Education Review - Mar 2013

Endorsed by

Issue 2 March 2013 www.educationreview.com.au

State or federal?

Teaching’s tug of war

See page 16

Digital excursion: Inside learning from the great outdoors See page 28

Teaching sustainable education in Cambodia See page 34

What’s the matter with ATARS? See page 22

2 | March 2013

contents EDITOR Antonia Maiolo (02) 9936 8618 antonia.maiolo@apned.com.au

Journalist Aileen Macalintal aileen.macalintal@apned.com.au

production manager Cj Malgo (02) 9936 8772 cj.malgo@apned.com.au

CHIEF SUBEDITOR Richard Jenkins (02) 9936 8643 richard.jenkins@apned.com.au

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National SALES manager Luke Bear (02) 9936 8703 luke.bear@apned.com.au

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06

16

news 04 National poll

in the classroom 22 ATARS fall

06 Tuck shops shut

26 Eco-education

08 Skipping school

28 Changing classrooms

Public support for Gonski’s increased funding

Academics defend the lowering of the bar

Financial pressures blamed for Canberra closures

Engaging pupils in environmentalism

Victorian parents face fines

Digital world breaks down boundaries

09 Enrolments up: NSW

Independent schools report growth

10 Garrett gives a Gonski

Education minister joins NSW protest

12 Swim test tanks

30 Technology opens doors

Bringing outdoor excursions into the schoolroom

26

Proficiency policy axed for swimming carnivals

industry & policy 14 External evaluations

Critics caution against lesson observations

16 School principles

Federal government to take a back seat to states?

20 Cohesive content Audited 15,635 as at Sept 2012

10

Congratulations to the winner of the Education Review’s Reader Survey iPad mini:

John Heffernan from Tasmania

community focus 34 Sustainable education

One Australian couple is taking on a Cambodian challenge

workforce 36 Students step up

SA school joins leadership program

37 Tips for teachers

How to ace the HSC

Calls to embrace national curriculum

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March 2013 | 3

news

Public support for Gonski

‘overwhelming’

BY ANTONIA MAIOLO

T

A clear majority in those three states said he public’s attitude to the funding Our politicians have their opinion of the premier would worsen of Australian schools shows a historic opportunity if he did not strike a deal with the prime overwhelming support for the minister on Gonski.

Gonski review, and opposition to further to reach an agreement Smaller class sizes and more training education cuts proposed by state that will make a real and support for teachers are the issues governments, a new national poll has voters most want to see additional funding revealed. difference to the level committed to.

Nine out of ten Australians believe it is of resources in schools The AEU continues the ‘Give a Gonski’ important for the Federal government to and the education of our campaign with the launch of a new national boost investment in education, according television advertisement which highlights to the survey of 2,200 people by Auspoll, children. a student receiving one-on-one help from which was commissioned by the Australia a teacher.

Education Union (AEU).

AEU federal president Angelo Gavrielatos said the polling shows Eighty-nine per cent of people support an agreement on Gonski the strong level of public support for action on school funding. between the Commonwealth and state and territory governments, “Our politicians have a historic opportunity to reach an with 86 per cent saying additional funding for the Gonski review is agreement that will make a real difference to the level of resources “urgently required”. in schools and the education of our children,” Gavrielatos said.

The survey found that people in New South Wales, Queensland Gavrielatos said people want to see a real investment in and Victoria are overwhelmingly opposed to the cuts in public education and public schools from the Federal government education being imposed by their respective state premier. and the states, “and a level playing field for kids which we don’t have now”.

He said the new federal government figures shows schools would lose up to $5.4 billion in funding over the next five years if the Commonwealth and states and territories can’t come to an agreement.

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Gillard has said she wants agreement on the funding model before the Council of Australian Governments’ meeting which is due to take place in April.

Gavrielatos is urging premiers, chief ministers and the prime minister to act now. The AEU has been arguing the case for the SYDNEY CANBERRA funding boost since the review’s release in February last year.

“It is now almost 12 months since the release of the Gonski Review which said the current funding arrangements were failing our children and there was an urgent need to invest substantially more in education and public schools,” Gavrielatos said.

“Clearly, people are sick of the political infighting and buckpassing on education.

BRISBANE MELBOURNE “The weeks ahead are a critical test of the commitment of all our political leaders to the education of children and the future of the nation,” he said. n

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news

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March 2013 | 5

news

Capital canteens starved of

By Antonia Maiolo

T

recommendations from the ACT Council he ACT opposition has called on of Parents and Citizens Association and the government to bring forward their stance that outsourcing canteens the $1 million it promised to invest to commercial operations is the least in school canteens, as it has emerged preferred option because of social and Canberra’s tuck shops are struggling to nutritional impact. He said outsourcing survive. would lead to higher costs.

In recent years, 16 school-run canteens ACT School Canteen Association in Canberra have closed, while 19 president Debbie Tobin said a fall in have now been outsourced to private companies. There are 51 still operating, but the number of volunteers and financial pressures has left many canteens under some are open only one day a week. pressure.

Liberal education spokesman Steve “There are many canteens struggling Doszpot said the ACT education minister’s financially as well as with the lack of inaction played a huge role in canteen volunteers, not just to assist in canteens, closures. but also to be part of the P&C to run “If the government was so serious canteens,” Tobin said. about finding a solution to this problem, Now after 25 years, the body that which has been raised numerous times represents school canteens across the with them, then they should advance their state is being forced to close next month commitment of $1 million,” Doszpot said. because of a lack of volunteers.

He said the government’s overbearing As an independent body, the ACT School regulation, legislation and policies has Canteen Association provides advice on also played a part in the demise of many F US0 4 5 5 _ ER 1 2 0 1 3 - 0 1the - running 3 1 T 1 of 4 canteens, : 3 9 : 4 along 8 + 1with 1 : menu 0 0 canteens. planning, wages and other issues.

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news

funding, says opposition Tobin pointed to the many challenges faced by canteens: cost of labour (in light of the lack of volunteer support), irregular access to infrastructure, lack of support from some principals, lack of management in paying accounts and wages, and poor physical conditions of canteens.

She said it was likely that more canteens may need to close or outsource to private food companies.

A spokesman for ACT Education Minister Joy Burch said the disbanding of the canteen association was a matter for the organisation, and one which had not been communicated to the minister prior to it being released to the media.

The minister maintains that the government is still committed to funneling $1 million into school canteens over the next four years, and that funding will

commence in 2013-14.

To address the issue of cost, the Labor government will fund the introduction of an online order system, including EFTPOS terminals, reducing cash handling and relieving pressure on parents who volunteer as canteen operators.

The government has also committed to supporting upgrades in older school canteens.

Last year the government convened a taskforce to look at ways to improve the ongoing viability of school canteens and proposed outsourcing to commercial operations as one of several options.

“For some schools, the outsourcing of their canteen may be the best option, and indeed, several canteens in the ACT operate successfully with commercial operators,” a spokesman for the minister said.

Doszpot said he is “deeply disappointed” that despite the extensive recommendations made by the ACT Council of Parents and Citizens Association, and a ministerial taskforce pending, the problem remains unresolved. n

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March 2013 | 7

news

Vic parents to face fines for absent children

By Aileen Macalintal

V

ictorian parents whose children miss school without a legitimate excuse may face a $70 fine in the wake of the state’s government’s plan to crack down on absentee students next year.

Education Minister Martin Dixon said children need to be at school, as attendance is a key factor in helping students reach their potential.

“This new bill is another step towards making sure students are at school – giving them every opportunity to succeed.”

Instead of having to be pursued through the courts, parents who fail to send their children to school regularly “without good reason” will receive an infringement notice, Dixon said.

Legitimate reasons include illness, a limited amount of family travel or cultural celebrations, but not multiple holidays or a child’s rest.

The minister said this measure is one of a number of initiatives, including intervention and preventative

approaches, to curb absenteeism.

