relations within schools. The moves towards devolutionary reform in Australian education systems has a long history. The genealogy of these changes can be traced back to the 1970s (MacDonald et al., 2021) and reflects a significant shift from centralized decision-making to increased school autonomy. However, as education scholars have long noted (Lingard & Rizvi, 2006), the concept of devolution has been a fluid and contested one.
Devolution policy in Australia in an era of new public management
An important difference in understanding approaches to devolution is between the social democratic tradition of the 1970s (epitomised in the 1973 Karmel Report, ‘Schools in Australia’) and New Public Management (NPM) models. The Karmel Report argued for enhanced decision-making at a local level in a manner that more readily addressed the specific needs of students, the community and teachers. The NPM model suggested devolution could help drive greater efficiency and effectiveness in the school system by encouraging self-management of schools, controlled centrally by greater accountability requirements.
The latter view became ascendant in the 1980s and has remained dominant for the last 30 years. Greater school autonomy has been delivered to areas of budgeting and staffing (the organisation and management work) as opposed to decisions around curriculum and assessment (learning and teaching). This is despite evidence from the OECD (2013) showing that this particular form of self-management within schools is proven to have little to no effect on improved student outcomes.
The establishment of the National Education Agreement and Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) in 2008, followed by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) in 2009, signalled that, rather than becoming more devolved, curriculum and assessment were in fact to become more centralised via national standards and accountability measures such as the National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) test (Thompson, 2013). Here we have what Professors Bob Lingard and Fazal Rizvi have described as “the two arms of the same process of corporate managerialist reform”: devolution and centralisation (Lingard & Rizvi, 2006).
Devolution, principals and teachers
The effects of this policy ensemble have been investigated by a considerable body of research over an extended period of time. Looking at Australian states, we have seen the effects of increased teacher and principal workloads. In an article on this topic, we reported on teachers’ views of devolution-driven work changes associated with the Local Schools, Local Decisions (LSLD) package of school autonomy reforms in New South Wales (Fitzgerald et al., 2019). While increased school autonomy was consistently associated with work intensification, primarily in relation to ‘paperwork’ requirements, respondents noted other variations in workload pressures arising from the increased school differentiation facilitated by devolutionary policies. Although the overall experiences of increased workload remained consistent, distinct patterns of work intensification were evident, reflecting the working environment of a school’s level (primary or secondary), location and relative socio-educational advantage.
In another article, we reported on research that examined how 30 principals in two devolved Australian state settings, NSW and Western Australia, responded to the workload pressures associated with school autonomy (McGrath-Champ et al., 2019). Despite new leadership profiles tied to the leadership standard for principals (AITSL, 2014), the findings suggest that these school leaders were ill-equipped to support the local, school-level working conditions of teachers. Moreover, while principals valued the greater discretionary powers that came with school autonomy, the associated workload burden further compromised their support of, and work with, teachers who also faced work intensification. Notwithstanding this overarching finding, once more there were locational differences (between metropolitan, regional and rural schools) in how principals understood and responded to teachers’ changing working conditions.
A greater differentiation in the experiences of teachers and principals, both across school systems and within schools, has been a concerning outcome of devolutionary policies. This issue was explored in detail in an article that examined the ways in which the Independent Public School (IPS) initiative in WA drove new market dynamics within the state’s public school sector (Fitzgerald et al., 2018). Drawing on extensive interview data from two schools – one IPS and one non-IPS – we found that competition and choice associated with the devolutionary IPS program reinforced mechanisms of residualisation, marked by increasingly complex and disadvantaged student cohorts, particularly in non-IP schools. Nonetheless, teachers in both schools reported new pressures such that all teaching staff described significant dissatisfaction in their work.
Teachers’ dissatisfaction emanated not only from workload pressures but also from the fracturing of school-level working relations in devolved, ‘autonomous’ schools. This process was evident in WA’s IPS and NSW’s LSLD initiatives. In an article based on 31 school leader and teacher interviews, we encountered consistent criticism of the negative workload implications of the increased responsibility and accountability associated with LSLD (Gavin & Stacey, 2023). Despite the lack of clarity they experienced around their decision-making and accountability, principals appreciated their elevated importance and enhanced discretionary power. In contrast, teachers raised concerns that ‘local decisions’ about resource management in schools had become more opaque. Teachers noted, for example, that principals used their increased staffing autonomy to create extra leadership, rather than classroom teaching, positions. Moreover, while principals pointed to the managerial burden associated with their expanded hiring discretion, teachers perceived that selection processes were now more often shaped by nepotism than merit.
The real effects of devolution
There is no firm evidence that the way school autonomy has been implemented in Australia has improved student outcomes. Nor has it led to more equitable outcomes for students or staff – an issue we engaged with in an article collating contributions from school autonomy researchers around the world (Keddie et al., 2022). Instead, research, including our own, has raised real concerns that devolution and school autonomy has contributed to the inequities in our education systems. School autonomy in staffing and resource allocation poses risks for trust in the crucial working relations at a local school level and, as the level of bureaucracy and paperwork in schools has grown, has contributed to the unsustainable and increasingly complex workloads that teachers face. While LSLD may no longer be in place in NSW schools, revised structures of governance will require ongoing attention if they are to avoid the range of difficulties evident under previous autonomy models.
Fitzgerald, S., McGrath-Champ, S., Stacey, M., Wilson, R., & Gavin, M. (2019). Intensification of teachers’ work under devolution: A ‘tsunami’ of paperwork. Journal of Industrial Relations, 61(5), 613-636. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022185618801396
Fitzgerald, S., Stacey, M., McGrath-Champ, S., Parding, K., & Rainnie, A. (2018). Devolution, market dynamics and the Independent Public School initiative in Western Australia: ‘winning back’ what has been lost? Journal of Education Policy, 33(5), 662-681. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2017.1412502
Gavin, M., & Stacey, M. (2023). Enacting autonomy reform in schools: the re-shaping of roles and relationships under Local Schools, Local Decisions. Journal of Educational Change 24 (501-523). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-022-09455-5
Karmel, p., ( 1973) Schools in Australia: report of the Interim Committee for the Australian Schools
Commission. Interim Committee for the Australian Schools Commission
Keddie, A., MacDonald, K., Blackmore, J., Boyask, R., Fitzgerald, S., Gavin, M., Heffernan, D., Hursh, C., McGrath-Champ, P., Møller, E., O’Neill, Parding, Salokangas, Skerritt, Stacey, Thomson, Wilkins, Wilson, Wylie, & Yoon. (2022). What needs to happen for school autonomy to be mobilised to create more equitable public schools and systems of education? Australian Educational Researcher, online first. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-022-00573-w
Lingard, B., & Rizvi, F. (2006). Theorising the ambiguities of devolution. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 13(1), 111-123. doi.org/10.1080/0159630920130108
MacDonald, K., Keddie, A., Blackmore, J., Mahoney, C., Wilkinson, J., Gobby, B., Niesche, R., & Eacott, S. (2021). School autonomy reform and social justice: a policy overview of Australian public education (1970s to present). Australian Educational Researcher, 50, 307-327. link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13384-021-00482-4
McGrath-Champ, S., Stacey, M., Wilson, R., Fitzgerald, S., Rainnie, A., & Parding, K. (2019). Principals’ support for teachers’ working conditions in devolved school settings: Insights from two Australian States. Educational Management Administration and Leadership, 47(4), 590-605. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741143217745879
Thompson, G. (2013). NAPLAN, MySchool and Accountability: Teacher perceptions of the effects of testing. The International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives, 12(2), 62-84.
