educator_spring_2013_d3de4996557ce3

Spring 2013

Issue 79 $4.40

Skills and knowledge Free global resources for teachers

School autonomy Proof that it’s not delivering on its promises

My favourite apps Learning beyond the classroom

Election 2013

The choice is clear.

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Tony Abbott or A better education for our nation’s kids

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Contents Spring 2013

08 Election 2013

16 Forum

29 International

The choice is clear

Educated guesses

The parties outline their policies. education.

ACTU president Ged Kearney, comedian Corinne Grant and Miriam Lyons from the Centre for Policy Development with their views on the federal election and beyond.

Defending the right to learn

Other features

COVER IMAGE: SCHOOLCHILDREN/Nick Osborne; TONY ABBOTT/GETTY IMAGES

Regulars

04 News

22 Early childhood

Andy Griffiths’ writing has a special place in the hearts and minds of several generations of readers.

The galloping pace of change in early childhood education threatens to trample positive reforms.

My view

11 Election 2013 AEU analysis

Setting the record straight.

13 Election 2013 No minister

Schools will be short-changed by a Coalition government to the tune of more than $7 billion.

14 Election 2013 Stop TAFE cuts

High quality and affordable vocational education is important both for our economy and our society.

20 Autonomy

The evidence is in School autonomy isn’t delivering on its promises.

Education International has launched a fund to provide support for those affected by violence against students and teachers in Pakistan.

Good will hunting

26 Professional development

06 From the president 34 Technology

My favourite apps

36 Books 38 Casebook

Nan van Dissel

Tapping into free global resources Teachers can now access an Australian version of the online global educational resources platform TES Connect.

30 International Peer to peer

Students in Australia and young people in Indonesia are making connections to learn about each other and global citizenship.

32 Technology Remote control

Designing, building and competing with robots is giving students more skills and knowledge.

www.aeufederal.org.au Australian Educator 79 Spring 2013 3

My view

Master of mirth Decades of writing comedy for children has earned Andy Griffiths a special place in the hearts and minds of several generations of readers.

M

by Steve Packer

ost people who have had anything to do with children would have heard of Andy Griffiths, the writer who publicly pitched a story to kids with the word “bum” in the title. The nostril flaring of disapproval by adults who aren’t in on the joke matters not to Andy’s avid readers. They get it, and they get him.

Which is why, when Andy visits a school to share his unique brand of savvy literacy with his young audience, he is greeted with great excitement.

And if he didn’t already have writer’s cramp, then a day of signing books is sure to bring it on.

It is a testament to his commitment to sharing his love of literature with children that many Australians have a signed edition of one of his titles on their shelves (think the Just! series, and the Treehouse books). In a typical year, Griffiths might visit 50-60 schools

4 Spring 2013 Australian Educator 79

for workshops, talks and book launches.

The dark side of this tale is that, in many schools with a high proportion of disadvantaged students, perhaps fewer than 10 per cent of children will own their own book compared to their wealthy counterparts in the private sector.

“It seems to me that a mark of a civilised society is that you would give all kids an equal opportunity to be educated,” he says. “We know from research that students who grow up in homes where there are books have a big head start on students from homes where there might be a magazine or two, but books aren’t read or loved.

The presence of books in the home is the big factor for kids going on to read enough to develop literary discrimination and a facility with the English language.”

Griffiths is an ambassador for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation and the Pyjama Foundation, which provides

literacy-based mentoring programs to children in foster care.

Over the past seven years, Griffiths has visited many Indigenous communities, often a day’s drive from a major city. His recollections of what it was to be a child at Melbourne public state schools resonate here, too. He has discovered that, in many cases, students speak two or three Indigenous languages before they get to school and English is often a third or fourth language for them. “The first time many Indigenous students encounter a printed book is on the first day of school,” he says.

It is “dangerous”, Griffiths argues, to concentrate resources in one sector of education and “starve others whose students are in remote locations or whose parents don’t make as much money as others”.

“Gonski’s recommendations address the situation with remote students, but also in areas closer to major cities.

“Ideally we would have all students with access to a quality education; politicians and wider society need to... be prepared to put the necessary resources in place.”

Andy Griffiths

Ideally we would have all students with access to a quality education; politicians and wider society need to realise how important that is and be prepared to put the necessary resources in place.”

Griffiths is a trained teacher himself, having completed an honours degree in English Literature at Monash University and then a Diploma of Education a few years later. Three years of teaching led to unpaid leave to complete a graduate diploma of fiction writing and editing.

The creative, unconventional teaching methods employed by his protagonist Mr Brainfright in the four Schooling Around novels are “based a little bit on the type of teacher I was”.

He had excellent role models in his own teachers, including a Year 11 teacher who wrote poetry, directed the school theatrical productions and edited the school magazine. “That stuck with me as a great model of a teacher who used all his skills,” says Griffiths.

His past students are now parents themselves, reading his books to their own children. “They didn’t know it, but they helped me in my experimenting with my earliest stories. I’d read my stories to my students and they’d tell me what they liked and what didn’t work.” Griffiths says he takes trivial incidents and exaggerates them for comic effect. “The books all feature a character with my name getting into all sorts of trouble.”

One wonders what sort of trouble he got into by introducing children to a book titled The Day My Bum Went Psycho. But it doesn’t matter now because this book and many others changed the literary landscape for many young readers, and there’s no going back. l Steve Packer is a freelance writer.

Australian Educator 79 Spring 2013 5

From the president

Contact Angelo Gavrielatos at angelo@aeufederal.org.au

Clear and present danger The choice is clear: Tony Abbott or a better education for our nation’s kids.

W

ith the passage of the Australian Education Bill through Parliament on 26 June, and receipt of Royal Assent the following day, the Australian Education Act is now law.

The corrupted and inequitable Howard funding system, against which the AEU has campaigned for so long, is effectively no more.

The new law came into being against the volatile backdrop of the [then] impending June 30 deadline for states and territories to sign up to the Gonski funding reforms, and the leadership challenge that saw Kevin Rudd replace Julia Gillard as prime minister.

It was reassuring that the new prime minister quickly made it clear that his government remained committed to both greater investment in education for all children and delivering fairer, more equitable funding arrangements for schools aimed at better meeting the individual needs of students.

In many respects this was not a great surprise given that Kevin Rudd was, in 6 Spring 2013 Australian Educator 79

fact, prime minister at the time the Gonski review was commissioned.

At the time of writing, New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria have signed up to school funding reform.

Despite some hints of movement towards signing up, Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory have not agreed to the implementation of the new Gonski funding arrangements. The prevarication and stonewalling of the leaders of these states has made a mockery of any commitment to quality education for all Australian children irrespective of background or location.

Months of morally and politically reprehensible game playing, fuelled by the intense pressure Tony Abbott had put on coalition-held state and territory governments to try to derail progress towards agreements in those jurisdictions, has seen the leaders put the interests of children in their states below the interests of Tony Abbott.

Until Victoria’s last-minute decision to sign up to the six-year Gonski agreement with the Commonwealth, Barry O’Farrell had been the only one of the five conservative state and territory leaders to rise above party politics and act in the interests of school children in his state of NSW. The rest have been prepared to deny children in their states access to the resources they deserve and need to achieve their very best.

Desperate policymaking Tony Abbott’s desperate attempts to deflect attention from the Coalition’s increasingly isolated position on school funding reform, forced his last-minute announcement of a dramatically

underfunded alternative.

We must remember that until the imminent announcement of the election, Abbott had maintained the risible fiction that our current funding arrangements were “not broken”. Along with the private school lobbyists, Tony Abbott and Christopher Pyne have relentlessly exploited every opportunity to support the relative advantage of private schools. Yet, the yawning gap in resources between public and private schools has created disadvantage and inequity for students.

Abbott’s last-minute commitment to increased school funding is a cynical election policy, not an education policy founded on a genuine concern for children across the nation. For three years he has said that he doesn’t support better funding for public schools.

The fact is that his commitment falls far short of Labor’s. The ALP’s $10 billion commitment over six years requires states to commit extra funding to schools and for the new funding to be distributed according to need. Tony Abbott is offering just $2.8 billion over four years, without any requirement for states to contribute extra funding or distribute it according to need.

Instead of requiring states to invest in schools, a Coalition government would allow premiers to cut their own funding.

State and territory governments must be required to commit to their share of meaningful, long-term funding reform in the interests of all our students. If this doesn’t happen, schools in Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory will still miss out on their fair share of extra Gonski funding if the Coalition wins the election.

We know that you cannot improve education outcomes without longterm investment. Tony Abbott’s announcement leaves schools across the nation without the resources they need to make sustained improvements in the quality of education students receive.

For local schools the difference in investment between a Labor Government and an Abbott Government will be millions of dollars. Tony Abbott has failed to commit to full funding reform. He is short-changing our students and quite frankly he can’t be trusted on this issue.

The choice is clear: Tony Abbott or a better education for our nation’s kids.

Angelo Gavrielatos AEU Federal President

Autonomy: how things have changed In the Spring 2011 edition of Australian Educator, I wrote about our growing concern regarding a consensus that had emerged among the major political parties and the conservative commentariat in relation to ‘school autonomy’.