He said the $70 fine would only be considered as a last resort. “Let me be clear – these fines are about providing additional incentive to make sure parents are sending their kids to school.”

Guidelines will specify when fines are appropriate.

“School attendance officers will have the final say in issuing fines, and only after every other avenue has been exhausted,” Dixon said.

Asked whether $70 is reasonable enough for a fine, a spokesperson for Minister Dixon said, “The fines were set at a high enough rate to send a clear message that would change the behaviour of those parents who are not doing the right thing, and it is the attitude and behaviour we want to change.”

Parents Victoria executive officer Gail McHardy said making parents pay an infringement notice is pointless and unhelpful.

McHardy raised concerns over

who decides or who defines what is reasonable, saying parents whose children have valid reasons to be absent may be adversely affected.

She also questioned the details of the proposed law and its implications for children who are not in the care of their parents.

“The government, from what I understand, is getting a message to the community. Laziness or lack of communication is not going to be tolerated anymore, that people have to be diligent in communicating with the school why their children are not attending,” she said, “but we need to be mindful of the practicalities”.

McHardy said: “This came out of a whole change of legislative powers, giving principals the power to do this infringement.”

She stressed that Parents Victoria will “advocate strongly to build relationships between schools and families, not diminish them.” n

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news

enrolment figures

By Antonia Maiolo

N

on-government schools in Australia are continuing to grow, figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show.

While government schools remained the largest provider of school education, non-government schools had the largest proportional increase of 1.8 per cent which follows a similar rise over the past 10 years.

The steady rise of enrolments at independent schools in NSW can be attributed to a growth in low-fee schools in developing areas of the state, says the Association of Independent Schools, NSW. Between 2011 and 2012, the number of students attending Catholic schools rose by 1.7 per cent and by 1.2 per cent for those attending government schools, across the country.

In NSW, the number of students enrolled in private secondary schools was 196,243 in 2012, up from 192,613 in 2011, an increase of roughly 2 per cent.

Jane Simmons, executive director of the NSW Department of Education and Communities, said the variations in enrolment figures are not large and do not appear to be indicative of any particular trend.

“Parents make decisions about their children’s education based on a range of factors and issues,” Simmons said.

Dr Geoff Newcombe, executive director of the Association of Independent Schools NSW, said enrolment growth was most pronounced in low-fee paying schools in western and south-western Sydney.

“For many years now there has been

www.educationreview.com.au 2368 Education Review Magazine QP_OL.indd 1

In 2011, the ABS reported that for more than a decade, the number of students enrolling in private schools has outstripped the number of students enrolling in public schools.

up

strong growth in Islamic schools and low-fee Anglican and Catholic schools,” Newcombe said.

In 2011, the ABS reported that for more than a decade, the number of students enrolling in private schools has outstripped the number of students enrolling in public schools.

Newcombe said this long-term trend in enrolments, which has been evident for over 25 years, can be attributed to parents exercising their right of choice.

He said that as education consumers, parents are now better informed of their options, and there is an increasing tendency to look for a school that best suits each child’s individual needs.

“The quality of education in independent schools is generally of high quality, along with the extracurricular offerings of many schools,” Newcombe said.

“In addition, parents want the school to reflect their family’s values, including their religious faith.”

During the Global Financial Crisis of 2009, there was a slight dip in the rate of increase of enrolments from about 2 per cent to 1.4 per cent.

Newcombe said the slower rate of enrolment during the GFC was a result of families delaying their decision to send their child to an independent school because of financial and employment uncertainty.

He said that in some cases parents enrolled children in lower-fee independent schools “as they remained committed to an independent education for their child”. n

March 2013 | 9

4/02/13 4:39 PM

news

Angelo Gavrielatos (above left) calls on Premier O’Farrell to get behind Gonski funding

Minister Peter Garrett outlines the need for educational reforms

We are willing to make sure that no school will lose a single dollar per student as a consequence of these reforms.

Garrett joins push for Gonski changes The Federal government is increasing the pressure on state and territory governments to move on school funding.

F

ederal Education minister Peter Garrett joined a protest at the Sydney office of NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell to demand the state government adopt the Gonski recommendations.

Together with the Australian Education Union (AEU), teachers, principals and parents, Garrett called for the state to commit to fund education reforms.

Garrett came to the protest to speak about the Federal government’s position on the reforms and the importance of a deal with state and territory governments on the Gonski report.

During the press conference at the AEU protest in Sydney, Garrett said students across Australia will be worse off by $5.4 billion if the government failed to negotiate a new National Plan for School Improvement. NSW schools, for instance, will lose about $500,000 each, or an average of $1500 per student in the state.

10 | March 2013

He said the Federal government is committed to taking up many of the Gonski recommendations, “to deliver what will be the most important education reform that we will see in decades”.

“We are willing to make sure that no school will lose a single dollar per student as a consequence of these reforms.

“We are willing and ready to start getting a National Plan for School Improvement that would mean that every student in every school, regardless of where they are living, regardless of how much money their mum and dad earn, gets the best possible education,” Garrett said at the press conference.

Part of his plan of reinforcing the education reforms is talking with his state counterparts and representatives across the schools, government and nongovernment sectors.

AEU president Angelo Gavrielatos said the “I Give a Gonski” campaign

outside the Premier’s office was part of an ongoing program to urge all governments to carry out the Gonski review recommendations.

"The message to Mr O'Farrell is clear: it is time to invest in education and public schools, and not continue making cuts that hurt students and make it harder for every child to get a high quality education,” Gavrielatos said.

The AEU is calling on the premier to commit and strike a deal with the Federal government in delivering the investment for schools.

The Gonski report examined how the current school funding system operates.

It said the system needed updating and there was an urgent need for more investment, particularly in public schools.

The report noted the large gap in educational standards between students at better off schools, and those with large numbers of disadvantaged students.

Gavrielatos said state and territory governments need to conclude negotiations with the Federal government

by April to ensure new arrangements are in place by the start of next year. n

news

www.educationreview.com.au

March 2013 | 11

news

Test for swimming carnivals eased

A

CT students who compete in swimming carnivals no longer have to take a proficiency test.

In the newly-launched Swimming Pool and Water Park Based Aquatic Activities policy, the proficiency test has been lifted for carnivals, which are considered “structured activities,” but for unstructured aquatic activities the test must still be conducted.

Unstructured activities include events such as free swimming and water play.

“Principals must ensure swimmers who have not passed the Royal Life Saving Society Survival Challenge Proficiency Test do not participate in unstructured activities in water depths at or above the student’s waist,” the policy reads.

Originally, all students were required

to complete the proficiency test for all swimming carnival activities.

ACT Minister for Education and Training Joy Burch said the revised policy creates a balance between fun and safety. The changes to the rules allow these events to take place in a relaxed environment, while also making sure that all reasonable steps have been taken to ensure student safety.

“Going to the pool and swimming with your friends is one of the great things about growing up in Canberra, and we want to help schools provide opportunities for students to take part in those activities,” she said.

Burch asked her directorate to revisit the policy and work with stakeholders, including the Royal Life Saving Society ACT, to address concerns about

ambiguity in the rules for school swimming carnivals.

“I believe this is a well-rounded policy that safely enables maximum student participation in aquatic activities, and gives schools the tools they need to organise a variety of aquatic events that can include structured or unstructured activities.”

The proficiency test includes tasks such as swimming continuously for 25 metres and floating or treading water for a minute in deep water. The test must be completed on or before the day at the venue of the event.

In 2009, the directorate adopted the proficiency test to support schools in determining the swimming ability of children.n

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news

WA push to raise non-gov’t loans to

By Aileen Macalintal

T

$50m

he head of Catholic Education in Western Australia is backing a call for non-government schools to receive an increase in the annual loan pool to $50 million.

Dr Tim McDonald, director of the Catholic Education Office, said that of the proposed figure, $30 million should be available to the Catholic system.

Education Minister Peter Collier announced in early February the allocation of $25 million annual loan for nongovernment schools.