Dr Scott Fitzgerald is an Associate Professor in the School of Management at Curtin Business School, Curtin University. His research interests are in the broad areas of industrial relations, human resource management, organisational behaviour and organisation studies. His research expertise also spans various disciplines: sociology, political economy and media and communication studies. A key focus of Scott’s recent research has been the changing nature of governance, professionalism and work in the education sector.
Mihajla Gavin is a Senior Lecturer in the Business School at the University of Technology Sydney, and has worked as a senior officer in the public sector in Australia across various workplace relations advisory, policy and project roles. Mihajla’s research is concerned with analysing the response of teacher unions to neoliberal education reform that has affected teachers’ conditions of work.
Susan McGrath-Champ is Professor in Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney Business School, Australia. She has a PhD from Macquarie University, Sydney and a Masters degree from the University of British Columbia, Canada. Her research includes the geographical aspects of the world of work, employment relations and international human resource management. Recent studies include those of schoolteachers’ work and working conditions.
Meghan Stacey is a former secondary school teacher and current Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at UNSW Sydney. Meghan’s research interests are in the sociology of education and education policy, with a particular focus on the critical policy sociology of teachers’ work. Her first book, The business of teaching: Becoming a teacher in a market of schools, was published in 2020 with Palgrave Macmillan.
Rachel Wilson is Professor, Social Impact at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research takes a system perspective on design and management of education systems and their workforce. She has expertise in educational assessment, research methods and programme evaluation, with broad interests across educational evidence, policy and practice. She is interested in system-level reform and has been involved in designing, implementing and researching many university and school education reforms.
Rachel Wilson et al. provide insights into teachers’ work through research, including interviews, workshops and questionnaires. . .
It won’t be news to teachers, or anyone with family or friends who are teachers, that teachers work long hours under heavy and intensifying demands. However, some facts and figures speak loudly and help effect policy shifts to address the work challenges facing teachers in schools and related professional shortages.
Our research group focuses on teachers’ work. In this summary, we show how we collaborated with the NSW Teachers Federation to give teachers a voice about their workload through research, including a series of interviews, workshops and questionnaires.
We highlight here three important points. First, the almost universally high work hours of teachers across Australia which threaten our education system and democracy. Second, teachers report that workload has intensified in recent years, with a ‘tsunami’ of paperwork. A third, and important, point is that teachers are using strategies like triaging, to deal with rising and competing demands, and this has important implications for how teachers’ workload may impact upon students.
Unsurprising news – teachers have a heavy (and heavier!) workload
We reviewed Australian surveys of teachers’ work and workload across five states, covering a total sample of 48,741 Australian public-school teachers (Gavin et al., 2021). The surveys were conducted between 2014 and 2019 and all were ‘pre-COVID’, yet they show independently assessed, but consistently high, work hours (See Table 1). These statistics put Australian teachers in the ‘very high’ workload category, and many spend substantial ‘out-of-school’ hours working.
Although rising teacher workload, and teacher shortages, are a concern internationally, we also know, from international surveys, that Australian teachers work longer hours than the OECD average— almost 20% more (OECD, 2019).
Table 1: Teachers’ work hours from five state surveys.
Total average hours per week (Primary, FT)
Total average hours per week (Secondary, FT)
Hours within total undertaking work activities at home or on the weekend
NSW
55
55
11
WA
53
53
10
Vic
52.8
53.2
11.5 hours for primary teachers. 13 hours for secondary
Tas
45.8
46.2
90% of primary teachers work 5 hours. 70% of secondary teachers work 3 hours
Qld
44
44
Teachers report spending between 1 and 7 hours ‘outside rostered duty time’, including weekends, each week
Significantly, the data in Table 1 are also consistent with three earlier government ‘Staff in Australia’s Schools’ surveys showing teachers had high and increasing work hours. These were conducted by the Australian Federal Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations—carried out over 2006, 2010, and 2013—and show that the average total hours worked increased slightly for both primary and secondary teachers over these periods (McKenzie et al., 2014). International OECD data also shows growing work hours, with the average working week for Australian teachers having increased by 2.1 hours between 2014 and 2018 (OECD, 2019).
This clear increase in teachers’ work intensified still further during COVID, when many teachers became stretched to breaking point, as we highlighted in a further publication (Wilson et al., 2020).
A tsunami of paperwork and data
The now well-documented high, and increasing, workload of teachers has coincided with new government policies, increasing accountability and devolved responsibility for student outcomes and school performance to the school level. These policies brought heavy demands, data and paperwork. See the resounding voice of teachers on how this happened in Figure 1.
Teachers described how this intensification felt via in-depth, qualitative research interviews. As early as 2015, teachers described experiencing an increased and unmanageable workload, manifest especially in piles of paperwork. As one teacher put it:
“the pile just grows and grows and grows and then, so then you start a new pile … I’ve got a pile on this side of my desk and then when that pile started to get too big there’s a new pile on that side. And now there’s a pile growing on my computer table as well. And it’s all of this paperwork that I have to get through.“
These ‘piles’ of increasing administrative, technological and data-based requirements were reported in increasing levels alongside so-called ‘autonomy’ initiatives which many teachers pointed out occurred when the central education department support services were cut. The tsunami of new administrative work was felt acutely in public schools because it occurred alongside diminished support, and increasing demands, as schools became more and more segregated, residualising some public schools catering to an ever-wider range and depth of student need.
Teachers now do triage
Importantly, the intensification of teachers’ work, primarily driven by increasing compliance, paperwork and datafication, has also decreased the proportion of time that teachers have available to focus on matters perceived as more core to the job of teaching.
Our survey data reveal that teachers—by and large— still retain their primary focus on matters directly related to working with students in teaching and learning. In other words, they have taken the work intensification burden upon their own shoulders, working faster, for longer hours, and in out-of-school hours, to protect the time they spend with students and retain professional integrity.
One of the strategies teachers are now compelled to use to protect their core work is triage. About two-thirds of participants in our interview study (Stacey et al., 2022) reported that because of expansion of demands, some tasks could not be completed satisfactorily; for these teachers, the impossibility of completing their work “properly” meant that decisions had to be made regarding “what to let go”. Just as in the emergency room where nurses triage, prioritising the most pressing, time-critical and needy cases, many teachers are having to prioritise particular aspects of their work.
As one participant described it, data collection and accountability requirements meant they were “too busy proving that I’m doing what I should be doing”. Another related how they “have to tell students ‘I’m sorry, I can’t talk now, I’ve got to go to a meeting’, and that’s not fair to my students. I’m paid to teach; I’m not paid to run off to meetings”.