There has hardly been a day go by that we haven’t been lectured about the apparent benefits of devolving greater autonomy to schools. There was even an editorial in The Australian newspaper (mis)quoting the Grattan Institute,

Labor

Coalition

$10 billion 6 year plan a

$2.8 billion 4 year plan

vs

r

States must commit extra funds to schools and distribute according to need.

No requirement for states to contribute extra funding or to distribute according to need.

Back Gonski recommendation to make funding fair.

No long-term commitment to Gonski.

a

r

Register today at www.igiveagonski.com.au

which declared that “NSW teachers need a lesson” for opposing policies of devolution or school autonomy.

Our analysis then, as it is now, is that the proponents of school autonomy ignore a large body of research that shows there is insufficient evidence to support the claims made for increasing school autonomy. In fact, the evidence indicates that school autonomy threatens equity of student outcomes.

In recent weeks we have seen the release of significant reports by the Grattan Institute and the Melbourne Graduate School of Education highlighting that policies of autonomy do not produce the results claimed by their spruikers (see article on page 20).

Unfortunately, none of this seems to deter Christopher Pyne. The

Liberal Party’s ‘Real Solutions for all Australians’ plan ignores all of the most recent research, including that emerging from an assessment of WA’s Independent Public Schools policy, which overwhelmingly concludes that school autonomy is not the answer.

The Liberals’ plan to “encourage state schools to choose to become independent schools” is considered so extreme that even the conservative NSW Minister for Education has rejected the Liberals’ plan saying “we will not be introducing charter or independent public schools because there is no evidence that they improve student performance”.

Don’t hold your breath for an apology from The Australian.

Australian Educator 79 Spring 2013 7

Election 2013

The choice is clear We asked the party leaders to outline their policies on funding for schools, curriculum, assessment and reporting, Indigenous education, TAFE and early childhood education.

The Australian Labor Party

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd

I

have always believed that education is the pathway to the future. It’s how we ensure that every Australian child gets a shot at reaching his or her full potential. It’s how we ensure our country’s future.

Since being elected in 2007 we have made education a priority.

We’ve built or upgraded school facilities around the country, including more than 500 Science and Language Centres, 3100 libraries, 4500 classrooms and 260 Trade Training Centres.

When I visit local schools, teachers, principals and parents tell me how these new facilities have led to real improvements for students.

We have introduced Australia’s first national curriculum and implemented the first ever national literacy and numeracy assessment and the My School website so that parents, teachers, schools and government can know how

The Coalition

students and schools are performing and where extra support is needed.

We have invested around $2.8 billion in extra funding to help improve literacy and numeracy outcomes, boost teacher quality and provide extra support to schools in areas of need.

I’m proud of these achievements.

But it’s just the start.

We have built the Better Schools Plan so that every student can benefit from the individual support that fairer funding and extra resources can deliver.

Research shows Australia has one of the biggest gaps amongst developed nations between high and low performing students. And this gap is still strongly linked to student background.

That’s not what Australians expect for ourselves, or for each other.

We expect a fair go.

More than 60 per cent of students will see the benefits of this plan from the start of the 2014 school year because their state or territory has already signed up to the Better Schools Plan.

Extra money will be used to improve five areas of our education system: quality teaching; quality learning; empowering school leaders; meeting student need; and greater transparency and accountability.

There’s a reason quality teaching comes first – it’s because the biggest influence on education outcomes once you step inside the school gate is the teacher in the classroom. I respect and value the work teachers do, teaching, encouraging and inspiring our young people.

I want teachers right around the country to have the support they need to

continues on page 10

8 Spring 2013 Australian Educator 79

Shadow Minister for Education Christopher Pyne

T

he education goals of members of the Australian Education Union and the Federal Coalition are very similar.

We both support a needs-based funding.

Schools also need funding certainty and if elected we will work swiftly to ensure they have it.

A Coalition government will match the Commonwealth funding for schools committed by Labor over the forward estimates.

All states and territories will receive the Commonwealth funding for schools committed by Labor for the school year 2014 regardless of whether they have signed up to Labor’s deal.

We will amend the Australian Education Act to remove the unnecessary red-tape it creates and

ALP

Coalition

Greens

n Has legislated the Gonski funding

n Would invest $2.8 billion over

n Supports the Gonski funding

model – the Better Schools Plan – resulting in an extra $10 billion for schools over the next six years.

four years.

model and would commit a further $2 billion, over the forward estimates, to ensure public schools receive more money sooner.

n No long-term commitment to fairer Gonski framework.

The Greens remove the regulations that allow Canberra to control schools.

We will stop Canberra’s school takeover and ensure states and territories keep authority over their schools as they should.

Over 2014, we will finalise a new national funding model for schools that reflects the Gonski recommendations and delivers the best educational outcomes.

The total amount of Commonwealth funding for schools over the forward estimates will be exactly the same as committed

by Labor.

We will also work tirelessly to close the gap for some of our most disadvantaged students, including those of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds.

Indigenous education needs to include structured early intervention, a rigorous school attendance strategy involving families and the broader community, and supporting schools and teachers to adopt the teaching methods in the classroom that are known to lift student achievement the most.

While the Coalition has always been supportive of national literacy and numeracy testing, we do have reservations about the way this data has been published on the My School website.

The Coalition wants to see the NAPLAN return to being used as a useful diagnostic tool for teachers, parents and school communities rather than a regime that names and shames schools.

continues on page 10

Leader Christine Milne

T

he Australian Greens have long championed universal access to highquality education. From early childhood education, through the schooling system, to options like TAFE and university, we stand for educational outcomes that don’t depend on wealth or location.

The Greens advocate that funding for schools should be based on need and equity. Funding should prioritise public education to ensure public schools can set national educational standards. We supported funding reforms in the Parliament to end the unfair, inequitable funding model that has disadvantaged public schools and to transition to a needs-based model.

The Greens would commit a further $2 billion, over the forward estimates, to ensure public schools receive more

money sooner under the needs-based funding model. This additional funding could also be used to address gaps like the need for consistent, expanded eligibility and assistance for students with a disability.

We believe schools who receive public funding should not be exempt from antidiscrimination laws. There is need for better accountability within education systems about how they distribute Commonwealth funds. This way, the community can be confident funding is getting to the schools, teachers and students that need it.

School curriculums should be developed in consultation with educational researchers, teachers, parents and students. The national curriculum should include Indigenous language, culture and history. The Greens would see more resources flow to Asian language literacy, maths, science and music education.

The Greens have carefully examined assessment and reporting frameworks like NAPLAN. In May, we launched a Senate Inquiry into this framework, examining its effectiveness and consequences, the My School website, potential improvements and international best practice. Evidence so far has demonstrated the adverse impacts of high-stakes testing on students and teachers. We believe performance metrics have less meaning when teachers aren’t valued or supported.

The Greens would prioritise additional teachers, mentoring and professional development in government schools.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s education outcomes should match the rest of the Australian population. To that end, those communities should have meaningful control over designing and

continues on page 10

Australian Educator 79 Spring 2013 9

Election 2013

The ALP

The Coalition

The Greens

continued from page 8

continued from page 9

continued from page 9

give all students the best education.

We plan to invest more than $10 billion extra in schools over the next six years.

Better Schools complements our work in early childhood education and the work we have planned in TAFEs. It also builds on important initiatives underway to close the gap in education outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students.

It also makes economic sense.

The end of the mining boom means we need to broaden the drivers of growth in our economy by encouraging all business sectors to do better, rather than keeping all our eggs in one basket – mining.

Part of that involves preparing our children to be ready to take on the highly paid, highly skilled jobs of the future.

Better Schools focuses on the needs of every, individual student – from those struggling with their work to high achievers who need to be challenged to excel.

That requires vision from government – not slogans. That’s what our Labor government will deliver for Australian schools.

We will also continue to work closely with states and territories in the areas of vocational and education training, and invest in advanced job skills training – including trade skills.

We recognise the importance of quality early learning for our young.

We support the intent of the Universal Access early childhood programme but we will also sit down with state and territory governments and work with them to ensure that the policy best meets the needs of their communities.

The Coalition trusts teachers and principals and wants to give them extra support to be the very best they can be in the classroom.

delivering educational services for their children. The Greens advocate more funds flowing to schools with a high proportion of Indigenous students and increased support for Indigenous students.

The Greens are proud defenders of a strong, public TAFE system to meet Australia’s future skills training needs. We will stand up for the TAFE system around Australia including by prioritising federal VET spending on TAFE and advocating for a reversal in the casualisation of the TAFE workforce.

Families are under pressure and more needs to be done to improve access to high quality, affordable and flexible early education.

Australian families need to see urgent action backing the national reforms, supporting workers to skill up, improving wages, expanding services and facilities, opening more places, reducing fees for parents, and growing the workforce of early education teachers.

Australia’s future lies in new ideas. Giving our kids a great education will make that possible.

We can’t do that without investing in great teachers and a rich curriculum that supports the best teaching and learning practice.

Election 2013

... the choice is clear

10 Spring 2013 Australian Educator 79

Election 2013

AEU analysis Setting the record straight.

by Angelo Gavrielatos AEU Federal President

W

hen the AEU requested key elements of education policies from the three major parties, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Australian Greens leader Christine Milne responded directly. Opposition leader Tony Abbott chose to refer our request to shadow education minister Christopher Pyne.