From this amount, eight Catholic schools would get $15 million and nine independent schools would receive $10 million in lowinterest capital loans for building projects.

“Western Australia is the only state or territory in Australia to offer a loan scheme of this nature and this state’s scheme has

always been considered to be generous,” Collier said.

“Since introducing the Low Interest Loan Scheme, around $610 million of state government funding has been invested in more than 280 private schools.”

McDonald said the loans are not enough: building a primary school costs about $20 million, while a secondary school costs around $60 million.

“This is significant when viewed in the context of the cost of establishing a new school, which has more than tripled since 1995. In 2013, the full allocation of $15 million to the Catholic system does not even cover the establishment of one primary school,” McDonald said.

“The quantum of low interest loans available to the non-government sector has not increased since 1995. The rate of

interest for these loans has not changed despite the unprecedented low interest rate environment currently being experienced.”

Perth’s booming population and rapidly changing demand for a variety of educational offerings also spell the need for an increase in loans.

Perth has had rapid population growth over the past decade. According to the 2011 ABS census, the Western Australian city has been the fastest growing capital of the past 10 years. It has grown by 25 per cent, or 346,000 people since 2001.

During this period, Catholic education has experienced strong demand as enrolments grew by 20 per cent from 59,974 in 2001 to 71,774 in 2011.

Unfortunately, not all demand was able to be met, said McDonald. n

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March 2013 | 13

industry & policy

Improve lessons, don’t punish teachers T The Federal government’s performance framework is a chance for schools to focus on the positives and improve pedagogy. By Gerard Alford

14 | March 2013

he recommendation by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership to make lesson observations part of the teacher evaluation process should focus on promoting better teaching and learning rather than appraising teachers, urges an education publisher.

ITC Publications co-director Gerard Alford said teachers and school leaders required highlevel training in lesson observations to support AITSL’s new national education framework being implemented in schools across the country.

The federal government’s Australian Teacher Performance and Development Framework outlines a nationally consistent approach to teacher performance and development, including the idea of classroom visits to observe teachers in action resulting in appraisals on their performance.

“Using lesson observations for teacher evaluations, per se, focuses on the wrong issue,” Alford said. “Rather, lesson observations should be the catalyst for schools to examine their current pedagogical goals with the aim of using lesson observations to meet these goals.”

Alford said it was pleasing that state ministers had agreed that visiting classrooms and providing

feedback to teachers on their teaching approach was vital for professional development.

“The classroom is a very closed and private space by its architectural nature so it’s important that we open our classrooms and invite other teachers and educators to observe teaching in action.

“This is how best to share effective and innovative ideas, strategies and approaches to pedagogical teaching. There are brilliant teachers at every school so let’s provide opportunities for their colleagues to see them in action,” Alford said.

However, he cautioned that the majority of teachers and school leaders felt awkward about entering their colleagues’ classrooms.

He explained that for lesson observations to be successful, a clear set of mutually agreed guidelines must be observed from the outset.

Alford said his organisation had delivered workshops on classroom walk-throughs and lesson observations to more than 300 school leaders over a number of weeks late last year. He said it was obvious they appreciated a clear set of guidelines to assist them to feel more at ease with entering classrooms.

“Our experience tells us that school leaders

industry & policy Applying the G.R.O.W.T.H. approach.

Note that both lesson observers and teachers whose lessons are being observed need to feel totally safe and collegial in this situation. If this is done well, there will be all-round growth in the school.

2013

require training to confidently perform observations of their colleagues. For the new framework to be successful, teachers and school leaders must gain the skills to gather quantitative feedback and provide this data to the relevant teacher with the aim of improving their pedagogy.”

He said there were numerous teaching and learning frameworks to assist schools, including the Quality Teaching Framework (QTF) and the Explicit Instruction and Principles of Learning and Teaching (PoLT).

“Once schools decide on a teaching and learning framework, the role of lesson observations becomes clear: how can we assist teachers to meet the standards of this framework? If, for example, one of the agreed set of standards in a lesson observation is ‘using strategies to foster imagination and creativity’, then what feedback can be provided to a teacher to improve this? Is any further professional development required in this area?

Professional development should be the focus – not score card ratings,” he said.

G. Gather the data. Clearly state what you plan to observe, for example: What data will you be collecting? Discuss this with the teacher beforehand and reach agreement.

Recognise the position and status of the teacher.

R. Related to School-wide Pedagogical Framework and what the school is striving towards in order to make a significant difference to student outcome and is supported by educational research, e.g. higher-order thinking, or co-operative learning.

O. Observe the lesson and the learner (4-6 learners) and not the teacher. What are the students doing and saying (writing) and discussing. There should be no hidden agendas. The teachers need assurance that it is about the students and not about them.

W. Warmth of discussion. Immediately after the lesson, discuss the data you collected with the teacher. Note: Do not attempt to evaluate the lesson. Discuss what really helped the learners.

T. Target future growth. Both parties reflect on the lesson within 48 hours and both sides suggest some professional development ideas as a result of the lesson observations.

Teachers have the autonomy to suggest their own professional development program.

H. Honour the experts and giants of teaching in the school. Use the Don Bradman’s and Evonne Cawley’s along with school leaders. Focus on encouraging trust in this process. Therefore, the lesson observers should be people who are respected and trusted by their colleagues.

Alford noted the new framework’s proposal to evaluate and appraise teachers on their classroom teaching performance was likely to breed fear rather than boost professional development.

“It is important that teacher performance is not rated with a score card system as the federal government’s framework suggests,” Alford said. “Lesson observations are most powerful when the learning – rather than the teaching – is observed.

“True lesson observations should involve collecting data and then providing this feedback to share amongst teachers with the goal of improving pedagogy in the classroom; it shouldn’t be about evaluating and assessing performance to catch teachers out. As soon as you evaluate teachers’ performance, you breed mistrust and fear, rather than a collaborative and positive environment for professional development.”

Alford noted ITC’s Lesson Observation

training encouraged the use of the G.R.O.W.T.H. acronym in a supportive and non-judgmental environment.

G: Gather the data R: Relate it to the school-wide pedagogical framework O: Observe W: Warmth of discussion T: Target future growth H: Honour the experts of teaching in the school.

“This acronym says it all – true teacher observation is about growth rather than judgement and threats,” Alford said. n Relevant resources: www.aitsl.edu.au/ and www.aitsl.edu.au/verve/_resources/ Australian_Teacher_Performance_and_ Development_Framework.pdf Gerard Alford is an economist and educator of 20 years. He is a director of ITC Publications, which develops a range of resources and professional development programs to support teachers and schools.

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March 2013 | 15

industry & policy

Gloves off in federal v state

contest

The main criticisms of the Australian government controlling education is that its policies cause duplication of bureaucracy and added costs. Cathy Wever reports

W

hen the six Australian colonies became a federation in 1901 and the Commonwealth government was formed, the states retained responsibility for, among other things, education.

While this arrangement was adhered to for much of the 20th century, recent decades have seen the federal government assume an ever increasing role in determining education policy.

The formation of education policies, directives and funding arrangements has increasingly become the focus of our federal politicians.

The initiatives have included: NAPLAN, the My School website, the national curriculum, national professional standards for teachers, Building the Education

16 | March 2013

Revolution, teacher performance bonuses, the SES funding model, national professional development standards and the creation of the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) and the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL).

Indeed, education has become a significant political issue – reflecting its importance for our nation as we look to remain prosperous in the 21st century.

Yet questions are being asked about whether or not this federal engagement is generating dividends. With NAPLAN results barely moving since the tests were introduced, and students’ performance in international assessments nose-diving, are the efforts of the federal government – and their expenditure of billions of dollars – actually producing any significant outcomes?

Should the Feds back off?

The school education program director at the Grattan Institute, Ben Jensen, says when it comes to federal involvement in education, the key question is “does it help?” He says there is no evidence to suggest that it does and that the federal government should stop interfering and leave education to the states.