As noted above, teachers’ work intensified still further during COVID-19 with complexity of work and administrative tasks being particularly demanding, as shown in Figure 2, which is drawn from a publication reporting on a separate workload survey we conducted (Wilson et al., 2020). Although lesson preparation time also increased, teachers asked for support through alleviating the administrative burden, not through having others undertake lesson planning.
Figure 2: Increases in work demands after the shift to remote teaching and learning due to COVID in 2020 (Wilson et al., 2020)
The research data on teachers’ work, from a range of sources, including international and government reports, as well as from independent academic researchers like our team, clearly shows increasing demands on teachers that threaten important teaching work with students and educational productivity. In addition, teachers in our studies attributed these new demands largely to government policies, as we highlight in Stacey et al. (2023). If trends persist these will have knock-on effects to the economy, and egalitarian and democratic values.
Fixing the evolving teacher workload problem
COVID-19 pushed many teachers toward the brink, and since then a range of factors have conspired, producing national and international teacher shortages which are at once both a response to, and exacerbate, increasing teacher workload. Although recent policy shifts are attempting to address these matters, ongoing analysis will be required to ensure that teachers are effectively supported in the valuable work they do.
Gavin, M; McGrath – Champ, S; Wilson, R; Fitzgerald, S & Stacey, M (2021) Teacher workload in Australia; National reports of Intensification and its threat to democracy. In S. Riddle, A. Heffernan, & D. Bright (Eds.), New perspectives on education for democracy: Creative Responses to Local and Global Challenges (pp. 110-123). Routledge.
McKenzie, P., Weldon, P., Rowley, G., Murphy, M., & McMillan, J. (2014). Staff in Australia’s schools 2013: Main report on the survey. https://research.acer.edu.au/tll_misc/20/
Stacey, M., McGrath-Champ, S. & Wilson, R. (2023). Teacher attributions of workload increase in public sector schools: Reflections on change and policy development. Journal of Educational Change, online first. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10833-022-09476-0
Stacey, M., Wilson, R., & McGrath-Champ, S. (2022). Triage in teaching: the nature and impact of workload in schools. Asia Pacific Journal of Education 42(4), 772-785.https://doi.org/10.1080/02188791.2020.1777938
Rachel Wilson is Professor, Social Impact at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research takes a system perspective on design and management of education systems and their workforce. She has expertise in educational assessment, research methods and programme evaluation, with broad interests across educational evidence, policy and practice. She is interested in system-level reform and has been involved in designing, implementing and researching many university and school education reforms.
Susan McGrath-Champ is Professor in Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney Business School, Australia. She has a PhD from Macquarie University, Sydney and a Masters degree from the University of British Columbia, Canada. Her research includes the geographical aspects of the world of work, employment relations and international human resource management. Recent studies include those of schoolteachers’ work and working conditions.
Dr Scott Fitzgerald is an Associate Professor in the School of Management at Curtin Business School, Curtin University. His research interests are in the broad areas of industrial relations, human resource management, organisational behaviour and organisation studies. His research expertise also spans various disciplines: sociology, political economy and media and communication studies. A key focus of Scott’s recent research has been the changing nature of governance, professionalism and work in the education sector.
Mihajla Gavin is a Senior Lecturer in the Business School at the University of Technology Sydney, and has worked as a senior officer in the public sector in Australia across various workplace relations advisory, policy and project roles. Mihajla’s research is concerned with analysing the response of teacher unions to neoliberal education reform that has affected teachers’ conditions of work.
Meghan Stacey is a former secondary school teacher and current Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at UNSW Sydney. Meghan’s research interests are in the sociology of education and education policy, with a particular focus on the critical policy sociology of teachers’ work. Her first book, The business of teaching: Becoming a teacher in a market of schools, was published in 2020 with Palgrave Macmillan.
Emma Bruce provides a special education teacher’s insight on working with students with a disability. . .
As teachers of all students in many varied settings, we have a responsibility to meet the individual needs of each of those students. This responsibility, however, does not fall on our shoulders alone.
As teachers are the everyday point of contact between students and their education, it can often feel that we shoulder the immense weight of this responsibility ourselves. It is understandable to feel that way, especially when one is looking into the eyes of a student who needs support. It is time to consider, however, that it is not just students who need support to ensure that their needs are met. Support for students does not end at the classroom door. Supported students means supported teachers.
1. Teaching students with disability – A meaningful experience
The importance of a high-quality education for any student cannot be overstated. For those with disability it can (among other important provisions and developments): provide opportunities to develop fundamental life skills; build important social connections; and to learn, and express, self-determination. The key to this is the provision of meaningful learning experiences and support that allows our students to engage fully with those learning experiences.
As a teacher of any student, but particularly in the case of teaching students with disability, it is important to consider how their whole learning environment enables them to fully participate in all aspects of learning. This does not mean that a teacher of students with disability, therefore, becomes wholly responsible for that learning environment. That would be impossible. There are, however, actions that we can take as their most readily available point of contact.
As a teacher of students with disability, I consider this an immense responsibility and an immense privilege. My practice has improved through the development of my capacity to ensure that my content delivery and instruction caters to the needs of these students. In doing this, I hold the belief that my small steps will lead to those students taking much larger positive steps in their lives. So, while I focus on making their learning experiences meaningful to them, the experience of teaching these amazing people is also immensely meaningful for me.
2. Meet them where they are – Personalised Learning, Collaboration and Positive Relationships
At the heart of the provision of meaningful learning experiences for our students is the knowledge of what our students need to fully engage with their learning. A clear understanding of learning adjustments, or environmental accommodations, that can be made to support a student with disability engaging with their learning on the same basis as students without disability is imperative. Of equal importance is an understanding of our students as individuals with varying interests and aspirations.
Teachers equipped with knowledge of a student’s disability and potential strategies to support them are more able to encourage meaningful engagement with learning activities. Teachers equipped with this knowledge and an understanding of their students’ interests will be able to respond more readily to opportunities for the provision of richer learning experiences. A combination of both will open the door, and provide opportunities, for these students to express themselves, build relationships and engage more wholly with their learning.
In many cases, these opportunities may not present themselves unless they are actively sought and encouraged. For example, I once knew a student who was assessed as needing support to learn to communicate choices. It was believed that this student was unable to do so independently. That student’s teacher spoke with their parents, who shared the student’s love for a popular character in a children’s movie. The teacher incorporated objects and images that represented that character into some of the student’s activities throughout the day. The student began to independently display choice-making behaviours and to engage with learning activities focussing on particular augmented communication strategies in order to communicate those choices. Once the student was able to use these skills in activities that included the popular character, they began to generalise these skills to communicate their needs and wants during other activities. The door was opened, and that student flourished.
In light of the need to understand these students as individuals, it is important to collaborate with those who have significant knowledge and understanding of them as individuals. While we as teachers have an important role to play in their development at school, we can gain a wealth of knowledge from those who interact with them beyond the classroom. Under the Disability Discrimination Act, 19921via the Disability Standards for Education, 20052 there is a legislated requirement to consult the student, or their associates, before making an adjustment3 to assist the student . Often this will be the student’s parent(s)/carer(s)/family but may also involve other agencies and/or professionals supporting the student.