In considering the credibility and sincerity of their responses, we must remember that policy position statements at election times should be viewed in a broader political context and against the public track record of the parties and their leaders.

Christopher Pyne’s disingenuous statement about the similarity of the education goals of the AEU and the Coalition is an excellent case in point.

His opening claim that we share the Coalition’s support for a needs-based school funding system cannot go unchallenged. His claim that the Coalition supports a new national funding model for schools that reflects the Gonski recommendations must also be questioned.

When the Gonski report was released (February 2012), the Coalition immediately rejected it. Indeed, Pyne declared it “unworkable and grotesquely expensive”.

Abbott even went so far as to say that, if there was any funding injustice, it was that public schools received more government funding than private schools.

Until Tony Abbott’s last-minute ‘election fix’ announcement on Friday 2 August, the Opposition remained wedded to maintaining funding arrangements that have increased inequity, widened the gap in achievement and entrenched disadvantage in public schools.

Many questions about this ‘new’ commitment, and the extent to which it genuinely reflects Gonski, remain.

Given the strident commentary of both Tony Abbott and Christopher Pyne right up until August 2, this is clearly more about how important schools funding is to this election than it is about the interests of public schools and their students.

Even if taken on face value, it would represent a shortfall of $7 billion for schools across the nation. It also removes the requirement for the state and territory governments that have not signed on to Gonski to either commit their share of the funds or to distribute the additional funding equitably.

We also question the Coalition’s commitment to “work tirelessly to close the gap for some [which ones, we ask] of our most disadvantaged students, including those of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds”. The vast majority of these students are in public

“Abbott even went so far as to say that, if there was any funding injustice, it was that public schools received more government funding than private schools.”

schools, and given the Coalition’s track record, this change of heart cannot be trusted.

This stands in stark contrast to Labor and the Greens. Labor’s track record of significant additional investment in early childhood education and Indigenous education, along with the Building the Education Revolution and the National Partnerships, has significantly benefitted public schools, students and communities. It has also implemented long overdue structural reforms in early childhood education.

The Greens maintain their long standing support for public education and equitable, needs-based funding. Their commitment to a further $2 billion in schools funding over the forward estimates period is particularly welcome, as is their consistent support for a strong, public TAFE system. The Greens’ role in the Senate has been crucial and we hope it will continue in the new parliament.

We question why the Coalition’s policy position on greater autonomy for principals and schools (Real Solutions for all Australians, January 2013) is not included in the shadow education minister’s response. The motivations are suspicious, given his public position of “unrestrained enthusiasm” for principal autonomy. On curriculum, assessment and reporting, we hope to see detailed statements from the major parties. That Pyne has not provided more information on the Real Solutions promise of a “rigorous curriculum” that is neither “too prescriptive nor overcrowded” is disappointing.

This election is one of the most critical in Australia’s history in terms of public education.

Based on our analysis, the choice is clear: Tony Abbott or a better education for our nation’s kids.

Australian Educator 79 Spring 2013 11

Election 2013

No minister Schools would be shortchanged by a Coalition government to the tune of more than $7 billion.

A

s we well know, the Opposition education spokesperson Christopher Pyne is not a fan of the Gonski model for schools funding. It is “unworkable, complex and grotesquely expensive”, he said in one interview.

Up until the last minute, just two days before the federal election was called, the Coalition had supported the old funding system, which was discredited by the Gonski review, claiming it worked well.

In various interviews and statements both Pyne and leader Tony Abbott argued that the idea that public schools were being ‘short-changed’ was a myth. They had said that in government they would “move immediately” to repeal the Gonski funding model and revert to the old inequitable system.

But the pressure was steadily building on the Opposition. Opinion polls consistently showed strong support for more funding for public schools, then the Coalition found itself at odds with at least one conservative state.

As New South Wales signed up for the Rudd government’s new schools funding package, state education minister Adrian Piccoli said NSW would be “worse off” if the Coalition abandoned the Gonski reforms.

“It’s extremely clear that what we signed up to is better than the existing model and better than what the federal opposition is suggesting,” Piccoli said.

Meanwhile Pyne doggedly maintained the party line, repeating that schools

would not be worse off under a Coalition government.

But he was being outrun by the polls and the politics – and his leader. It was Tony Abbott, not the education spokesperson, who announced the Coalition’s policy u-turn. Now, Abbott declared, he and Rudd were “on a unity ticket” when it came to schools funding.

Only, they’re not.

Labor is committing $10 billion over six years while the Coalition says it will spend $2.8 billion dollars over four years.

When it comes to teachers, Pyne has made malicious and unsubstantiated attacks on their professionalism.

“In every staffroom, 5 to 15 per cent of teachers are not up to scratch, so it is commonly accepted that some students are going to be taught by underperforming teachers. This is unacceptable. What we need is for underperforming teachers to be managed out of the system,” he told the Australian Financial Review last year.

That’s an odd statement considering he acknowledges he has no power over what is a state issue. When the AEU asked him if principals should have the power to hire and fire, he said the federal government “does not employ teachers and has no

jurisdiction over industrial matters”.

It’s a case of Pyne talking tough to the media, then backing off when he’s got a different audience.

Pyne’s views on class sizes are also shifty. He told the AEU that the Coalition “believes it is important to focus on those things over which we have control” and that “class sizes are an operational matter for states”. But in May last year he claimed there was “no evidence” that smaller class sizes are good for students or improve learning outcomes.

So how would education fare under a Coalition government? Sadly, the Opposition leader and his education spokesperson are out of sync here too.

Asked whether he would give bipartisan support to the government’s aim of reaching the global top five nations for school education, Abbott responded: “Our goal should be to be number one”. (Doorstop interview, September 2012).

But two months later, Pyne called the goal “mad” (Funding forum, Sturt, November 2012).

“I’m not going to promise all sorts of goals on the ‘never-never’ that cannot be achieved,” Pyne said.

Australian Educator 79 Spring 2013 13

Election 2013

Stop TAFE cuts High quality and affordable vocational education is important both for our economy and our society.

T

by Tracey Evans

he insidious dismantling of our TAFE system is beginning to bite. You can see evidence of this in the negative media coverage about the high costs of obtaining trade qualifications, the effect on communities and students of cost cutting in TAFE colleges and the increasing number of private vocational education providers rorting the system.

Then, when the Victorian government announced $1.2 billion worth of cuts over four years, followed by similar announcements from New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia, community outrage caused the federal government to sit up and take notice.

It ordered a House of Representatives inquiry into the role of the TAFE system.

“The response to the inquiry has been unprecedented,” says the AEU’s federal TAFE secretary Pat Forward, “with literally thousands of people and organisations writing submissions, and many more people joining the StopTAFEcuts campaign”.

The inquiry report is due to be tabled whenever Parliament next sits.

Key to the decimation of the TAFE system is a notion of ‘market reform’.

Governments have encouraged the proliferation of private for-profit businesses by allocating increasing levels of public funding to them, effectively privatising the provision of vocational

14 Spring 2013 Australian Educator 79

The cuts to TAFE are hitting vocational training.

education and training.

So how’s that ‘market’ reform working out? In Victoria, which is the most advanced on the track of privatisation, it’s seen the loss of more than 2400 TAFE jobs in the last 12 months. Meanwhile TAFE’s share of vocational education has plummeted from close to 70 per cent in 2007 to less than 40 per cent in 2013.

At the same time, private for-profit provider share of the VET market in Victoria has soared from 14 per cent in 2007 to 45 per cent in 2013.

“TAFE has become a minority provider in the second-largest state in the country,” says Forward. She notes that, at the beginning of the reform process in 2008, all TAFE institutes had budget

“TAFE changes lives.

It is the engine room of the economy and underpins trades training in this country.”

surpluses, and were highly entrepreneurial.

But, the Victorian auditor general’s report this year showed that 10 of the 14 TAFEs (71 per cent) are now at either medium or high-risk due to poor financial results. “The worsening position indicates that expenses are growing faster than revenue and places the long-term financial sustainability of TAFEs at risk,” the auditor general said.

The situation for Victorian TAFE is disastrous, says Forward. “TAFE enrolments continue to drop away.

Students are not able to afford the costs of vocational education, and they are turning away from TAFE and from the universally poorly regarded private providers,” she says.

The devastation of Australia’s TAFE system has been particularly shortsighted considering the continuing calls for a boost in productivity.

“Excellence in vocational education and training is fundamental to productivity in the workplace and to a socially cohesive society,” says Forward.

“There can be no serious discussion about boosting productivity without TAFE. Our future competitive advantage in each and every sector of industry in this country relies upon a well-resourced TAFE system,” she says.

“TAFE changes lives. It’s the engine room of the economy, and underpins trades training in this country,” Forward says.

Tracey Evans is Australian Educator’s commissioning editor.

Resources Sign up for the TAFE campaign at www.stoptafecuts.com.au or check the Facebook page.

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Work with the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.

• Objective judgements

• Graduate career stage

• Using evidence

• Illustrations of Practice

• Involving others

• Modelling the Standards

Registration is free and open now aitsl.edu.au/spt The program is an initiative of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, developed in partnership with the New South Wales Institute of Teachers and the Queensland College of Teachers.