“I’m not suggesting that the states are doing a good job. But the

federal government intervening actually makes it harder and there’s no evidence to say that it’s working,” he says.

“A huge problem we have at the moment is that policy design is completely separate from policy implementation, because the government comes in over the top with policies, and then says to the states: now you implement it. The federal government doesn’t run schools, and for them to come in and cut across in a haphazard manner doesn’t achieve a measurable gain.”

Jensen says the futility of the current approach is illustrated by the recent revelation that the $16 million federal Teach Next program, designed to recruit mid-career professionals into teaching, had only produced 14 participants.

“This is an example of our trend towards huge increases in federal education funding that produce little or no

industry & policy improvement in student learning.”

Some of the states are unimpressed with the present situation. “Across many areas of the education system, this Commonwealth government simply tries to railroad the states by threatening to withhold funding, while failing to provide adequate details as to how Canberra will implement a system whereby it controls the way our children are successfully educated,” says Western Australia’s Education Minister Peter Collier.

“The Commonwealth needs to understand that educating children in Australia is not a one-size-fits-all proposition, and that the role of the states and territories as the primary developers and implementers of education systems is absolutely imperative.”

Federal Education Minister Peter Garrett argues that the government’s job is to “drive school improvement for the whole of Australia” and that its involvement in education policy is producing “good overall progress in national literacy and numeracy results” including “statistically significant improvements in reading since 2008 for year 3 and year 5 students”.

“In addition, schools participating in the Smarter Schools National Partnership for

www.educationreview.com.au

Literacy and Numeracy have shown greater improvement in the number of students performing above the national minimum standard in NAPLAN tests than at other schools,” he said.

“The Catholic Education Office and public school sectors also have the benefit of a centralised co-ordination point for submitting funding reporting, lessening the burden on individual schools and principals,” Garrett said.

Compliance headaches Yet reporting across two levels of government still remains a challenge for many schools and systems.

Sydney’s Catholic Education Office executive, Dan White, says more of a “one-stop-shop” is needed for reporting, whether financial or educational data, that is agreed upon at all levels of governance.

“We provide a great deal of information to DEEWR [Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations] for My School. Now, the newly established Australian Charities and not-for-profits Commission is expecting more data over the next three years … it’s not sustainable as the government is already getting the data it needs.

“Overlapping federal-state requirements for financial reporting, school management, curriculum requirements and teacher registration can cause sleepless nights,” says Michelle Green, chief executive, Independent Schools Victoria, who notes the need of Victorian teachers to adhere to the very similar requirements of both the Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT) and AITSL. “There’s the requirements of ACARA … which mean completing My School templates and holding NAPLAN exams. But there is also the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment

Authority that conducts VCE assessments, exams and state-wide testing.

“Schools are often required to report to DEEWR and to the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, sometimes with very similar data.

“Some independent schools are so concerned about reporting obligations that they are recruiting a compliance officer to ensure that they do not miss deadlines.

This can be a significant financial burden, particularly for smaller schools,” says Green.

President of the Australian Secondary Principals Association (ASPA), Sheree Vertigan, says compliance will not make a difference to student outcomes, neither will weighty improvement plans that are constantly changing in response to policy cycles.

She says that while schools don’t tend to see themselves as having “two bosses”, state implementation of federal policies does become frustrating when federal funds dry up, citing the National Computers in Schools program as an example.

“ASPA members welcomed the federal government injection of badly needed IT resources and infrastructure into schools.

Unfortunately this policy, like so many other federal initiatives, was a one-off project.

The impact was very positive, but state governments and individual schools lack the capacity to sustain the program into the future.”

Jensen says countries that have made significant gains in education have adopted long-term improvement plans that are not impacted by political cycles and evaporating funds. Such a scenario is difficult to envisage in Australia, where education has become a political football.

March 2013 | 17

industry & policy Clarity needed on Gonski In the lead-up to September’s Federal election, a huge issue for all school sectors remains the federal government’s response to the Gonski review of school funding.

Vertigan says ASPA members’ attention is focused on whether any national school improvement plan will provide a framework and a funding model that guarantees funds beyond political cycles.

“ASPA members would stress that they can achieve more when funds go directly to the school gate, and even more important is adequate long-term funding,” she says.

White says more equitable resource distribution is the way for the Federal government to make the most significant long-term contribution to education.

“Governments have to recognise that efficient systems deliver equity far better than trying to fund individual students or schools.

We are concerned that any new model should fund the system and not get locked in on individual students,” he says.

Garrett said the government was waiting for “some final data on student characteristics and school finances” before moving into negotiations.

“It's still our intention to seek final agreement at COAG in April.

It's a tight timeframe but we believe we can get there. But of course, we need state governments to sign up to our reforms and agree to pay their fair share of the extra funding our schools need.”

Whichever way the Federal government moves on Gonski, it may still face significant challenges from the states.

“The way the Commonwealth has treated the states and territories in relation to Gonski has been poor,” says WA’s Peter Collier, “and until it comes forward with a funding proposal, it is unlikely that there will be agreement to proceed any further and Western Australia remains firm on our stand that we will not agree to any model that sees funding to our schools reduced.”

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Federal positives Beyond the issue of funding, there is a lot of support for the federal initiatives that have created more consistency across the national education landscape.

Australian College of Educators state president, Annette Rome, says many policies and reforms have created a valuable “common language” for educators in terms of both curricula and teacher performance.

“Common descriptors via National Professional Standards and the Australian Teacher Performance and Development Framework are great vehicles to get systems thinking more cogently about moving forward. They are terrific for giving direction to staff professional development, management and further development of professionalism,” says Rome.

“The power of common curriculum is demonstrated by the International Baccalaureate which is an example of a curriculum and assessment framework that all IB teachers around the world recognise, understand and apply appropriately, free of parochial agendas”.

President of the Australian Primary Principals’ Association (APPA), Norm Hart, agrees that it makes sense to have a national set of education policies.

“We have around 10,000 schools in Australia – around the same number as the state of California. Having eight jurisdictions and 24 systems (public, Catholic and independent) across which to implement policies impacts poorly at a school level.”

Hart says that for primary schools, the main issue is the piecemeal nature of programs.

“Money is pumped into particular programs, but we haven’t had any major reform. Primary schools have no middle management, no access to administrative support, no pedagogical curriculum leadership and no sustained intervention for students with a learning disability.”

He says while education remains high on the political agenda, in the lead up to this year’s federal election there is an opportunity for educators to advocate strongly and maximise the commitment of both parties to schools.

Wasting resources Still, having more than one level of government involved in education continues to create the potential for resource wastage.

Education commentator and Australian Council of Educational Research council member, Adam Smith, says a major issue is the cost involved in managing the bureaucratic structures at each level of government, and the wastage associated with duplication.

“As well as the federal and state governments, there are regional education department offices in Victoria for example. There’s a lot of inconsistency and duplication across these structures.”

Smith cites the federal government Empowering Local Schools program.

“How many millions of dollars are being invested through that program for schools to be told they are empowered? In NSW the Local Schools. Local Decisions program is almost exactly the same, so there’s duplication. The state and federal governments are both spending mega dollars to empower principals, but at the end of the day principals are in there getting on with the job anyway.”

The future Ben Jensen says it’s worth retaining a national education architecture including a national curriculum and framework from which the states can operate. Yet beyond this, he thinks the federal government should take a back seat.

“It would take a lot of political courage for the federal government to come out and say ‘education is a state issue, let’s leave it to them.’ Yet this is the right thing to do and it would save lots of money that could be spent on actually improving kids’ learning.” n

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March 2013 | 19

industry & policy

We need to embrace the national curriculum and innovative teaching methods before our quickly developing neighbours race past us, writes Martin Westwell

20 | March 2013

If we sit still we will rust

W

ith 16 million children in Bangladeshi primary schools and almost 7 million in secondary school, the education system in one of the world’s poorer countries has some significant challenges ahead.

For example, as the government aspires to equip every school with a computer, it can be difficult when roads do not go to every site and some of them do not have electricity, let alone internet connectivity.