Embracing and facilitating opportunities for effective and meaningful collaboration on the pathway taken by a student with disability in their learning is a mutually valuable undertaking. Such effective collaboration can improve the student’s learning and engagement; positively impact on our practice as teachers; as well as support the well-being of the student’s family (through the establishment of positive working relationships between the school and home).
The NSW Education Standards Authority( NESA) has helpful information on students with disability. It is especially useful for those seeking to better understand the collaborative planning approach to supporting students with disability.
3. Don’t do it alone – access expertise and resources, and build collegial links
Meeting the needs of a student with disability can be a complex and challenging task. Simultaneously meeting the varied needs of multiple students with disability can be much more so. The responsibility for this, however, does not sit squarely on the shoulders of the classroom teacher. It is important for teachers to know where to turn for support and further information.
Who to contact:
Those listed below may be available in your school. Contact details of those who work outside of the school can be found on the Department portal.
The Department has information available on the roles of many of those available to support here
Supervisors – Your supervisor is often your first port of call for matters to do with classroom management and professional development. This includes matters to do with the support of students with disability in your classroom. They can provide advice and liaise with other appropriate support staff. This includes the Principal, LaSTs, LST, SLSOs, School Counsellors, Assistant Principals Learning and Support (APLaS) and/or Learning Wellbeing Advisors (LWAs)/ Learning Wellbeing Officers (LWOs) as needed within the specific circumstances.
Learning and Support Teachers (LaSTs) – a role description is available from the Department here. While LaSTs’ roles vary to meet the varying needs of their schools, the role description clearly outlines the expectations on how that role is to be fulfilled to support students with disability and their teachers. It is important to note that, according to this role description, provided by the Department, “In undertaking their work the Learning and Support Teacher will not be used to provide relief for teachers/executive or to establish a separate class.”
Your Principal – Your Principal has a vested interest in supporting Students with Disability (SWD) in the school. They can provide advice and liaise with other appropriate support staff. This includes the Principal, LaSTs, LST, SLSOs, School counsellors, APLaS and/or LWAs/LWOs as needed within the specific circumstances.
The Learning and Support Team (LST) – The composition of LSTs varies in schools depending on the local needs of the school. Often, they will include the Principal, School Counsellors (if available) and LaSTs. The role of the LST is to support SWD by facilitating whole-school approaches to improving their engagement and learning outcomes, coordinating planning processes and developing collaborative partnerships with the school, parents and wider school community.
Other colleagues – Teaching is a collaborative profession, and our colleagues can provide a wealth of information and support. I have often said that some of my best professional learning occurred in the staffroom via conversations with my colleagues. If you are comfortable doing so, reach out to your colleagues for advice.
Local and/or relevant specialist teachers (such as English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EALD) teachers as well as those in specialist settings). Reaching out to these teachers will help to extend your network and build collegial links outside of your school.
School Learning Support Officers (SLSOs) – Their role is to support teachers, while working under their direction and supervision, to implement programs that support SWD. They often provide assistance with school routines, classroom activities and the care of students.
Assistant Principal Learning and Support (APLaS) – A role description is available from the Department here.
School Support contacts –Can be contacted by your school, to provide the following:
Learning and Wellbeing Coordinator (LWC) – Coordination of services, programs and initiatives supporting students with diverse needs, including those with disability
Learning and Wellbeing Advisors (LWA) – Engages with local schools to plan and implement strategies to support student wellbeing, including those with disability.
Learning and Wellbeing Officers (LWO) – Point of contact for Principals and schools for wellbeing matters.
School Counsellors (if available)
Consider accessing resources to further enhance your understanding
Resources, policies and procedures available in the Department portal, especially those relating to student wellbeing, education of students with disability and Work Health and Safety
Resources and professional development opportunities provided by NSW Teachers Federation through the Federation Library, Trade Union Training (TUT) and the Centre for Professional Learning (CPL). These courses also provide ample opportunity to extend your networks as mentioned above.
Click the links below for information on each section of the Federation’s website. Members will need to log in to access the links. Further information can be found in the Knowledge Centre of the Member Portal.
4. Enjoy it – reflect on your practice and learn alongside your students
While teaching students with disability can be challenging, and meeting their needs can be complex, it can also be one of the most rewarding endeavours you can undertake as a teacher.
In my ten years as a teacher at a School for Specific Purposes (SSP), I considered it a personal and professional privilege to learn so much alongside the individuals I taught and the colleagues with whom I worked.
At every social event there would come the question “What do you do?” I was always proud to say that I teach students with disabilities. The reactions of different people to that answer were often thought provoking. The ones I would receive most often were protestations of “That’s so wonderful, I could never do that,” “You must be so patient,” “It must be so difficult.”
At the beginning of my career, I would often just accept these responses and move the conversation on. There was something that just didn’t sit quite right with that, but I was unsure of what it was. Once I realised, I began to respond differently. I wanted to flip the narrative of those conversations from “it takes a great teacher to teach students with disability” to “teaching my students makes me a better teacher.” Because it did.
The processes, strategies and systems that are needed in order to meet the needs of students with disability will challenge you in ways that you cannot foresee. It requires honest reflection on your approaches to education, guided by an understanding of the student as an individual, and implemented within the broader scope of the whole class, the whole school and the public education system. Part of this reflection will require an understanding of your role within that system, your ability to change it or, when necessary, work within it. It is also important to recognise your ability to combine your knowledge and practice with the resources available to you (including support from outside the classroom door) and to bring everything together for each moment that is so vitally important for each student. While there is undeniable complexity in meeting the needs of these students, there is also substantial joy in helping them to achieve their goals.
In developing your ability to cater for the needs of students with disability, you will simultaneously build your capacity to meet the needs of all students in your charge, in whichever setting type you find yourself. The strategies and practices that help students with disability are of immense value to all students.
1. The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA) is federal legislation that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in Australia. The DDA makes it unlawful to discriminate against a person in many areas of public life including employment, education, housing and accessing public places.
2 The Disability Standards for Education 2005 (DSE) outlines the obligations of education providers, such as the Department of Education, under the DDA. The main premise of the DSE is to ensure that students with disability are able to access and participate in education on the same basis as students without disability
3 An adjustment is defined in section 3.3 of the DSE as a measure or action (or group of measures or actions) taken by an education provider that has the effect of assisting a student with a disability:
(i) in relation to an admission or enrolment — to apply for the admission or enrolment; and
(ii) in relation to a course or program — to participate in the course or program; and
(iii) in relation to facilities or services — to use the facilities or services; on the same basis as a student without a disability, and includes an aid, a facility, or a service that the student requires because of his or her disability;
Emma Bruce was elected as a NSW Teachers Federation Organiser in September, 2022. As part of this role, she is also the Officer with carriage of matters related to students with disability.
Emma is a teacher of students with disability who began teaching in 2011 in Western Sydney, predominately at a large SSP where she has taught for 10 years. She has held the roles of Federation Representative, Women’s Contact and Assistant Principal. She was a Councillor and Special Education Contact of the Parramatta Teachers Association.
Emma was a Federation Project Officer and Relief Officer prior to her election as City Organiser in 2022.
Marnie Etheridge shares the possibilities of digital pedagogies for teaching English to senior students. . .