For more information: aitsl.edu.au

03–9944 1200 facebook.com/aitsl

spt@aitsl.edu.au twitter.com/aitsl

youtube.com/aitsleduau

Forum

Educated guesses What’s the worst that could happen after the federal election?

Ged Kearney ACTU president

“

It would be disastrous if we had an Abbott government that stuck true to form and returned AWA-style employment contracts, which is what he said he would do in his industrial relations policy. And, if he went on to do as he said he would, he’d be restricting people’s right to be represented by their unions and doing away with penalty rates.

There’d be no commitment whatsoever to allowing women with multiple caring responsibilities to stay in decent, secure work. Generally there’d be no commitment to secure, decent work for Australians.

If you look very carefully at Abbott’s industrial relations policy, he talks about ‘freeing up’ individual flexibility agreements. Unfortunately these exist now but they are there with a great deal of protection around them, particularly by making it easier for people to opt out.

Tony Abbott says he would ‘free them up’ – whatever that means – for employers to use individual agreements more liberally. He claims they’re the answer to flexibility, particularly for women workers, which basically means trading away rights like penalty rates in return for being able to meet caring responsibilities.

Certainly, he has made it very clear that he will not allow, or will make it very difficult for, unions to represent people when they are being subjected to

16 Spring 2013 Australian Educator 79

these AWA-style employment contracts.

The Coalition industrial relations policy is really Work Choices at its heart – making it easier for people to get sacked, a move away from collective agreements and reduced working rights and conditions.

We’re focusing on what it takes to keep people secure in work and being able to put food on the table and meet the costs of day-to-day living.

We’re very concerned that 40 per cent

of the workforce is in insecure work in some form or another. Things like short-term contracts, casualisation, sham contracting or ‘independent contractors’ who really are employees.

This is making people’s lives very insecure, their income is very insecure.

The union movement is the key to this; we’re saying if you join a union, we can have the power to fight against these trends.”

Corinne Grant Comedian, writer, actor

“

A lack of humanity.

I am genuinely shocked and saddened by the Prime Minister’s decision to send refugees who arrive by boat to a country that the United Nations has said is not capable of dealing with them.

Not even in my wildest dreams did I imagine that Kevin Rudd would out-right the right on this issue.

Sending people who are in earnest and desperate need of protection to a country where 70 per cent of women experience violence or rape is just appalling. I am so ashamed that this is being done in my name.

The ALP used to be the party of the people. The decision to speed up the move to an ETS was probably a clever political move. But putting jobs at risk in the car industry and cutting 800 public service jobs to do so is not the Labor Party I know.

Gonski, the NDIS, the NBN – all of these policies reflect solid Labor values. But sending vulnerable people to a country that is not structurally, economically or politically capable of

protecting them is not. We now have two major parties that care more about votes than they do people.

We can’t rely on the Liberal Party to ever put ordinary Australians ahead of big business and mining magnates.

We can’t ever expect the Liberal Party to govern for all Australians.

We used to be able to say that is what Labor did. I am desperately hoping the ALP will return to its roots.” ●

“Sending people who are in earnest and desperate need of protection to a country where 70 per cent of women experience violence or rape is just appalling.”

Australian Educator 79 Spring 2013 17

Forum

Miriam Lyons Executive Director, Centre For Policy Development

18 Spring 2013 Australian Educator 79

IMAGE: TYLER FREEMAN SMITH

T

here are a lot of areas in which Australia has achieved seriously great progress. We have excellent health and education systems compared to the rest of the world, but we’ve been under-investing in them.

National policies have also been set up that create two-tier systems, which subsidise queue-jumping for those who can afford it and provide under-funded services for everybody else. That slow sleepwalking towards social segregation worries me.

It’s great that Labor has adopted the Gonski school funding reforms and very encouraging that the Coalition has finally come to the table, although not quite as far. That they did it just before the election shows they thought it would be a vote loser not to, and that tells us a lot about where the community is on the need for a much fairer school funding system.

If you look at our highly-targeted welfare system, we’re reducing inequality more per dollar than most other countries in the world. Yet we’re happy to spend federal government money in a way that is actually reinforcing inequality.

That doesn’t seem right to me.

Philosophically it’s clear where Labor and the Coalition are coming from.

The problem is that Labor keeps constraining itself by accepting the idea that taxes should never increase as a proportion of GDP, and it’s very nervous about its reputation on fiscal policy.

“the Coalition… would be a slashand-burn government were Australia to enter a major economic downturn.”

The Coalition spent most of the downturn criticising Labor for going into deficit. So if you take them on their word through the most serious phase of the global economic crisis, it means they would be a slash-and-burn government were Australia to enter a major economic downturn.

I read an interesting quote from Abbott in 2003 where he said “in the end we have to be a productive and competitive society and greater inequality might be inevitable”.

That shows you a little bit about the stance he might take as a future prime minister.

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School autonomy

The evidence is in School autonomy isn’t delivering on its promises.

by Helen Vines

Briefly n Evidence is mounting that increased school autonomy does not increase student outcomes. n New reports say government emphasis on devolved decision making distracts from the need to focus on teaching excellence. n Emphasis should be placed on student improvement.

T

wo new Australian reports suggest that continuing calls for school autonomy are a distraction from possible solutions to problems facing Australian education.

Education policy makers need to drop the idea that school autonomy is a goal in itself and focus on building and supporting teaching excellence critical to student learning. This clear message to politicians and education bureaucrats is contained in two significant reports released in recent months.

‘The myth of markets in school education’, published by the Grattan Institute, reports that, while the world’s best education systems feature varying levels of school autonomy, “it is not central to their reforms”.

“Instead they articulate the best ways to teach and learn, then implement reform through high quality systems of

20 Spring 2013 Australian Educator 79

teacher development, appraisal and feedback among other policies.

“Autonomous schools in Australia and other countries are no better at implementing these programs than are centralised schools,” the Grattan Institute report says.

‘Focusing on the learner: Charting a way forward for Australian education’, released by Melbourne Graduate School of Education argues for a far greater emphasis on teaching and learning.

“The big picture for Australia’s education system is being held back by a confused and often incoherent debate… policy makers risk over-simplifying teaching,” it says.

No evidence but the push continues Autonomy and accountability are terms that persistently recur in public and political debate on school improvement.

The Commonwealth’s Empowering Local Schools agenda included a $69 million allocation to a pilot program at 1000 government, Catholic and

Policy makers “need to drop the notion that autonomy is a goal in itself. Improved learning should always be the objective.”

Dr Ben Jensen School education program director, Grattan Institute

independent schools that gives principals, parents and school communities more say on financial, staffing and performance management issues.

State government programs – including the Local Schools Local Decisions initiative in New South Wales and Independent Public Schools programs in Western Australia and Queensland – also aim to shift some decision making away from central bureaucracies.

The Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission is currently undertaking an inquiry into devolution in government schools and how it affects students, teachers and schools.

A draft report released in May indicates that findings are likely to focus on how to facilitate more autonomy, rather than whether it should actually be a policy priority.

Supporters of the autonomy agenda argue that greater decision making and accountability at school level promotes flexibility and reduces red tape. Critics warn it is often cost-cutting – and blameshifting – in disguise, with serious implications for principal and teacher workload, resourcing and curriculum.

Of even more concern, AEU research last year found that the push for devolution is continuing despite a lack of evidence that it improves student outcomes.

Research by the Save Our Schools group (The evidence for school autonomy is far from compelling, 2012) reaches a similar conclusion, arguing that “the mass of evidence from recent research studies in several countries is that it has little impact on student achievement”.

The group points to an OECD finding that, in the vast majority of countries participating in PISA 2009, there was no

More of the same is no solution

“policy makers risk over-simplifying teaching”.

significant difference between student achievement in schools with a high degree of autonomy over teacher hiring and budgets and in schools with lower autonomy.

Urgent need to address equity gap The recently released Melbourne Graduate School of Education report argues for a clear focus on building professional teaching excellence.

In his introduction to the report, the Dean of School Professor Field Rickards says there should be a sense of urgency about addressing the unacceptable equity gap in Australian educational outcomes, the falling international performance of our schools and the need to provide all students with a challenging 21st-century learning environment.

Australia, he says, needs to build on the work of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership and the

Australian Curriculum and Assessment Reporting Authority and the successes achieved through National Partnerships funding.

“Too many policies impact on factors outside the classroom, leading to many millions of dollars spent for little gain in student or teacher learning. Instead, we need to focus on building a profession of teachers, esteeming excellence and asking teachers to be critically involved in building their profession so change can be successfully implemented within the classroom.”

The Grattan Institute report, written

by Dr Ben Jensen, the Institute’s school education program director, argues that governments here and overseas have increased school autonomy with little effect.

He says policy makers “need to drop the notion that autonomy is a goal in itself. Improved learning should always be the objective.”

The Melbourne Graduate School of Education report says it is time for governments to make bold decisions and recognise that more of the same will not reverse the low equity characteristics of the Australian school system nor the slippage in its international rankings.

The report recommends greater pre-service emphasis on building clinical teaching skills that can assist educators to use data and evidence to meet the needs of individual learners.

It also calls for more professional development for current teachers to boost skills in interpreting assessment data, targeted instruction and collaboration.

The report says assessment systems should focus on student growth – how much a student’s learning grows over any given period.

“Australia’s current focus on standards, as evidenced through national tests like NAPLAN, ignores the important measure of growth.