Having said that, the rate of educational improvement and innovation in Bangladesh and across the Asian-Pacific region is astounding.

Of those 23 million school students, half are now girls, a big change to bring about from a 1980s baseline at which only a third of secondary enrolments were female, of which only 5 per cent would complete their schooling.

It is the magnitude, speed and the quality of this change that is particularly impressive across the region. The Asia-Pacific educational juggernaut has built momentum and looms large in Australia’s rearview mirror.

UNESCO in Bangkok is playing a leading role in this emerging agenda, bringing together policymakers, practitioners, academics and industry thought-leaders to help governments in the region build momentum with greater strategic-intent.

A recent forum drew upon experts from the region plus others such as Harvard University’s dean of education, the head of the OECD’s Centre for

Educational Research and Innovation, and the overall head of the US National Science of Learning Centres.

Australian representation came from Flinders University and Barry McGaw (chair of ACARA) who shared the vision behind the Australian Curriculum.

The contrast between Australia and our regional neighbours was striking in terms of the vision for future education. Our world-class public education systems have served Australians well and are of such high quality that Australian education, and those individuals who have benefitted from it, are in demand internationally. Twentieth century education required high quality instruction and we were good at it. Only a few of our regional neighbours could make similar claims. But now what?

Looking to the future Turning towards the future, it will be disastrous if we are complacent about our educational excellence. In the Asia-Pacific region direct-instruction will remain part of the future but the centrality of learning, and the skills and understandings that can be learned but not explicitly-instructed, are driving the educational juggernaut.

Meanwhile, in some schools, the Australian Curriculum is in danger of being implemented in such a way as to keep a strong foot on the brakes.

If the curriculum is mainly seen as the same old content to be told to students, with some bells and whistles added, then we will be at a standstill in the

industry & policy emergency lane. Some of the descriptions of Successful Learners in the 2008 Melbourne Declaration hinted at what it is to be an effective learner beyond being the recipient of instruction but, as a nation, we have not really moved towards these goals very far or very quickly.

Of course, effective learners do not just automatically emerge from school, and neither are they developed by exclusively going through the motions of so-called teaching cycles of tell-practice-test.

The agenda of intentional, purposeful and strategic development of effective learners is being acted upon in the AsiaPacific region.

Our regional neighbours face challenges, but they are pushing forward, knowing that support systems and higher levels of professionalisation of educators will need to be supported by strong and effective educational institutions.

The clear intent of these institutions will need to be to develop individuals and populations of effective learners, enabling (young) people with knowledge, and the ability to use and build upon their knowledge to make the most of the opportunities made available to them as individuals, as a society and as a workforce.

www.educationreview.com.au

New methods “Knowing stuff and knowing how to do things is no longer sufficient” may seem like a familiar refrain. The industrial era was centred upon curriculum content, routine skills, linear concepts of learning and structures that selected and funnelled young people. The post-industrial/ knowledge era demands learning skills, non-routine approaches, non-linearity, intentional application of knowledge and know-how, and a shift in emphasis to success for all.

One of the ways in which the Australian Curriculum is world-leading lies in the way it has combined our values and the research evidence-base to reveal the essence of each learning area, or what it is to be an effective learner in each subject. The purpose of learning mathematics is revealed in the “Proficiencies”, a learner in history develops the “History Concepts”, and the meaning of science grows out of the “Science as a Human Endeavour” strand.

The Productive and Receptive focal points of English are harder to find in the curriculum documentation but are perhaps best captured in the Achievement Standards. The shortcomings of the curriculum (of which there are many, such as the fragmentation into individual year

levels) are small in comparison to the future-oriented strategic intent it offers to Australian educators.

Elsewhere, the transformation of the rhetoric into purposeful and effective action is rare. Even the much-vaunted PISA results from Finland come at a cost; for example, while they have the highest science scores, the level of interest of their young people in science is the lowest.

As long as no one else in the world authentically achieves the shift to education for a non-routine and non-linear world, it will not matter too much that we are parked in the emergency lane, discussing whether or not improvement comes from more of the once-excellent same or driving ahead in the direction set out by the strategic intent of the Australian Curriculum.

We can rev the engine, make a lot of noise and use up much energy without actually moving anywhere. It will really start to matter when we hear the rumble of our regional neighbours’ juggernaut approaching quickly with momentum that carries them straight past us. n Professor Martin Westwell is director of the Flinders Centre for Science Education in the 21st Century at Flinders University.

March 2013 | 21

in the classroom

The

high price of a low

ATAR While entry scores for education courses have dipped at some universities, academics are fighting back against claims that teacher training is diminishing.

By Aileen Macalintal

A

s tertiary institutions reduce their ATAR minimum cut-offs for education courses, questions are being asked about the quality of teachers this creates for the future.

At the University of Sydney, ATAR cut-off scores for Bachelor of Education (Primary Education) were raised from 87.25 (2011) to 90 (2012), but for the rest of the university’s education courses, the cut-off was lowered.

With 2011 and 2012 figures compared, Early Childhood Education slid from 80.50 down to 78.40; Secondary Education (Humanities and Social Sciences) from 84.15 down to 80.30; and Secondary Education (Maths) from 87.10 to 82.45.

At Victoria University, the cut-off for a Bachelor of Education degree was 51.

At the University of Ballarat, for Education (P-6 or P-10) in 2009 the cut-off was 54.05. This increased the following year to 56.90, but slid to 50.15 22 | March 2013

in the classroom

Perspectives on ATAR

The University of Notre Dame Australia seeks to promote the prestige of the teaching profession “rather than using the ATAR as the sole criterion”.

In response to Piccoli’s paper, “Great Teaching, Inspired Learning,” Notre Dame, Sydney said that the ATAR is a limited measure of students’ capacity for higher education studies, even if it is a good predictor of success.

Notre Dame said that the performance of education students whose ATAR scores range from the 70s to 90s show little variation.

“The other complicating factor around ATAR scores is that the consistent highlighting of cut-offs fails to take account and therefore does injustice to the higher and mean scores involved.

The evidence is that teacher education in fact attracts an impressive number of high performing ATAR candidates,” said Notre Dame.

For the NSW Council of Deans of Education over-emphasis on ATAR cut-offs can be “a pernicious and distracting exercise,” according to their response to the discussion paper.

“ATARs are not the best predictors of success in teacher education programs and do not reflect the diversity of teacher graduates that are needed by society, hence we need flexible pathways for entry, especially for underrepresented groups,” they said.

However, the council acknowledged the perception that high cut-off scores signify prestige.

“Courses requiring high ATARs for entry tend to have greater standing and respect within the community, hence ways do need to be considered to ensure entrants to the teaching profession gain greater standing and respect,” they said.

The English/Literacy team at the NSW Curriculum and Learning Innovation Centre laments that low ATAR cut-off diminishes the appeal of education courses.

“While particular strategies will be needed to attract applicants for mathematics, science and languages education training, we do not believe that maintaining the current low ATAR requirements for teacher education courses helps to make teaching in these areas more attractive – indeed quite the reverse,” the centre said.

“It is regrettable that in 2012, education was the least popular course for students with ATAR scores of 90 or above. In fact, more than 20 per cent of undergraduate entrants had ATAR scores below 60. Some institutions admit a large proportion of their cohorts with ATAR scores lower than 60 and some as low as 40.”

It compared this situation with that of Finland, where teachers are required to have a master’s degree in teaching and where many applicants compete for the small number of places in teaching programs.

The centre also pointed to Singapore, where “the number of students admitted to teaching is capped, creating vigorous competition for those places”.

“We believe that establishing minimum ATAR requirements for entry to teacher education courses and further enhancing the quality of those courses will improve the quality of graduates and curb the oversupply in many areas.”

Supply and demand

So what are the reasons for the reduction in entrance scores for teaching degrees? www.educationreview.com.au

Professor Pat Drake, dean of Education at Victoria University, said government reforms were pushing for an increase in bachelor degree holders, and lower ATARs could help achieve this goal.

