Australia Association for Research in Education
Let’s stop talking about school choice and reconfigure what we are doing in Australia
In a perfect world, public schooling would be able to honour its mission to provide access to high quality education for all young people, regardless of their backgrounds, interests, and capacities. However, the world we live in is far from perfect. Idea of collective good is being lost Market-based policy decisions by governments of various …
Learning to write should not be hijacked by NAPLAN: New research shows what is really going on
You couldn’t miss the headlines and page one stories across Australia recently about the decline of Australian children’s writing skills. The release of results of national tests in literacy and numeracy meant we were treated to a range of colour-coded tables and various info graphics that highlighted ‘successes’ and ‘failures’ and that dire, downward trend. …
How children’s aspirations change as they grow up: latest research
Two research findings from our University of Newcastle large-scale longitudinal study of the career aspirations of Australian children …
Educating teachers to be researchers: three surprising gaps in what we are doing in Australia
Much is asked of teachers these days. Governments and school systems seem to regularly increase their expectations of …
Arts-based approaches to teaching literacy: stop all the testing and do this
Millions of dollars have been spent on targeted programs to improve literacy and numeracy learning outcomes around Australia. However this year’s NAPLAN data shows stagnation in terms of data improvement, with a downward shift in performance levels for writing. We don’t believe this lack of movement in data is matched by a lack of impact …
The dark side of NAPLAN: it’s not just a benign ‘snapshot’
The release of the latest NAPLAN results this week identified a problem with student performance in writing. This …
Harry Potter’s world: keeping spaces for magic making in our schools
If you are a Harry Potter fan you probably celebrated last month, the twentieth anniversary of the first …
The myth of teacher as superhero (and other bad messages) peddled by hit TV series
It makes good cinema to put six bright and passionate teacher recruits into some of the most underserved schools and communities in Australia and follow them around. When the filming is by Screentime (think Underbelly crime drama series, Outback Coroner, Outback ER) it is no wonder the result is highly entertaining and heart-touching. But we …
The creeping commercialisation of public schools
The privatisation of public education is attracting a lot of attention around the world but what is happening …