Students may meet or exceed the standards set for their age but their learning may not have sufficiently grown over their last year of schooling.

We argue for a shift in focus to growth and standards.”

Labelling assessment for accountability driven by scores and standards “a distraction”, the report says emphasis should be placed on devising assessment reporting that assists teachers to make decisions about optimal teaching for their students.”

Dr Helen Vines is a freelance writer.

Australian Educator 79 Spring 2013 21

Early childhood

Good will hunting The galloping pace of change in early childhood education threatens to trample positive reforms.

communities across the eight state and territory jurisdictions.

In addition, the government has implemented a new national system of regulation of the early childhood sector – the Early Years Learning Framework and the National Quality Framework. It has provided the most significant reform in the history of preschool education provision, says Howard Spreadbury, AEU South Australia lead organiser, early childhood focus and the national early childhood educator representative on the AEU federal executive.

by Helen Vines

Recognition welcomed

unding for universal access to early childhood education was locked in until the end of 2014 at the April meeting of the Council of Australian Governments. A new National Partnership Agreement on Early Childhood Education will contribute $655.6 million in Commonwealth funding, ensuring some certainty for current reforms that have revolutionised the sector. It brings with it new targets and performance benchmarks, and regular reporting requirements.

On July 1, the federal government’s Early Years Quality Fund recognised the qualifications, commitment and good will that early childhood teachers and support staff invest. The fund allocates more than $300 million to the sector over the next two years and will supplement wage increases for Certificate III qualified educators and diploma and degree qualified educators.

Universal access to 15 hours of preschool education delivered by a four-year university qualified, early childhood teacher for 40 weeks a year has now been rolled out to nearly all

Naturally, early childhood teachers are thrilled that the sector, which has traditionally been underfunded and under-appreciated, is finally being recognised for the significant contribution it makes to our youngest students: the four-year-olds on the brink of school.

What is less thrilling is the unfunded additional workload that the implementation of the reforms has meant for teachers, and the lack of infrastructure – the physical space – to support the initiatives. This is having a direct impact on teachers’ health and wellbeing, and influencing their decision making when it comes to career planning.

An AEU survey of early childhood education members last year found a drastic increase in members’ workloads since the introduction of this new national system, says Spreadbury.

Much of the work required to implement the new initiatives is being completed out of work hours. Eighty per cent of respondents said this factor would likely influence their decision to remain in the early childhood education sector.

Another significant issue is the legislated requirement to publish ratings of early childhood education centres

F

22 Spring 2013 Australian Educator 79

through the quality assessment process.

The AEU has vigorously opposed the move, arguing its case to key decision makers, industry stakeholders and the community generally.

Good reforms, poor delivery There are two important strands to this story, which are inextricably entwined.

The first is that the reforms are intended to dramatically enhance the lives of young children, particularly the disadvantaged, who may not otherwise have access to early childhood education.

Significantly, then Prime Minister Julia Gillard reported in parliament in early February that the Universal Access goal for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children living in remote areas was “on track” to be met in 2013.

It is good news and the AEU welcomes this progress.

Beneath the gloss, however, are concerns about the evaluation and measurement of data that supports this announcement both in relation to Indigenous children and the population generally.

How do you quantify access when early childhood education is not compulsory? How do we know that children are actually attending programs in which they are enrolled?

How do you meaningfully and comprehensively integrate data from the preschool and long day-care centres?

The second strand of this double helix concerns the lives of teachers who must deliver on the policies.

They are confronted with the day-today rigour of educating four-year-olds who, with opportunity, will deliver on their potential, to the benefit of all communities across the country. Staffing arrangements must be watertight every second of every day and, for some, these

Recognising & Rewarding Nominations are now open for the Arthur Hamilton Award for Outstanding Contribution to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education

Nominations are long days indeed, and getting longer.

Lack of employer recognition of basic workplace rights such as access to tea breaks and unpaid overtime creates significant stress for early childhood teachers.

Other issues are many and varied and equally important: opportunities for planning; support for team teaching arrangements; and access to professional development, to name but a few. For example, the requirement to deliver 600 hours of teaching when there is a shortage of appropriately qualified relief staff places intense pressure on organisations and individuals.

The early childhood sector across the states and territories is highly diverse in its systems and arrangements.

“Consequently our starting points for engaging with universal access are very different,” says Shayne Quinn, vice president, early childhood, AEU Victoria.

“In Victoria it could be said that our challenge is that, in comparison with other jurisdictions, we have no system.”

Nomination forms can be obtained from the AEU by phoning (03) 9693 1800, faxing (03) 9693 1805, or emailing slowndes@aeufederal.org.au or can be downloaded from www.aeufederal.org.au/ Atsi/2013AHnomform.pdf The closing date is Friday, 8 November 2013.

The winner will receive a $1000 prize and will be flown to Melbourne to accept the Award at the Annual Federal Conference of the AEU in February 2014. All nominees will receive a certificate from the AEU. Further information If you would like to find out more, please contact Nicole Major, nmajor@aeufederal.org.au, or visit www.aeufederal.org.au

The speed of change The “galloping” pace of change to meet designated timelines has been poorly managed by employers and government in Victoria, says Quinn. “Staff have felt overwhelmed, underconsulted, under-prepared and under-resourced.”

The Victorian government, while it contributes funds, is not the employer of early childhood teachers in Victoria, and this is proving problematic as the next enterprise bargaining agreements are formulated.

Winner of the 2012 Arthur Hamilton Award, the Aboriginal Education Team at Sunning Hill School for its Yarning with Aunties – An Elders’ Program. Award being presented by Angelo Gavrielatos, Federal President AEU, to Alexis Trindall, Aboriginal Education Officer.

Early childhood

The AEU is currently negotiating a complex range of agreements that include: a single-interest employer agreement that will cover around 700 community-managed services; a multibusiness agreement with around 25 local government bodies; individual enterprise agreements with local governments that have elected not to enter into the multi-business approach; as well as various other agreements.

There are many complex issues to address in these negotiations. For example: there is a shortage of qualified early childhood teachers; salary parity is under pressure; teachers face increased case loads, increased documentation and reporting; and there is pressure on them to increase teaching time. Many sites are characterised by single room classrooms with one desk and a desktop computer that are simply inadequate for the task at hand. Increasingly long days and the return to Saturday sessions mean shift-work provisions may need to be considered and breaks are under pressure, observes Quinn.

Further, “in the absence of early childhood teacher registration in Victoria, we face attacks on the integrity of the teacher qualification classification.

With no recognition on the government’s part that, unless the conditions of teachers are addressed, much of the investment in the early years reforms will go unrewarded.

“The roll out of universal access in Victoria, while driven by positives, can be described as a policy of promise, let down by poor resourcing and an unrealistic timeline,” says Quinn.

Dr Helen Vines is a freelance writer.

24 Spring 2013 Australian Educator 79

Leave on time In South Australia, where the state government is the employer and hours of work are in the award, a campaign to protest about workload is underway.

The AEU has taken up a slogan – “Leave on time, leave it behind” – to identify what tasks members could “leave, park to one side, or not do,” says Howard Spreadbury, AEU South Australia lead organiser, early childhood focus and the national early childhood educator representative on the AEU federal executive.

The intention is for all members in preschool centres to determine an agreed finishing time that is strictly adhered to. That means no working after hours doing administrative work, and no taking work home to complete. “It’s not an easy thing to ask people to do,” notes Spreadbury.

Feedback to date has been mixed, he says. Importantly, it has raised awareness about non-essential tasks, and emphasised the fact that the system

is not going to fall apart, and there is no adverse impact on children when certain tasks are not done.

Spreadbury says that such campaigns represent “small steps”.

“Basically our members felt that they could keep talking about the work and the workload, but if they don’t start doing something about it the situation is never going to change”.

Overwhelmingly, the mandated 15 hours per week for preschool children has been a positive initiative, he says. The community needs to be aware of what is available, but some centres have been forced to reconfigure or even replace existing programs to meet demand. The opportunity in some centres to have joint staff planning sessions has been compromised because staff non-contact times no longer coincide.

The South Australian campaign has been successful in raising awareness in the community about workload, says Spreadbury, and there has inevitably been media coverage.

The union intends to continue with the campaign – which clearly offers a model that could be taken up elsewhere – up to the next state election.

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THE AUSTRALIAN CURRICULUM STUDIES ASSOCIATION (ACSA) 2013 BIENNIAL CURRICULUM CONFERENCE

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Uncharted territory?

Navigating the new Australian Curriculum This conference explores the Australian Curriculum’s cross-curriculum priorities of:

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures

Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia

Sustainability

Wednesday 25 to Friday 27 September 2013 Darwin Convention Centre, Darwin

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS Dr Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr Baumann … artist, educator and community leader speaks on heart, mind and spirit.

Brian Manning and Ted Egan … present the story of the Gurindji walking off Wave Hill Station in words and song.

Professor Peter Buckskin … asks if the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cross-curriculum priority passes the cultural integrity test?

Associate Professor John Bradley … discusses how First Peoples knowledge and Western knowledge might speak together.

This three-day conference has outstanding keynote speakers, well supported by nearly 50 workshops and papers covering the cross-curriculum priorities from a range of relevant viewpoints.