“Commonwealth reforms of 2012 aimed to increase the proportion of people who hold a bachelor-level qualification to 40 per cent by 2025, so students with lower ATAR will now be admitted into universities,” she said.

The demand driven system, Drake said, gave a more diverse range of students greater access to university.

The head of the school of education at Deakin University, Professor Christine Ure, says several factors account for the drop of ATAR cut-offs in education courses.

“ATARs reflect the complex interplay of supply of places, demand from applicants, relative competition from other courses, and the balance of applicant types,” she said.

Professor John Loughran of Monash University sees ATAR as a measure of demand. “The greater the demand, the higher the ATAR,” he said.

“It is important to remember that if places in education were as limited as they are in some other courses and not as readily available as they are across all universities, then ATARs would be much higher because it is a measure of demand,” he said.

At Monash, education programs have relatively higher ATAR requirements than those of other universities. Applicants for primary education and secondary education double degrees all had ATARs above 80 and the majority of admitted school leavers have an ATAR above 85, he said. At Berwick, they increased the ATAR for Bachelor in Education P-10 by 2.35 points to 73.05.

At the Clayton campus all school leaver applicants needed an ATAR G Uof3 80 4 4or9more, 8 _ EatRPeninsula . p d f itPwas a g75 e or1more 1 /with 0 3a /bunching 1 3 , 2 : 2 7 : around the high 70’s to 80’s. At Berwick, the university increased the ATAR for the B Ed (P-10) course by 2.35 points to 73.05.

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(2011) then to 47.20 (2012), and finally to 43.75 this year.

“In NSW in 2012, more than 20 per cent of entrants for undergraduate teacher education courses had ATAR scores below 60 and education was the least popular course for students with scores of 90 or above,” said a discussion paper released by NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli.

The paper said that ATAR scores vary in different teacher education institutions. Some have high cut-offs, while some have scores lower than 60, even as low as 40.

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March 2013 | 23

in the classroom

ATAR is one measure, but it is not the only measure of ability.

While explaining ATAR as a measure of demand, Loughran gives another reason for the rise and fall of ATAR cut-off.

“In my time in education, I have seen the ATARs move in direct response to the public perception of teaching. When teaching is criticised and poorly treated, the ATAR drops as less school leavers see it as a good career move,” he said.

Loughran says that talks about teaching have been critical of the profession in the past 12 years, thus students opt not to pursue it as a career. Consequently, universities lower the ATARs to pull up the demand again.

“Unfortunately, for some universities, they are so heavily dependent on education faculties that they are forced into dropping ATARs to keep the overall numbers up to maintain their overall economic standing. The tighter the budgetary situation in a faculty and a university the more reliance on student numbers,” he said, expressing concern over the need to continuously decrease ATARs just to ensure student numbers.

What ATAR really measures

In reaction to the NSW discussion paper, the University of Western Sydney said that regulation through ATAR cut-off may exclude potentially good teachers.

“This is particularly true for students who have come from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds, where they may have undertaken the HSC years while engaging in high levels of part time work or family care responsibilities, or both.”

Other educators are critical, too, of the over-emphasis on ATAR scores.

“The focus on the ATAR score distorts the real picture about who enters education courses,” Ure said. “Most ATARS are above 60. The highest scoring education applicant at Deakin this year had an ATAR of 94.24.”

“ATAR is one measure but it is not the only measure of ability,” said Loughran.

“It is reasonable to think about ATAR as one way of 24 | March 2013

understanding student ability, but the real issue is what happens during the course.”

Universities take charge

Federal School Education Minister Peter Garrett has said: “If people starting their university courses aren’t meeting that [ATAR] requirement but can demonstrate potential, universities will have to work with them to ensure they reach these standards before they graduate.’’

Several educators agree with this statement.

Ure says, from day one of entry, universities are already there to support students throughout the four-year rigorous program.

She believes that teaching graduates must demonstrate the behaviours and knowledge that are in line with the course regulations and the national professional standards for graduate teachers.

“Also, please remember,” said Drake, “that [ATAR-ranked] school leavers join a large cohort of mature students and this mix provides for a wider range of capable teachers for diverse school settings.”

Victoria University, Drake said, has a new university curriculum designed to improve student experience, aiming at high-quality service, support, and learning environment for students.

Indeed, education and teaching programs of various universities play a great role in training future teachers. ATAR is an important indicator of a student’s ability but there are also other measures to take into account. But with a groupthink that focuses on the image of low ATAR cut-off scores, one may also start considering how public perception can make or break the building of respect around this proud profession.

As Loughran said: “It is a complex issue that is made way too simplistic by just using ATAR as a measure of the status of teaching, but sadly, when it is portrayed as the only measure, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and continues to undermine a profession that is crucial to the health of the nation.” n

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in the classroom

Sustainability starts with the basics

By participating in gardening, watersaving and power-watch programs students learn about caring for the environment. By Peter Garrigan

T

o most individuals, sustainability means environmentalism.

Unfortunately this approach to the current global crisis has ignored a more realistic systems approach, that sustainability includes social, cultural, economic, individual, and technical components.

Even more tragic is our inability to align our values related to sustainability with our demonstrated and often unenlightened self-interest and partisan selfishness. It is individual behaviour that creates the foundation for action that guides our ability to work with one another to make life-affirming decisions.

Australian parents are becoming more aware that the varied issues our planet faces will only be solved when authentic and innovative sustainability practices are implemented.

With people starting to recognise that current economic development trends are not sustainable and that public awareness, education, and training are key to moving society towards sustainability. Education is seen as an essential tool for achieving sustainability.

It is therefore encouraging that an increasing number of schools are now including sustainability as part of their school management and curriculum programs.

Are these programs effective enough to create the next generation of leaders our world needs? The answer is: No. Not yet.

A good start is underway, however, people are still arguing about the meaning of sustainable development and whether or not it is attainable.

Beyond that the Australian Council of State School Organisations (ACSSO) believes that there is little agreement.

The lack of agreement and definition has stymied efforts to move education for sustainable development forward.

When environmental and sustainability education is incorporated into the school curriculum, students have the opportunity to: • Learn about the environment • Develop skills to investigate and solve issues in the environment • Acquire attitudes of care and concern for the environment • Adopt behaviours and practices which protect the environment • Understand the principles of sustainable development.

Through education for sustainable living, our young Australians gain knowledge, skills, and values to address the environmental and social challenges of the coming decades.

They learn to think ecologically, understand the interconnectedness of human and natural systems, and develop

26 | March 2013

in the classroom

Peter Garrigan is the president of the Australian Council of State School Organisations and co-chair of the Family School Community Partnership Bureau.

E

N 6 13

20

www.educationreview.com.au

its outstanding environment initiatives and educational programs.

ACSSO is a participant in the Australian Education for Sustainability Alliance and is committed to: • Recognising collective responsibility to act sustainably in everything that the ACSSO does, such as reducing the necessity for travel to meetings through the use of new communications technologies, car-pooling and reduced paper consumption • Seeking specific funding for professional development for teachers and other staff (i.e. registrars and janitors) in the area of environmental sustainability • Seeking specific funding for programs that encourage sustainable practices within schools • Lobbying government to provide sufficient new funds to make the transition to sustainability practices achievable • Support for any savings brought about through the implementation of sustainability measures to be reinvested within the school to encourage a sense of community ownership and to fund further sustainable initiatives.

• Providing specific funding for dedicated positions at the state and territory and federal level to promote: sustainability in schools through curriculum development; sustainable infrastructure; and programs in schools such as AuSSI, NSSP and others.

Schooling is everything the school does that leads to students’ learning, whether that learning is intended or not. Students learn from classroom activities but they also learn from what the school offers in the canteen, by how it uses resources and manages waste, by who is included in decisions, by how the school relates to the surrounding community. But more importantly, our young Australians learn by observing the action or inaction of adults.