English teaching has always been a physical construct for me. As someone who has spent twenty years in classrooms, my love of movement has manifested in colourful whiteboard notes, paper puzzle activities and gallery walks. I spent many an evening clipping resources in front of the TV ready for my senior class in the morning. I also spent many post-lessons trying to wrangle tiny pieces of paper and post-it notes filled with student inspiration that could be shared, refined and expanded upon in future lessons.
However, a movement into Aurora College two months before the first pandemic lockdown forced me to reconsider English pedagogy. I teach students entirely online. How can I get movement of thinking and agility of response into my classroom?
This article seeks to share the wonderful possibilities of digital pedagogies for teaching senior students.
Through the use of:
OneNote- a digital note keeping program that allows students to make notes and keep handouts in a digital cloud environment.
JamBoard- a cloud-based collaboration tool that collates student responses to stimulus questions or prompts.
Mentimetre- an online survey tool that utilises student responses to develop word clouds, charts or ratings.
Flipgrid- an online video recording environment that can be curated and managed entirely by the teacher
They’re not complex software solutions that require hours of training or tricky concepts to communicate. But what they can offer are ways for students to collaborate, in a meaningful way, that records their initial ideas and reveals a progression that allows students to reflect personally on how their learning is being refined.
My suggestion is to bring one of these tools into your toolkit once a term in a way that is simple and easily integrated into the teaching and learning cycle. That way you can embed the tool effectively and be confident before seeking the next challenge.
The best teaching we know is mostly undertaken when teachers are not always centre of the learning, but when students have agency in their learning. When classrooms are principally traditional “top-down” pedagogies, we limit the creativity and efficacy of student understanding and this can mean that students only achieve limited results in the Stage 6 classroom (Baroutsis 2018). Newer and more creative ways of bringing critical thinking, conceptual understanding and the ability to transfer knowledge have never been more essential to high achievement in the HSC classroom. Combine this with the expectation of parents, employers and tertiary education for technologically fluent students (Howell 2022) and then using digital pedagogies effectively in our classrooms becomes more than just nice— it becomes imperative. Digital technologies and pedagogies are one way to do this in a way that is engaging and that records great ideas and conversations to be referenced at a later date, embedding the cyclic and recursive nature of quality English instruction.
The key to incorporating digital tools into your classroom is to understand what end point you are hoping to achieve. Do you want students to be working and collaborating authentically? Do you want to be able to evaluate student drafts in real time? Do you want students to be inspired to have challenging and robust discussions around texts and concepts? Whatever you want your students to achieve should inform how you utilise technology in the classroom. It sounds like a paradox, but these tools are wonderful for creative, critical and collaborative activities— rather than isolating students, I have found these tools increase and foster connection in learning experiences.
OneNote
This is a recording notebook software that is part of the Microsoft Office suite of programs. Most schools that have Microsoft Office 365 for staff and students have OneNote available to them as part of that suite of tools. OneNote provides students with a digital repository that allows for individual, class level and faculty-based resourcing. In each OneNote created for a class through One Drive, teachers can set up class notebooks for each of their students, create resources pages quickly and efficiently, and distribute these electronically. Teachers can also watch students work in real time through the ‘Review Student Work’ feature.
I can create “handouts” that students can type or draw in, that includes links, images, videos, audio recordings and drawings. I can record feedback to students either by writing, typing or recording audio files. Once I have created these resources and saved them automatically in my Teacher Section, the “book” becomes a textbook for me to refine and reuse for my next class through a simple Move/Copy function.
The Move/Copy function has become important for the faculty at Aurora College- staff simply and quickly share One Note sections for programs that have worked successfully with other teachers, who are then able to adapt these for their own classrooms.
But this is just a tool for resource sharing- how to use it in pedagogically engaging ways? The Collaboration Space in OneNote is a fun place for students to collaborate over conceptual ideas. Gone are the days where you could drag out a crusty old pile of magazines and while away a double period on a Friday cutting out pictures of people to paste together in a collage. Students can snip and paste images they have found quickly into the same document with everyone else. The pasted images can also be tracked through the “Hide authors” button, which records the initials of students who are pasting images that are off track. When students’ initials appear in the page, teachers are able to keep track of which students are (or are not) contributing to the work, much like the ‘Track changes’ function in Microsoft Word.
Students can see each others’ ideas, and this often sparks them into more creative and inspired ways of thinking about concepts. OneNote allows the teacher to watch student responses develop in real time. I have used it to monitor student drafting processes, commenting on, and annotating, student writing in real time to keep students tracking in the right direction.
I love using OneNote and have been using it for note-taking during my Masters lectures that run through Zoom- it is a great way to take down thoughts quickly, especially if I need to respond to reflection questions or screen snip a great diagram or quote. There are plenty of places to learn how to use OneNote, and Department of Education employees have access to online training through LinkedIn Learning in the Staff Portal.
Jamboard is a collaboration tool that offers students the ability to share ideas quickly in a brainstorm style activity. It is part of the Google Suite of tools and offers students the chance to collaborate quickly in real-time. I have built digital “gallery walks” with Jamboard, which allows you to develop a range of “slides” that students can respond to. As students move through the slides, they respond to the stimulus slides and then move on when instructed. No more collating post-its. Jamboard records all ideas and it remains in your Google Drive. Getting students to snip the images of the slides and paste them into One Note means that the notes are kept and are easily accessible. This sharing and collating of ideas, thinking, analysis and reflection writing all work together to expand upon student ownership of their learning. In combination with a positive classroom culture, students find that their learning is also expanded through meaningful discussion. This tool can, however, be tricky in terms of classroom management – some students like to move post-its around or write inappropriate responses. Choose this tool if you trust your students to collaborate authentically.
Quick polling is sometimes a way to garner student opinion and spark an interesting conversation- Mentimetre is a quick, visually pleasing way to do this. By asking students to respond to a stimulus or a question, you can quickly collate responses and evaluate the quality of these, enhancing conversation, and perhaps encouraging students who normally wouldn’t contribute to respond. The polls use a slide format, and allow for chart, post or word cloud display of results in real time. Mentimetre does require a subscription which can be individual or school based. Aurora College uses Mentimetre to garner staff feedback and understanding during professional learning sessions and our teachers have also used it during HSC Study Day sessions for students across the state. Mentimetre is easy to use with a laptop and you can find training and more information below.
In this world of TikTok reels, video communication is king. Flipgrid is a video recording software, from the Microsoft corporation, that I have used previously to record student speeches and responses to text. Students record the speech using Flipgrid (with or without the filters and stickers, a feature that can be switched on and off by the teacher) it hen is available for the teacher to watch and mark at their leisure. The task I developed, using this tool, was a poetry response task where students were required to record their own speech and respond to two other speeches from the class.
This peer feedback component was easily completed by students either in class or at home. Students were encouraged to think critically about the speeches they watched. The ability to record their feedback quickly, in a short video or via a comment, made for easy submission and marking. Students could integrate slides or pages that had quotes or images from the poems they were discussing and even add special effects to their visuals. This is an engaging tool for students to communicate their learning and to reflect on each others’ work.