Professor Kerry J Kennedy … considers Australia’s engagement with Asia: Which Asia?

Further activities include the conference dinner at the sensational Pee Wee’s at the Point with entertainment

by Sara Storer and Dr Elephant, the President’s reception, launch of a new children’s philosophy book and pre-conference school visits.

Dr Phil Lambert … presents ACARA’s perspective.

Professor Eelco Rohling … talks on understanding sustainability.

Kathe Kirby … delivers the Garth Boomer Memorial Lecture “A fair dinkum Australian Curriculum”.

www.acsa.edu.au

for the full program, information about keynote speakers, workshop abstracts and presenters AND HOW TO REGISTER.

Australian Educator 78 Winter 2013 25

Professional development

Tapping into free global resources The sharing and developing of professional practice enters a new level.

by Helen Vines

Briefly n The Australian arm of a global social networking site for teachers has been launched. n TES Connect provides a forum for teachers to share their ideas. n Membership is free for AEU members.

C

arly-Jane Boreland, head of history, languages and social sciences at Elizabeth Macarthur High School in New South Wales, has a unit on medieval Europe to develop. In the not too distant past, she relied mainly on her own knowledge and resources as an experienced teacher, and a network of faculty members to exchange ideas with.

Now, she has joined 2.8 million teachers from around the globe in sharing access to more than half a million teaching resources through

26 Spring 2013 Australian Educator 79

social media site TES Connect.

TES Australia, launched in July this year, has joined a worldwide network developed by TES Connect, which is represented in 274 countries and territories and counting.

The online site provides a dedicated forum for Australian curriculum materials as well as access to the global community of teachers. The Australian site has been developed in partnership with the Australian Education Union, the Centre for Professional Learning and the Board of Studies NSW and access is free for AEU members.

There are three sections on the site: a jobs section, a curriculum resources section, and a community section where members can take part in forums, join existing groups and start their own blog or a new group. People can talk online: they can discuss, debate and let off steam.

Upload resources Once a teacher is registered, they are then invited to upload resources they have developed or used. Although it is possible to protect material as a PDF, most resources are uploaded as Word documents.

have uploaded and you can be added as a favourite.

“I think that is a really nice part of the website because teachers have a lot of material that they create so, while it is nice to adopt and share other people’s good ideas, it’s nice to get a bit of acknowledgement that what you are making can be valued as well.

“I think it is going to be increasingly useful as teachers work out the best ways to get the most out of it.”

Well presented and indexed

“I think [the site] is going to be increasingly useful as teachers work out the best ways to get the most out of it.”

Carly-Jane Boreland Elizabeth Macarthur High School, New South Wales

The site provides new ways of presenting ideas, says Boreland, and you can modify the material to suit your students. Boreland recently uploaded 40 items in just 20 minutes.

Any member can download resources from your own page, says Boreland. “It is like any social media site in the sense that you have a profile page with all the teaching and learning applications that you have uploaded and people can use them and comment on them.

“You can track the number of people who access the resource you

Boreland says that everything she has looked at so far has been well presented and appropriately indexed.

Her recent search on medieval Europe revealed resources in that section that were without exception all age appropriate and true to their description.

The flexibility of the resources and the ability to search for a link organised by age, year and subject is very powerful, she says, especially for those moments when something unexpected comes up that requires a lesson to be prepared quickly. “The potential is huge,” she says.

Boreland, who’d been a member of TES Connect before the Australian roll out, says she’s impressed by the new Australian materials now available.

Significant resources have been developed by the TES primary and secondary teams and are tailored to the Australian context. And other organisations are beginning to contribute resources. For example, the National Gallery of Victoria recently uploaded 141 resources, comprising films and interviews.

Drawing on quality ideas It’s a welcome development for Boreland, who has the task of developing programs in line with the new NSW curriculum and the national guidelines. She sees the site as a critical platform in the development of programs and materials.

“My faculty has the new history syllabus to implement, but for me, as head teacher, I have modern and ancient history, legal studies, languages, business studies, geography, society and culture, and commerce. With a new curriculum coming in for everything, that is a huge job to be overseeing.

“This site allows me to direct teachers to a wealth of resources. It is up to their professional judgment how they adapt and implement these materials, but the quality of ideas is so helpful,” she says.

“I have a look at the site at the beginning of a topic. I want to be building a really good program based on really good resources. I don’t want to be just dropping a lesson from the internet into my program, but if there are things there that are better than what I already have and do, I’ll be looking at that and modifying and adjusting for my own students,” Boreland says.

Dr Helen Vines is a freelance writer.

Resources n www.tesaustralia.com

Australian Educator 79 Spring 2013 27

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International

Defending the right to learn Education International has launched a fund to provide support for those directly affected by violence against teachers and students in Pakistan.

by Cyndi Tebbel

Briefly n Attacks on students and teachers in Pakistan are escalating. n The Pakistani government is under pressure to provide protection. n A scholarship fund has been set up in memory of murdered teacher Shahnaz Nazli.

S

choolgirl Malala Yousafzai became the face of a global movement last October when she bravely stood up to a Taliban gunman who shot her in the head to silence her advocacy for girls’ education in Pakistan.

This July she addressed the United Nations calling for education for all. “One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world. Education is the only solution. Education first,” she told the UN in a speech on her 16th birthday.

Despite international pressure on Pakistan to increase security for girls who want an education, and the teachers, families, schools and communities who support them, deadly attacks by the Taliban and other groups are escalating.

Shahnaz Nazli, a 41-year-old teacher, was gunned down in April near the all-girls’ school where she taught.

Meanwhile in June, militants blew up a

bus carrying female students to university in Quetta, killing 14 women on board.

Education International has called on the Pakistani government to stop violence against students and teachers. EI and the UN had a full-page advertisement in two of Pakistan’s largest newspapers calling on people to stand up for teachers and for girls’ education.

EI has launched a scholarship fund for girls’ education named in memory of Shahnaz Nazli to commemorate the brave teachers who were killed while defending the right of girls to go to school.

“The right of all children to go to school and live in peace is not negotiable,” says EI president, Susan Hopgood. “Denying women rights and opportunities and denying children an education will only perpetuate the cycle of poverty and inequality.”

The international outrage in response to the attack on Malala prompted the Pakistani government to agree to legislate for compulsory free education but the situation is still dire in many areas where threats, intimidation, shootings, arson attacks and sometimes even murder are the Taliban’s weapons in a war against girls’ opportunity.

“We will not ever be intimidated by extremists, not in Pakistan and not anywhere else where we are fighting to accomplish the right to education which is still denied to 32 million girls worldwide,” says Hopgood.

Under pressure EI will continue to focus on Pakistan, working with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, UN Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown and others to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of a primary education for all children.

“We’ve got two years before we get to 2015 and we can’t afford to fail,” says Hopgood. “We’re pressuring Pakistani authorities to provide protection for girls and their teachers, and we are calling on all

Malala Yousafzai at the UN in July.

governments to provide the necessary resources and environments to achieve education for all by 2015, the promise the international community made to the world’s children.”

Only continued international pressure from other governments, the UN and individuals will force change in Pakistan, says Hopgood. She urges supporters to contribute to the Shahnaz Nazli Scholarship Fund, and sign the petition sponsored by Gordon Brown, calling on the Pakistani government to end violence that prevents girls achieving an education. “That’s the call,” Hopgood says. “We want people to stand up and become part of a very large international group demanding the Pakistani government take action.” ● Cyndi Tebbel is a freelance writer.

You can contribute to the Shahnaz Nazli Scholarship Fund here: Education International Solidarity Account ING BANK Account number: IBAN code: Swift code:

3101 0061 7075 BE05 3101 0061 7075 BBRUBEBB

Sign the petition by UN Special Envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown, at http://educationenvoy.org/ Australian Educator 79 Spring 2013 29

International

Peer to peer Students in Australia and young people in Indonesia are making connections to learn about each other and global citizenship.

by Helen Vines

Briefly n A groundbreaking Australian research project provides a model to help young people develop as global citizens. n The research finds that direct communication is a powerful learning tool. n Four Melbourne schools participated in the project along with young people in Indonesia.

P

ioneering Australian research provides an evidence-based model of education for youth global citizenship that non-government organisations in partnership with schools could adapt and use.

Called ‘Global Connections’, the project was, in essence, quite a simple one: in a youth-led project, questions were asked about what kind of learning takes place when young people engage directly in cross-cultural dialogue, and how this is different to the learning that

30 Spring 2013 Australian Educator 79

takes place through curriculum-based resources in a classroom.

Students from Victorian public schools, and young people in Indonesia who were outside the formal school system, communicated directly in an effort to learn more about one another and, in turn, about themselves and their place in the region and the world. The Indonesian participants were drawn from juvenile correctional institutions in Jakarta and various youth groups.

Their communication was via diverse media including print and graphic arts, such as comics and posters, video and letters. The internet became an increasingly important tool over the life of the project.

Initiated by the international non-government organisation Plan International Australia in 2005, and partnered by students and researchers from the University of Melbourne and RMIT University, Global Connections adopted a unique evaluation strategy that was intended to be disseminated widely and inform international debate.

Policy documents like the Melbourne

Declaration and supporting curriculum materials “carve out a space for the nature of learning for global citizenship in schools” says Ani Wierenga, senior research fellow at Melbourne University’s Youth Research Centre in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education.