JU

the capacity to apply this understanding.

One example of a sustainability program is the Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative (AuSSI), a partnership of the federal government, states and territories that seeks to support schools and their communities to become sustainable.

One of the schools to take part is Wakehurst Public School, on the northern beaches of Sydney. It drew on its sustainability experience to improve the ventilation of its assembly room. Rather than installing air-conditioners, the school sought passive aircooling measures and, in the process, fostered school ownership and empowerment.

Another to take part is Mataranka Primary School, in a remote area of the Northern Territory. It has only two full-time teachers and 40 students, half of whom are indigenous Australians. The principal recognised that many students are strongly associated with station life where sustainable business is of great importance.

In partnership with community groups and businesses, the school established a forestry plot of 1200 trees to demonstrate a comparative, economically sustainable business.

The project has been incorporated into the curriculum as an arboriculture and sustainability subject. Students are directly involved by planting trees, placing species-identifying plaques, establishing a watering system, measuring and recording tree girth and height and collecting seeds.

Merrylands East Public School in Sydney, while not engaged in the AuSSi program has undertaken sustainability initiatives to enhance student learning. It has an environmental management plan that works across the key learning areas of the curriculum and the whole school community.

They start with local sustainability and over time develop students understanding of how their work contributes globally.

Students and staff manage, observe and monitor their school’s resources, waste and physical surroundings, then take on activities to protect and improve their school and the local environment.

Parents are engaged in supporting these activities to assist their child to learn to care for the environment as part of their everyday lives. Merrylands East is a shining example of an Australian school leading the way in conserving energy and water, as well as teaching kids about global environment issues.

The school was the first in NSW to install a major photovoltaic system consisting of 36 solar panels to generate 6Kwh of power, preventing about 8.2 tonnes of Greenhouse gases from being released into the atmosphere each year. Other initiatives include installing four water tanks and harvesting water from rooftops for irrigation.

The school has also worked hard to rejuvenate its grounds into gardens, and fruit and vegetable patches. The school cares for a small number of chickens who consume food waste and produce valuable eggs for the canteen and manure to be used to fertilise the gardens.

Merrylands East has embraced the UN Decade for Education for Sustainable Development and has been working to build a more sustainable environment through a broad range of whole school strategies. They have moved beyond the recycling of paper, cardboard and waste to focus on learning about new technologies in renewable energies through the installation of a major photovoltaic system and water harvesting devices.

Students monitor and are responsible for the environment at the school, giving them a sense of custodianship. The Student Representative Council initiated the “Carbon Cops” system, under which students turn off all lights and non-core electrical appliances at the commencement of recess and lunch, and at the end of the school day.

The school has also introduced “Water Watchers” to ensure all taps are turned off properly. In 2009, Merrylands East was the first NSW school to win a UN Association of Australia World Environment Day award. It won the Education/School category for

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March 2013 | 27

in the classroom

Take a

virtual wander From connecting students with experts in Antarctica to meeting “face-to-face” with other students in China, video-collaboration is transforming education. By Lynnette Whitfield

A

ustralian schools and educational institutions are charged with preparing students for today’s digital world and global economy. However, shrinking budgets, fewer resources and big distances continue to pose challenges for teachers and lecturers who are responsible for enriching students learning in varied and innovative ways.

As technology such as social media, live chat and video-conferencing continues to infiltrate every aspect of our social, professional and private lives, there is an enormous opportunity to embrace the range of additional capabilities of the internet.

These advances are providing a new range of methods to educate students, thereby transforming the way Australian students learn at school.

NBN Co recently released a report that found 86 per cent of teachers claim highspeed broadband enables them to improve lesson delivery, and 96 per cent believe it allows students to increase the quality of their work.

This growing amalgamation of technology, including unified collaboration, enabled by high-speed and secure internet access allows schools and teachers to explore new ways of teaching.

School excursions are a prime example.

Traditionally, it would involve students, teachers and sometimes parents travelling to a location to participate in curriculumrelated activities outside the normal school routine.

28 | March 2013

Aimed at maximising students’ learning experiences, they are a particularly important part of the education curriculum, designed to be highly engaging and interactive, providing practical experiences to extend learning in a particular area.

However, in recent years, traditional excursions have become less common, primarily due to growing concerns around student safety, transport costs, higher insurance premiums and fewer resources.

Virtual excursions are increasingly addressing this gap. These experiences allow schools to use unified communication solutions such as video-conferencing to “virtually” travel and interact with peers, conduct lectures with subject-matter experts from other parts of Australia, the Asia-Pacific region or the world. This offers students the highly engaging and interactive experience of a traditional excursion, without the associated strict duty of care policies and costs.

With live, high-definition (HD) video and audio, schools have access to virtual education events that allow students to break traditional boundaries such as trekking into the jungles of Borneo, to learn about deforestation or observe the transit of Venus with commentary from a professor in astronomy. It enables students to interact with others and engage in discussion and is a highly effective way of increasing the absorption of knowledge.

An example is the ReefHQ Aquarium in Townsville, which uses video-collaboration to take classrooms on underwater

fact-finding missions. ReefHQ offers students the ability to learn about the value of the Great Barrier Reef, the threats to its sustainable future and their role in protecting it, all from the students’ classroom. Schools link up via video to the coral reef at ReefHQ Aquarium and information is delivered in real-time, by a scuba diver.

Remote education A country as vast as Australia presents its own challenges when it comes to offering world-class education services.

Technology is creating “borderless education”. With HD video, video-ondemand such as lecture capture, and mobile devices with visual collaboration capabilities, schools can extend their reach across borders, improving students’ access to knowledge and expertise and creating new educational offerings.

As educators are tasked with providing a wider range of content and services to students in order to prepare them as “global citizens”, they must be able to widen their reach and open up new education channels for students to explore and embrace from an early age. This is often difficult when the next school is hundreds of kilometres away.

Technology plays a pivotal role in

in the classroom As educators are tasked with providing a wider range of content and services to students in order to prepare them as “global citizens”, they must be able to widen their reach and open up new education channels for students. facilitating education through increased collaboration, particularly in remote locations.

By linking up with other schools around the country or the world, teachers gain access to global knowledge and expertise.

Examples include joint seminars with participants from across the country, or students taking a virtual excursion with a remote instructor. Teachers no longer rely solely on what used to be available in a single classroom or faculty, by connecting communities everyone benefits from shared resources and capabilities.

The video-conference school Abbotsleigh, a leading independent K-12 school for girls in the northern Sydney suburb of Wahroonga, with about 1400 students, is among the leading schools in Australia to augment their curriculum to include unified communications to create interactive collaborative experiences.

Marketing itself as “the videoconference school”, Abbotsleigh’s goal was to add a new dimension to classroom learning by supplementing traditional lectures with lessons from specialists

www.educationreview.com.au

around the world.

With advances in communication technologies dramatically altering the experiences and expectations of students in the 21st century, Abbotsleigh sought to make its pedagogical approach more innovative, and educational content more dynamic and internationally focused.

While traditional off-site class excursions were time-consuming and often expensive, virtual excursions over video proved a highly effective way of bringing experts directly to the classroom, in real time and for minimal cost. Additionally, the school wanted to make video-conferencing more than just a rarely used novelty, rather, integrating it into the school’s educational experience to create a dynamic, interactive and global classroom.

For the past five years, year 6 students have been connecting with New Zealand researchers at Scott Base to better understand what life in Antarctica is really like. In the first year alone, Abbotsleigh organised approximately 30 such video link-ups.

Additionally, it has also supplemented Mandarin classes with a video link to a classroom in Hong Kong, providing students with the opportunity to practise language skills with a group of native Mandarin speakers, and also provide the added value of a cultural exchange.

Recently, music students in year 11 worked with a “virtual composer in residence”, based at the Cleveland Institute of Music in the US. This innovative program involved group and individual videoconferences that provided authentic tertiary

quality mentorship by an award-winning expert. Abbotsleigh expects to maintain a relationship with the institute to provide continued value and opportunities in mentorship for students.