Also, teachers have the ultimate control over this you can lock all responses, before they get published and viewed by others, to review content appropriateness. The videos are not available to an online search- only to your class The students you add will be able to see them. You can also add other teachers as “co-pilots” and share between classes. Once your students have moved on, you can also hide the videos so no one can access them at a later date.
Flipgrid is a free subscription, which you can sign up with using a Microsoft, Google or Apple credential.
Technology can be leveraged in the classroom to spark creativity and collaboration—approaches that we know work to increase student critical thinking when it comes to text analysis for the Stage 6 classroom. These tools don’t require a lot of time or energy; they just require the courage to test them out with your class. Which tool will you use?
Marnie Etheridge has worked as a teacher of English for 23 years in rural, regional and urban communities in New South Wales and the United Kingdom. She is Head Teacher of English, HSIE and Languages (relieving) at Aurora College – New South Wales’ only public online selective high school for rural and remote communities. Marnie is also a Teacher Librarian who has a passion for teaching the transformative nature of literature to students of all abilities and leveraging technology, through teaching and learning, to increase understanding and engagement in classrooms.
Marnie also has a keen interest in educational leadership and is currently undertaking a Masters at the University of Wollongong, examining the impacts of authentic instructional leadership through dispersed models to effect change in school communities.
Professor Tony Loughland and Professor Mary Ryan explain why teacher collective efficacy is a vital part of their professional learning and how its use influences students’ learning and development…
Do Not Try This Alone
When Tony and Mary started their teaching careers last century there were many lone ranger teachers in the schools where they worked. These lone rangers were often very good practitioners who preferred to work their magic in their own classroom. You didn’t often see them in the staffroom but their students were happy, the parents did not complain and the school executive were generally of the view that “if it ain’t broke it don’t need fixing”.
There were also teachers and executive staff back then who were very generous in the sharing of their practical wisdom. This generosity was much appreciated by Tony who struggled to teach students with English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D) backgrounds in inner city Sydney, especially given he had just completed six semesters of enthusiastic and expert teaching of the whole language model of teaching English K-6 in his pre-service education degree.
The collegiality of these colleagues extended to observing them in class, team teaching, sharing programs and resources, affirmation of our small wins as novice teachers and generally making us feel like we might succeed at this profession one day. Their collegiality gave us an enhanced sense of our efficacy as an individual teacher and promulgated a general sense of collective efficacy that we can teach these students well in our school.
There is strong support in the research literature that students thrive when teachers have a positive sense of their self-efficacy as individual teachers as well as a strong sense of their collective efficacy as a stage, faculty, team and school. We argue in this paper that the motivational sources of collective teacher efficacy provide a useful framework for the development and evaluation of professional learning programs at the school level.
The Compelling Evidence for Pursuing Collective Teacher Efficacy
Teachers’ sense of their collective efficacy is the second most important school-based influence on student outcomes. It has an effect size of 1.57 on student achievement according to Hattie’s synthesis of 1200 meta-analyses relating to influences on student achievement (Hattie, 2015). An effect size of this magnitude demands the attention of school leaders and researchers invested in teacher professional learning, “Given the link between collective efficacy and student achievement, understanding collective efficacy in and of itself is a worthy endeavour” (Berebitsky & Salloum, 2017, p.2). This study sought to develop an in-depth understanding of the antecedents of teacher collective efficacy in their professional learning.
Collective efficacy is an extension of the construct of self-efficacy from the broader theoretical framework of social cognition. Collective efficacy is defined as “the extent to which people believe they can work together effectively to accomplish their shared goals” (Maddux & Gosselin, 2012, p.214). Social cognition assumes reciprocal causality exists between a person and their environment, “people respond cognitively, emotionally, and behaviourally to environmental events. Also, through cognition people can exercise control over their own behaviour, which then influences not only the environment but also their cognitive, emotional, and biological states” (Maddux & Gosselin, 2012, p.199). This reciprocal causality has positive implications for teacher collective efficacy as it creates a virtuous cycle of improvement where enhanced collective efficacy contributes to student achievement which then further strengthens collective efficacy (Goddard et al., 2000).
The motivational sources of teacher collective efficacy are mastery and vicarious experiences, social persuasion, and affective states.1Teacher collective efficacy is also enhanced by a team’s ability to analyse the task ahead and make a judgment on their current level of competency to complete the task. All these characteristics represent what is regarded in the literature as effective teacher professional learning. However, teacher collective efficacy has not been commonly associated with a theory of action for teacher professional learning as it has been predominately employed as an outcome measure of the health of a school’s collective culture.
We contend that the measurable construct of teacher collective efficacy can be used as a design framework for professional learning programs as well as being an evaluative measure of its effectiveness. We acknowledge that the question of whether teacher collective efficacy is a necessary antecedent condition for effective professional learning, or a consequence of these programs remains open. We suspect that there might be reciprocal causation between teacher collective efficacy and effective professional learning where the presence of both enhances the other.
The Importance of a Professional Learning Collective
This last section of the paper examines the confluence between the motivational sources of teacher collective efficacy and the principles of effective teacher professional learning (see Table 1 below)
Sources of Teacher Collective Efficacy
Principles of Effective Teacher Professional Learning
Mastery experiences
Collaborative. Iterative. Focus on teachers’ work
Vicarious experiences
Collaborative. Focus on teachers’ work
Social persuasion
Collaborative
Affective states
Collaborative
Table 1 Collective efficacy, principles and design of teacher professional learning (Loughland & Ryan, 2022, p.345)
What is missing in the hypothesised model in table 1 is an explication of the processes that create the conditions for effective collaboration. One influence on effective collaboration and learning relates to time constraint and leadership support (Park & So, 2014). We have another clue to this missing piece of the puzzle in the finding that the density of networks is more important than centrality in professional learning networks (Berebitsky & Salloum, 2017). Furthermore, the density of networks is significantly related to collective efficacy in schools (Berebitsky & Salloum, 2017). This suggests that more opportunities should be provided for purposeful learning interactions between teachers as depicted in the principles of teacher professional learning in Table 1. This suggests that effective teacher professional learning needs to involve more interaction between teachers than top-down delivery approaches that may be better suited to compulsory compliance training. We know that time for professional learning in schools may be limited so school leaders must make informed decisions on what model of professional learning to adopt in their school.
The literature strongly suggests that a model of school-based, interactive teacher professional learning that focuses on teachers’ work in the classroom is the most effective (Kennedy, 2016). In this model, outside help in the form of academics and experienced practitioners in the system, is introduced if and when they are needed.
We suspect that the arguments we have presented in this paper are not earth-shattering revelations for the readers. The principles of effective teacher professional learning are now well established in the literature. The challenge that remains is one of implementation.
The challenges we identify here are very real to many teachers who are reading this article. There is the serious challenge of finding time for meaningful professional learning in the hectic schedules of schools. There is the conflation between the legislative requirements of compulsory compliance training and the real opportunities for professional growth afforded by effective teacher professional learning. There is the pervasive legacy of the cargo cult model of professional learning where the external consultant, the latest edu-guru, the international keynoter, or the social media superstar are regarded as experts and saviours. Valuable professional learning time is spent listening to them instead of engaging with your colleague next door on meaningful pedagogical discussion on how your students’ learning may be enhanced tomorrow, next week and next term.