Wierenga and Jose Roberto Guevara, senior lecturer in International Studies and International Development at RMIT University, co-edited the recently released Educating for Global Citizenship (Melbourne University Press, 2013), which details the research. Less published, she says, are models for how one might educate for global citizenship effectively.

Learning signals The research provided ‘a meeting space’ between schools and NGOs, an opportunity for all those involved to think about their own learning as global citizens, says Wierenga.

Because of the nature and diversity of the partnerships, and the depth and breadth of the evaluation

“We have been bewildered by young people saying ‘we don’t really get invited into a conversation’ about articulating a future … or what kind of society we want to be creating.”

Ani Wierenga Senior research fellow, Melbourne University

process, the project was also extraordinarily complex.

Its researchers have provided clear evidence of optimal learning in the quest for youth engagement with global issues: young people learn best when they engage in direct communication with each other; and listening and reflection are powerful tools in establishing a pathway to action.

The classroom is the microcosm of a busy, changing, challenging, interconnected world. However, the crowded curriculum narrows the options for peace and quiet wherein creative thought might flourish. The book documents the work of Plan International Australia and the multidisciplinary team that “settled themselves” around the project for nearly seven years and performed intensive research on “what we can learn about models of relational learning, young people and global citizenship”.

This book is unique, says Douglas Bourn, director, Development Education Research Centre from the

University of London, because of the rigorous approach to research and analysis that underpins its findings.

It uses this one case study to explore the terrain of what it is to grow up in Australia today, what that means in terms of educating and learning needs, and how we might think about the landscape of global citizenship, says Wierenga.

Issues of race and understanding have surfaced powerfully in Australia, so “we are not just talking about how we understand others ‘out there’, but also how we understand each other in our midst,” Wierenga says. Students participating in the project pointed out that Australia’s extraordinary cultural diversity is evident in the classroom. Some 50 different nationalities were represented in the four Melbourne schools involved in the Global Connections program.

Interestingly, says Wierenga, “we have been bewildered by young people saying ‘we don’t really get invited into a conversation’ about articulating a future, or what matters, or what kind of society we want to be creating”.

Young Australians feel they are either not taken seriously or don’t get invited in the first place. In fact, when they were given an opportunity in the project to drive their own learning, many young people struggled with the freedom this entailed. Their ‘a-ha’ moment tended to arrive towards the end of the process, along with the recognition that they could have achieved a lot more had they engaged more seriously with the global and social issues that mattered when the opportunity was presented to them.

Embedding the global leadership agenda into the curriculum is a critical part of empowering young Australians as active global citizens, Wierenga says.

Dr Helen Vines is a freelance writer.

Resources

Teachers are “hungry” for ways of engaging their students in issues of global leadership, says researcher Ani Wierenga. She argues that systematic whole school support is critical if creative teachers are to succeed in driving a global leadership agenda.

At present, the teaching of global education is fragmented across the states. In Victoria, for instance, it is the task of The Geography Teachers Association of Victoria (gtav.asn.au/ global_education_project) while other states have different groups addressing the issues.

A website, funded by the Australian Council for International Development and coordinated through Education Services, includes links, contacts and resources from across the country (globaleducation.edu.au) Education for global citizenship is spawning activity worldwide.

Usually it takes the form of initiatives surrounding our ecological, social and economic interconnectedness.

Much is invested and the results are diverse. The UN, for example, has adopted a three-pronged strategy called ‘Global Education, First Initiative’ (globaleducationfirst.org). Led by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, it aims to raise the political profile of education, strengthen the global movement to achieve quality education and generate increased funding.

Australian Educator 79 Spring 2013 31

Technology

Remote control Designing, building and competing with robots is giving students more skills and knowledge.

by Cynthia Karena

Briefly n Robot championships are engaging students around the country. n Australian teams are well represented in international competitions. n Robotics helps students to think conceptually in many areas.

A

t Hampton Senior High School, students squealing with excitement as they watch sumo robots wrestle is par for the course.

The Perth school organised its own sumo-bot championship in response to huge student interest in the West Australian RoboCupJunior competitions.

RoboCup competitions, where students show off their robot creations, are held across Australia and overseas.

Students design and build robots that dance, play soccer or take part in rescue scenarios.

“The Year 9 classes that compete at RoboCup find it competitive and challenging, and they learn a lot from 32 Spring 2013 Australian Educator 79

“Robotics teaches students how to think conceptually, then break concepts down into design, development, testing and implementation.”

Susan Bowler Vice-chair, Robotics Tasmania

their robot projects,” says computer teacher Marufa Meher. “They are excited about RoboCup and wanted to continue making robots after last year’s competition. They work on them at lunchtime and after school.”

RoboCup fever has also hit Ogilvie High School in Hobart, with students winning a slew of state, national and international RoboCup competitions since 2009. Ogilvie students make up part of the RoboSquad United team chosen to represent Australia at the International RoboCupJunior

competition in the Netherlands in July.

Attendance at the competitions is growing, says science and maths teacher Susan Bowler, who is also vice-chair of Robotics Tasmania and a member of RoboCup Australia’s dance committee.

“Robotics is fun. Students love to compete with each other,” she says.

“It involves problem-solving both in the building and in the programming of the robots. Robotics teaches students how to think conceptually, then break concepts down into design, development, testing and implementation.”

Robotics also encourages thinking across multiple disciplines: science, technology, engineering, mathematics and, in the case of RoboCupJunior Dance, the arts.

“The students do all of these without even realising it,” says Bowler.

But, if Australia wants to be a leader in robotics, it needs to support professional development for teachers and support organisations such as RoboCupJunior, she says.

Museum tour The CSIRO has developed an autonomous robot that allows people in remote places, such as school students in rural Australia, to virtually visit a site if they have access to a high-speed broadband connection.

When the robot was trialled at the National Museum of Australia (NMA) in March, it took students from schools including Kiama Public School, in rural NSW, on a virtual tour using the robot’s cameras. They could also talk to a museum educator in a video chat session.

“This application of robotics is good for regional areas,” says Kiama assistant principal Dianne Quill.

The school doesn’t have a broadband

connection, but the local area is connected to the National Broadband Network, so the students could go to the public library to do the tour.

“They loved it. They were thoroughly engaged with the robot and were happy to wander virtually around the museum and see the exhibits.”

Robotics is part of the school’s curriculum, and Quill says it’s a subject she loves to teach.

The museum’s robot streams out vision in real time and students can pan around to see exactly what’s happening, says NMA special projects manager Robert Bunzli.

“The main camera is actually comprised of six cameras that stitch together an image – like Google Street View except that our robot gives a live version.”

Interaction is an important feature of the experience. The museum educator is able to engage and challenge the students.

“A second camera is focused on the educator taking the tour,” says Bunzli.

“Students effectively put their hand up by clicking on an icon and the educator will answer the question.”

Outback rescue The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Airborne Delivery Challenge is another robotics competition for schools. Teams compete at dropping lifesaving supplies (a muesli bar) to a tourist (a mannequin) stranded in the outback. They use semiautonomous aircraft they have built themselves and relayed video, and the team that gets closest wins the competition. The next UAV event will be held at Calvert in Queensland in September.

There’s also FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and

Technology), which conducts robotics competitions to inspire students in engineering and technology. Teams from all over the world are lined up to compete at the Asia-Pacific Open FIRST tournament at Sydney’s Macquarie University in July.

And Robogals is an organisation run by university student volunteers who visit schools to introduce girls to engineering through robotics workshops.

Clearly, in the sphere of education, robotics has come a long way from being science fiction. ● Cynthia Karena is a freelance writer.

Resources n www.robocupjunior.org.au n mindstorms.lego.com n www.nma.gov.au/education-kids/ mobile-telepresence n www.uavoutbackchallenge.com.au n firstaustralia.org n www.robogals.org n adelaide.robogals.org.au n perth.robogals.org.au n melbourne.robogals.org.au

Australian Educator 79 Spring 2013 33

School Excursions with YHA

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Technology

My favourite apps

Anne Mirtschin Information and communications technology teacher, Hawkesdale P-12 College, Melbourne

Best apps We’d love to hear how you use apps in the classroom. You can email details of your favourite apps to educator@hardiegrant.com.au

A

pps for mobile phones have quickly become very popular and educational apps abound.

Typically, apps (short for ‘applications’) are quicker and easier to use than a browser, and teachers and students don’t have to know anything about the internet to use them.

Anne Mirtschin, a Melbourne teacher and author of Cool Tools for the Connected Classroom, has her students use apps for creative purposes and to

connect and collaborate with each other and other students around the world.

“A lot of apps are free or don’t cost a lot, which is great because our budgets are always cut back,” says Mirtschin, an information and communications technology teacher at Hawkesdale P-12 College.

She likes the visual appeal of apps and the opportunities to extend learning beyond the classroom.

“Skype [for Android, Apple and Windows devices, free] is one of my favourites. It’s an old app, but it’s used in a new way to enable mobile learning,” she says.

“With Skype, you can access expertise and you don’t have to be the expert.

I can video-conference with another teacher or expert when I need help in how to help my students.

“For example, I like to use a jigsaw puzzle called Scratch, but I’m not good at it, so I ‘skyped’ a professor in Japan and a teacher friend in the US. My students could take advantage of their knowledge.