Our own post-graduate university courses at the Masters and Higher Degree Research levels are also not exempt from our criticism. Our MEd and EdD programs need to be more adaptive and responsive so that they might produce educators with the scholarly and practical wisdom that they can use to provide the best possible conditions for student success in the schools and systems where they work.
None of these challenges are insurmountable but they require school and system leaders to build cultures of professional learning in schools that create a sense of collective teacher efficacy among their staff. Surely that is not too much to ask in an institution whose core business is learning?
End note:
1Mastery experiences are those that focus on developing instructional skills and capabilities. The important goal of improving student outcomes in wellbeing and achievement is at the forefront. Vicarious experiences are those whereby teachers and leaders learn from each other. Social persuasion involves a shared sense of purpose and vision, and a collaborative effort to achieve those goals. Affective states are the social-emotional aspects that underpin effective relationships, including trust, respect and dialogic approaches that value all voices and contributions. A positive relationship between these motivational constructs and collaborative professional learning has been found (Durksen et al. 2017).
NB- Sections of this text have been taken from Tony and Mary’s published journal article (Loughland & Ryan, 2022) that can be found here https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2020.1711801 (available to access through an academic institution or paid download)
Berebitsky, D., & Salloum, S. J. (2017). The Relationship Between Collective Efficacy and Teachers’ Social Networks in Urban Middle Schools. AERA Open, 3(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/2332858417743927
Durksen, T. L., Klassen, R. M., & Daniels, L. M. (2017). Motivation and collaboration: The keys to a developmental framework for teachers’ professional learning. TEACHING AND TEACHER EDUCATION, 67, 53-66. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2017.05.011
Goddard, R. D., Hoy, W. K., & Hoy, A. W. (2000). Collective teacher efficacy: Its meaning, measure, and impact on student achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 37(2), 479-507. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312037002479
Hattie, J. (2015). The applicability of Visible Learning to higher education. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 1(1), 79-91. https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000021
Kennedy, M. M. (2016). How Does Professional Development Improve Teaching? Review of Educational Research, 86(4), 945-980. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654315626800
Loughland, T., & Ryan, M. (2022). Beyond the measures: the antecedents of teacher collective efficacy in professional learning. Professional Development in Education, 48(2), 343-352. https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2020.1711801
Maddux, J. E., & Gosselin, J. T. (2012). Self-Efficacy. In M. R. Leary & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of Self and Identity. Second Edition (Second ed., pp. 198-224). The Guildford Press.
Park, M., & So, K. (2014). Opportunities and Challenges for Teacher Professional Development: A Case of Collaborative Learning Community in South Korea. International education studies, 7(7), 96-108.
Tony Loughland is an Associate Professor and Deputy Head of School (Research) in the School of Education at the University of New South Wales.
Tony is an experienced educator who likes to think that theory should be the plaything of practice. He agrees with Marx’s assertion that philosophy should be used to not only interpret the world but to try to change it. Tony subscribes to Marx as he believes this orientation towards research is vital in a world threatened by anthropocentric climate change. Tony is currently leading projects on using AI for citizens’ informed participation in urban development, the provision of staffing for rural and remote areas in NSW and on Graduate Ready Schools.
Mary Ryan is Professor and Executive Dean of Education and Arts at Australian Catholic University. Her research is in the areas of writing pedagogy and assessment, teachers’ work in, and preparation for, diverse classrooms, reflexive learning and practice, and reflective writing. She was formerly a primary teacher and lecturer in literacy and English and has an extensive record of program development in universities and professional learning for teachers. Her funded research projects are in the areas of classroom writing and preparing teachers to teach for diversity to break the cycle of disadvantage.
Rose Dixon gives some practical advice on how to support students with ADHD . . .
WHAT IS ADHD?
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects around 9.4% of children under the age of 18. ADHD is one of the most commonly diagnosed conditions in children (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015). The diagnostic term attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) refers to individuals who display patterns of inattention, impulsivity, and overactive behavior that interfere with daily functioning (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) V (APA, 2013) criteria for diagnosing ADHD list three types of ADHD and the accompanying characteristics.
THREE TYPES
Inattentive ADHD
Formerly referred to as ADD, students with inattentive ADHD display symptoms of inattention, but do not possess symptoms of hyperactivity or impulsivity. This is the type of ADHD most commonly found in girls. As students with this type of ADHD don’t exhibit the typical high energy and impulsive behaviours, they can often be under identified.
Hyperactive/Impulsive ADHD
This subset of ADHD displays symptoms of impulsivity or hyperactivity but does not display symptoms of inattention.
Combined
People with combined ADHD display symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity.
The combined type of ADHD is characterised by symptoms of both inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity. Students with combined type ADHD exhibit symptoms of inattention such as struggling to concentrate on their work, difficulty following instructions, appearing distracted, forgetfulness, and misplacing items. They also exhibit hyperactive and impulsive symptoms such as being unable to sit still, restlessness, talkativeness, high energy levels, and interrupting others.
For all three types, these characteristics have to be present before twelve years of age and be manifested in school and out of school settings. They must also have adverse effects on academic performance, occupational success, or social-emotional development (APA, 2013). To add to the complexity of the diagnosis, children with ADHD are also likely to have co- existing emotional, behavioural, developmental, learning, or physical conditions (Wolraich & DuPaul, 2010).
Students who have ADHD face many challenges in school. The core symptoms make adapting to behavioural expectations and norms at school very difficult, often resulting in academic problems and peer exclusion (de Boer &Pijl, 2016; Mikami, 2010). Students with ADHD commonly have co-occurring problems such as anxiety, depression and learning disabilities. All predict further school impairment (Larson, Russ, Kahn, & Halfon, 2011; Taanila et al., 2014).
DIAGNOSIS OF ADHD
ADHD is more commonly diagnosed in boys than girls, usually in a ratio of four to one, but research into ADHD in adulthood suggests an almost equal balance between men and women (Barkley & Fischer, 2008). A lower diagnosis rate among females in childhood can result because girls with ADHD are more likely than boys to have the inattentive form of ADHD and are less likely to show obvious problems or challenging behaviours.
Whilst students with ADHD need to be diagnosed by a medical professional, teachers may notice some of the following behaviours usually related to the three different types.
Predominantly inattentive type
The student may:
Submit inappropriate work or inaccurate work
Have difficulty attending to conversations, activities or tasks
Be easily distracted
Have difficulty following directions
Frequently lose materials and/or have difficulty organising tasks and materials
Predominantly hyperactive/impulsive type
The student may:
Appear to be in constant motion
Frequently fidget and move in their seat
Become restless during quiet activities
Leave their seat when expected to remain seated
Interrupt others and classroom activities
Talk excessively and/or fail to follow classroom procedures
TREATMENT FOR ADHD
While there is no cure for ADHD, and it can persist into adulthood (Barkley & Fischer,2008), evidence- based treatment can help a great deal with symptoms (Moore et al, 2018).
Treatment typically involves medications, behavioural and/or educational interventions. Given the often poor school outcomes of students, a growing number of studies have trialled school-based interventions for ADHD (van Krayenoord, Waterworth & Brady,2014) including the daily report card (DRC), where the child is set, and awarded for achieving, specific behavioural targets; academic interventions which focus on antecedents of problems; organisational skills training; and social skills training.(Chronis, Jones, & Raggi, 2006; Evans, Owens, Wymbs, & Ray, 2018).
USEFUL CLASSROOM STRATEGIES TO SUPPORT STUDENTS FROM YEARS 1 – 6 WITH ADHD
Teachers can employ evidence-based strategies in three key areas which have demonstrated positive outcomes. These include classroom management, organisation training and social skills training.
1 Evidence-based proactive strategies which improve behaviour
The behavioural classroom management approach encourages a student’s positive behaviours in the classroom, through a reward system or a daily report card, and discourages their negative behaviours. This teacher-led approach has been shown to influence student behaviour in a constructive manner, increasing academic engagement. Although tested mostly in primary schools, behavioural classroom management has been shown to work for students of all ages (Evan, Owens & Burford, 2014; Harrison, Burford, Evans & Owens, 2013)
Develop routines around homework and classroom activities. You will need to teach and reteach these routines and positively reinforce the student when they follow them.
Give praise and rewards when rules are followed.
2 Organisational training
Organisational training teaches students time management, planning skills, and ways to keep school materials organized in order to optimize student learning and reduce distractions. This management strategy has been tested with children and adolescents (Kofler et al, 2011).
These strategies can include:
Giving clear, effective directions or commands. Usually only give one command at a time and use a student’s name in the command.
Using Visuals – Place charts around with the Rules and Routines on them
Allowing breaks – for children with ADHD, paying attention takes extra effort and can be very tiring.
Allow time to move and exercise
Transition Buddies
Teacher cues for transition between activities, such as claps or music
Color-coded folders
Extra books – a set at home and a set at school
Use of calendars
Seating arrangements
Close to teacher
Separate desks
Away from distractions (e.g., electric pencil sharpener)
Away from windows, the door and other high traffic areas
Avoiding bright display areas at the front of the room or in the group teaching area
Assignments and Homework
Make assignments clear – check with the student to see if they understand what they need to do
Provide choices to show mastery (for example, let the student choose among written essay, oral report, online quiz, or hands-on project)
Make sure assignments are not long and repetitive. Shorter assignments that provide a little challenge without being too hard may work well
Be creative – creativity is a strength for students with ADHD
Use organisational tools, such as a homework folder, to limit the number of things the child has to track.
Ask another student, if possible, to be a homework partner
3 Evidence based Social Skills Training
Social skills training allows children and adults to acquire the knowledge, attitudes, and skills they need to recognise and manage their emotions, demonstrate caring and concern for others, establish positive relationships, make responsible decisions and handle challenging situations constructively. Many available programs provide instruction in and opportunities to practise, apply and be recognised for using social skills. This type of learning is fundamental not only to children’s social and emotional development but also to their health, ethical development, citizenship, motivation to achieve and academic learning (Evan, Owens & Bunford, 2014).
Research shows that large numbers of children with ADHD are contending with significant social, emotional and mental health barriers to their success in school and life (Kofler et al, 2018). In addition, some children with ADHD engage in challenging behaviours that teachers must address in order to provide high quality instruction. Schools can use a variety of strategies to help students improve their emotional well-being and connectedness with others. Providing children with well managed learning environments and instruction in social skills addresses many of these learning barriers. It does so by enhancing school attachment, reducing risky behaviours, promoting positive development, and positively influencing academic achievement. Well-implemented social skills training is associated with the following outcomes:
Better academic performance
Achievement scores an average of 11 percentile points higher than students who did not receive social skills training
Improved attitudes and behaviours
Greater motivation to learn
Deeper commitment to school
Increased time devoted to schoolwork, and better classroom behaviour.
Happier/ fewer instances of mental health disorders (e.g. depression)
The evidence-based strategies that have been discussed in this paper can usually be implemented in the Year 1-6 classroom. They address the core symptoms of ADHD such as the ability to pay attention, conflict with teachers and peers, challenges with executive function, inattention symptoms, poor organisation skills and self-esteem. However, school- based interventions should target the outcomes identified as most important to the students and their families. Other studies have found that positive teacher- child relationships and good home-school relationships (Gwernan-Jones et al, 2015) and advocacy for the student may be the strongest intervention and have the greatest impact on student’s outcomes.
Even if you find it difficult to implement the adjustments in the three areas outlined above, just maintaining good relationships with the students and their families can be a very strong starting point.
American Psychiatric Association, D., & American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5 (Vol. 5, No. 5). Washington, DC: American psychiatric association.
Barkley, R. A., Fischer, M. (2008). ADHD in adults: What the science says. New York, NY: Guilford. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2019). Data and statistics about ADHD.
Chronis, A. M., Jones, H. A., & Raggi, V. L. (2006). Evidence-based psychosocial treatments for children and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Clinical psychology review, 26(4), 486-502.
de Boer, A., & Pijl, S. J. (2016). The acceptance and rejection of peers with ADHD and ASD in general secondary education. The Journal of Educational Research, 109(3), 325-332.
Durlak J. A., Domitrovich C. E., Weissberg R. P., and Gullotta T. P. (Eds.) Handbook of social and emotional learning: Research and practice. New York, NY: Guilford Press, 2014.
Durlak J. A., Weissberg R. P., Dymnicki A. B., Taylor R. D., and Schellinger K. B. (2011). The impact of enhancing students’ social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions. Child Development, 2011; 82: 405-432.
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Evans, S. W., Owens, J. S., Wymbs, B. T., & Ray, A. R. (2018). Evidence-based psychosocial treatments for children and adolescents with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 47(2), 157-198.
Gwernan-Jones, R., Moore, D. A., Garside, R., Richardson, M., Thompson-Coon, J., Rogers, M., et al. (2015). ADHD, parent perspectives and parent–teacher relationships: Grounds for conflict. British Journal of SpecialEducation, 42(3), 279–300.
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Larson, K., Russ, S. A., Kahn, R. S., & Halfon, N. (2011). Patterns of comorbidity, functioning, and service use for US children with ADHD, 2007. Pediatrics, 127(3), 462-470.
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Wolraich, M. L., & DuPaul, G. J. (2010). ADHD Diagnosis and Management: A Practical Guide for the Clinic and the Classroom. Brookes Publishing Company. PO Box 10624, Baltimore, MD 21285.
Dr Roselyn Dixon has been a special education teacher in both mainstream and special education settings in primary and secondary schools. Rose has been in academia and involved with Inclusive Education for more than 25 years. She has published research in the fields of social skills and behavioural interventions for people with a range of disabilities including students with Oppositional Defiance Disorders and Autism.
She has been actively involved in examining the relationship between digital technologies and pedagogy in special education and inclusive classrooms for students with Autism as well as the implications of the NDIS on people with disabilities in rural and remote communities. Rose is an Honorary Associate Professor at the School of Education, University of Wollongong, where she was previously the Academic Director of Inclusive and Special Education. She continues to support doctoral students in Inclusive and Special education with a focus on Autism.