They could flip the camera on themselves or onto the computer screen.”

The Polycom RealPresence Mobile app (Apple and Android phones and tablets, free) for video collaboration is another of Mirtschin’s favourites.

“Normally video-conferencing is bound to a desktop and you need a fixed address.

But, over a mobile phone, it can be used anywhere, anytime. And this is where learning is headed.”

Other useful apps for students include:

“A lot of apps are free or don’t cost a lot, which is great because our budgets are always cut back.”

Walk Safely to School Day Android and Apple phones and tablets, free

Encourages students to walk to school safely and regularly. They can save details of their walks – distance, time and speed – and maps of routes taken.

Collect: Photo a Day Apple phones and tablets, free

Students can document projects by taking one or more photos a day and then create calendar albums to store photos of each project. For example, they might have a school veggie patch photo calendar or take photos of their best friend each day to see how they change in appearance over the year. Students can caption the photos and add tags or more detailed descriptions.

Mathematical Formulas Apple phones and tablets, 99c

Developed in Sweden by 18-year-old Polish high school student Antek Szadaj, it has the main formulas organised by topic, such as Algebra, Complex Numbers and Trigonometry. It’s a useful reference tool for students to quickly access and become familiar with a wide range of formulas. It’s better than writing formulas on scraps of paper or the back of the hand, and it’s handy for teachers as a quick reminder of various formulas.

Australian Educator 79 Spring 2013 35

Books

Collaborating for a core text Combining scholarly debate with practical application, a new book on early childhood teaching takes a much-needed approach.

by Angela Rossmanith

T

he new book Teaching Early Years: Curriculum, pedagogy and assessment has been written to fill a significant gap in material for early childhood professionals that can be used in an Australian context, says co-editor Professor Donna Pendergast.

“What is available has a fairly scattergun approach. For example, you might have a fabulous ‘art in the early years’ or ‘literacy in the early years’ book,” she says of texts on teaching children up to eight years of age.

“But we believe what is best for teacher education and teaching practice is to have the whole lot in one book.

We have covered a great range of early childhood topics.”

Pendergast, dean and head of the School of Education and Professional Studies at Griffith University in south-east Queensland has completed extensive research in the fields of early and middle years education.

The research interests of co-editor Dr Susanne Garvis, an early childhood lecturer at Griffith, include early childhood arts education as well as policy reform.

The book follows the model of Teaching Middle Years: Rethinking curriculum, pedagogy and assessment, edited by Pendergast and Nan Bahr, and also published by Allen & Unwin.

“Teaching Middle Years has been a huge success,” says Pendergast. “It was awarded the Choice [United States] Outstanding Academic Title for 2006 and is regarded as being very innovative in its structure, with a focus on developing critical reflection. It’s considered the core text for teacher education for the middle years and is now used in most tertiary institutions around Australia.”

AEU federal president Angelo Gavrielatos

Australian Educator (ISSN: 0728-8387) is published for the Australian Education Union

by Hardie Grant Media.

The magazine is circulated to members of the AEU nationally.

AEU deputy federal president Corenna Haythorpe AEU federal secretary Susan Hopgood AEU deputy federal secretary Darcel Russell

36 Spring 2013 Australian Educator 79

AEU and subscription enquiries to Ground Floor, 120 Clarendon Street, Southbank, Victoria 3006.

Tel: (03) 9693 1800 Fax: (03) 9693 1805 Email: aeu@aeufederal.org.au Web: www.aeufederal.org.au

Rapid growth Teaching Middle Years was motivated, in part, by the rapid growth in early childhood education and care provisions in Australia.

It has the same structure as Teaching Middle Years, with each chapter also summarised and followed by questions for discussion and reflection.

Editor Susan Hopgood Publisher Fiona Hardie Managing editor Sarah Notton Commissioning editor Tracey Evans

Design Vaughan Mossop Advertising manager Kerri Spillane Tel: (03) 8520 6444 Fax: (03) 8520 6422 Email: kerrispillane @hardiegrant.com.au

Donna Pendergast

Susanne Garvis

When they invited leading experts in each of these areas to submit chapter proposals, the response was overwhelming.

Pendergast and Garvis began by settling on what they believed to be the most important areas of content and application in the profession. The first section addresses the context of early years learning, followed by sections on curriculum, pedagogical and assessment practices, and a final section covering imperatives for the early years.

Editorial office Hardie Grant Media, Ground Level, Building 1 658 Church St, Richmond 3121 Tel: (03) 8520 6444 Fax: (03) 8520 6422 Email: educator@hardiegrant.com.au

“We structured the book in a comprehensive way, giving coverage to all the key issues,” says Pendergast.

When they invited leading experts in each of these areas to submit chapter proposals, the response was overwhelming.

“Sadly, we were unable to include contributions from many scholars and practitioners because there were so many responses. We had to make some difficult decisions.

“In cases where there was overlap, we asked the authors to work together on a particular topic. This gave the project an extra dimension.”

For example, for the Digital Technology chapter, Narelle Lemon, a lecturer at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, worked with Glenn Finger, dean (learning and teaching) in the Arts, Education and Law Group at Griffith University.

Everyday numeracy The curriculum practices section includes chapters on numeracy and science.

“The numeracy chapter takes seriously the need for numeracy education in the early years,” says Pendergast. “Numeracy is defined and then linked to the early learning framework and examples of

Subscriptions Telephone enquiries (03) 9693 1800 Within Australia: $17.60 (includes GST) for four issues Overseas: $30.00 (includes postage) Printer Offset Alpine 42 Boorea Street Lidcombe NSW 2141

numeracy activities are presented.

“To me, the real strength of this chapter is the inclusion of the photographs, which show numeracy concepts as core to everyday activities such as cooking and building sandcastles.”

The science chapter is built from the natural curiosity young children have about their world. “Linking into everyday stimulus, the science chapter also includes visuals of how the world around can be made fascinating and how scientific inquiry is relevant for all age groups.”

It is a “good sign” that several Australian universities have already selected the book as a textbook since it was published in April, says Pendergast.

“It’s a collaborative effort and every chapter was peer-reviewed. The authors felt privileged to be in a collection of this kind and we’re pleased the book presents scholarly debates together with practical applications.” l

Angela Rossmanith is a freelance writer.

Make cheques payable to the Australian Education Union and post to: Tom Freeman Australian Education Union Federal Office Ground Floor, 120 Clarendon Street Southbank, Victoria 3006, Australia

Audited circulation: 120,697 Copyright rests with the writers, the AEU and Hardie Grant Media. No part of this pub­lication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the copyright holders. The opinions expressed in the magazine are not necessarily the official policy of the AEU.

Australian Educator 79 Spring 2013 37

Casebook

Journeys of a lifetime Travel broadens the mind and can also give you a fresh perspective on teaching, says Nan van Dissel.

N

Nan van Dissel in the waters off Kodiak Island, Alaska in 1999.

by Cyndi Tebbel

an van Dissel had two passions when she was growing up: teaching and finance, in that order. She came to love working with children as a Sunday school teacher and as part of a large family that welcomed waifs and strays.

She liked the idea of teaching kindergarten but, not being musically inclined, was worried she would “fail the recorder exam”.

Instead, she followed finance, got a degree in economics and taught the subject, along with maths, at high school for one year. Then she added a degree in education and transferred to primary education, where she has been a classroom teacher with a focus on maths for almost 40 years – the past 10 of them at Parkside Primary School in Adelaide.

Having started off with Years 2 and 3, van Dissel now works with Years 4 and 5 and says there’s a big difference in their outlook. “They’re very open to learning – everything’s exciting – and that keeps you going.”

She says she was raised in a mathematical family where birthday cakes are presented with candles “arranged numerically, so you have to solve an algebraic equation before you can blow them out.”

38 Spring 2013 Australian Educator 79

“I never hear kids complain that it’s maths time.”

She brings that same passion and sense of humour to the classroom, and says it’s all about showing kids that any subject can be fun. “I never hear kids complain that it’s maths time.”

Showing children the practical side of learning is also on van Dissel’s agenda.

She’s a firm believer in taking children out of the classroom – her students go on 12 excursions each year.

“This week we’re going to SA Water for ‘Follow that Drop’, an education program about clean water. At the end of the term we’re going to Port Adelaide to the Maritime Museum because we’re doing a history unit on immigration.

“We do it all by public transport, otherwise you can’t fit in enough excursions. You have to do it cheaply, that’s where maths comes in.”

As for her own professional development, van Dissel is a strong advocate of the Teacher Exchange program. She has been a member of the South Australia Exchange Teachers’ League for 15 years and has had four exchanges – two each in the UK and US. Her most inspiring experience was teaching at one of five primary schools on Kodiak Island, Alaska. “There were 14,000 residents at the end of an 80km road and school was the hub,” she says. “What else do you do in the dark, but go to school and learn? It was very social.”

She offered a course on Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats, which was well received. But one of her colleagues said, “Nan, they’re not coming to hear about de Bono – they love your accent!”

Exchanges, she says, are about making contacts, finding things you can import and doing things you never thought you would do. “Like sitting in a car for five hours watching a goat on a mountain top.

In Alaska, you do what the locals do and they watch animals.” l Cyndi Tebbel is a freelance writer.

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