Collaboration Education is one of the federal government’s top priorities, recognising its importance for the future of the country.

The government recently announced its aim to make Australia one of the top five countries in the world for reading, maths and science by 2025, and as such, will invest $6.5 billion in annual funding progressively from 2014 to 2020.

Technology will be a key driver in reaching this goal. Through mobile devices such as tablets, interactive whiteboards and unified communication solutions, Australian students are now experiencing learning in a more interactive and innovative way than ever before.

It bridges the gap between regional and metropolitan students, it is also helping to overcome Australia’s tyranny of distance, giving schools the ability to provide educational and cultural learning experiences across borders.

Borderless education is here, and it is extending students’ reach and access to knowledge to create global citizens.

Virtual excursions play an important part in aiding this new approach to education. n Lynnette Whitfield is the director, education industry solutions and market development, at Polycom Asia Pacific.

March 2013 | 29

in the classroom

New technology and the NBN is bringing the world to regional students, writes David Moffitt

Location no longer a barrier to learning

I

n my 15 years as a school teacher, I have witnessed many changes to the way we teach in the classroom.

The most profound transformation has been the emergence of digital technology and the availability of high-speed, reliable broadband that has empowered PLC Armidale to expand our students’ learning opportunities, far beyond the four walls of the classroom.

Students now have the opportunity to learn directly from field experts and to interact and collaborate with other students who could be based anywhere in Australia, or the world, all without setting foot outside of our school campus in regional NSW. In 2011, our school connected to the national broadband network (NBN). Since then, learning opportunities have exploded becoming more immersive, creative and just more interesting. Students are more motivated, engaged and successful in the subjects they learn.

For PLC, our location is no longer a barrier to learning. In both the senior and primary school, teachers use HD video-conferencing over the NBN to linkup our students with experts all over the country in real time.

This means excursions are no longer about time-consuming bus trips, roll-calls and out-of-pocket expenses for parents.

Our year 9 science students were enthralled and “grossed out” when

30 | March 2013

we used the NBN to connect to the University of NSW's Museum of Human Disease, which is Australia's only publicly accessible medical pathology specimen collection.

Recently our students were able to take part in a lesson with expert Dr Bridget Murphy over HD video-conferencing and students were able to observe a healthy heart, lung and liver specimen.

Similar to a science lesson when I was at school, the lung was inflated to show the students how it works inside the body.

This led into a presentation of high-res images of diseased specimens that are in the museum, including asthma and smoking-induced emphysema.

Through the seamless transmission and clarity of the picture delivered over the NBN, Murphy was able to ask questions directly to individual students and follow a line of thinking initiated by the girls. The engagement of our students in the virtual lesson was remarkable, the vision flawless and the interaction instant.

But our students aren’t just thriving in science class. Our year 6 students have also started on an exciting and innovative new NBN-enabled project, developed by ABC Innovation and Education Services Australia called Making the News.

It has seen our students link with ABC journalists and producers from the popular Behind the News TV program, Triple J’s Hack and the ABC’s Open to

learn how the news is made. For the fourweek program that started in January, our students worked on creating their own news stories and are busily researching, conducting interviews and filming vision.

An in-school editing workshop will be held with an ABC producer to help our students work on their piece. Throughout the program, students have been blogging to track their progress and reflect on experiences.

We anticipate that this program will hone in on our students skills in English, geography, social science and current affairs, but also increase the quality of work delivered and their ability to retain information.

These are just two examples of the wonderful new opportunities and educational benefits that services provided over the NBN can enable.

As we are witnessing at PLC, technology means you can access everything, capture anything, and share with anyone, anywhere and at any time.

With plans this year to visit coastal rock platforms, simulated Mars landscapes and the London Design Museum, all via the internet, these “visits” promise to add deeper and richer learning experiences to our classrooms – there truly are no barriers beyond our imagination. n David Moffitt is a science teacher at PLC Armidale in NSW.

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Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) What is AITSL all about?

For the benefit of all Australian students, AITSL provides guidance and develops innovative resources to help make good teachers and school leaders even better.

AITSL is committed to the key principles of equity and excellence in the education of all young Australians to cultivate successful learners, confident and creative individuals and active and informed citizens.

As a national body, AITSL works with the education community to: • define and maintain Australian standards in teaching and school leadership • lead and influence improvement in teaching and school leadership • support and recognise high quality professional practice.

Key areas

We are ...

Australian Professional Standards for Teachers aitsl.edu.au/apst

Thought leaders

Australian Professional Standard for Principals aitsl.edu.au/apsp Accreditation of Initial Teacher Education Programs aitsl.edu.au/accreditation

National

Nationally Consistent Registration of Teachers aitsl.edu.au/registration Certification of Highly Accomplished & Lead Teachers aitsl.edu.au/certification Professional Learning Charter aitsl.edu.au/professionallearning Australian Awards for Outstanding Teaching and School Leadership aitsl.edu.au/2012awards Assessment for Migration aitsl.edu.au/assessmentformigration

Collaborative

Innovative

Responsive Evidence based

Forward looking

Quality focused

Inspirers of action

Promoting excellence in teaching and school leadership

Empowering Local Schools aitsl.edu.au/localleadership AITSL also has key responsibilities in the areas of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education; Asia Literacy; and Early Childhood Development.

Support and recognise quality

School Leadership Clearinghouse clearinghouse.aitsl.edu.au

Lead and influence improvement

Performance and Development Framework aitsl.edu.au/performance

Define and maintain standards

Leading Curriculum Change aitsl.edu.au/lcc

For teachers seeking to migrate to Australia, AITSL is the designated assessing authority: 1800 337 872

AITSL is funded by the Australian Government

As a significant step in their career development, Australian teachers can apply to be recognised as Highly Accomplished or Lead under a national certification initiative beginning right now.

Certification is a voluntary initiative that will publicly recognise skilled, dedicated teachers who are highly accomplished or leaders in the profession. Working through the certification process will allow you to reflect critically and deeply on your teaching practice.

Practical resources are being developed for teachers to support those who aspire to become certified at the Highly Accomplished or Lead career stages of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.

How will the certification process allow me to demonstrate my teaching practice to best effect?

I am passionate about the work I do, but how will I know if I am ready to apply for certification?

A Guide to certification is being developed and will be a valuable source of information for aspirants as they move through their certification application.

Before a teacher decides to embark on the certification process, it is vital that they have a clear picture of their strengths and weaknesses. The SelfAssessment Tool is a dynamic and interactive tool helps teachers to reflect upon their professional practice in the following ways:

Building a comprehensive and detailed evidence collection is an integral part of certification and will be an exciting challenge for aspirants.

It is through their collections that applicants will have the opportunity to demonstrate their exemplary practice against the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.

•

identification of current strengths and opportunities for growth against the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers

Outstanding examples of certification evidence are being made available on the website as part of the comprehensive resource base being developed for teachers.

•

planning for professional learning coherent with career focus

•

targeted goal setting in relation to individual performance and development plans

•

assessing a teacher’s readiness to apply for certification at either the Highly Accomplished or Lead career stages by guiding them through a detailed selfanalysis of their current practice.

How will my application be assessed?

For certification to be credible the assessment must be fair, transparent and rigorous.

A National Assessor Training Program has commenced, which uses online interactive learning design and face to face workshops.

How can I find out more about this initiative?

For more information on certification, please visit the AITSL website.

aitsl.edu.au/certification

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aitsl.edu.au

community focus

Helping to train

Cambodia’s new

The establishment of a successful mentoring scheme in Cambodia started with an Australian couple’s holiday 11 years ago.

By Antonia Maiolo

W

hen Kate Shuttleworth decided to take her family on a trip to Cambodia little did she know the experience would change her life.

After witnessing widespread devastation and suffering throughout the country the Sydney teacher and her husband, Edward, were motivated to help.

“It was a real eye-opener,” Kate said, and having her children there really brought it home to the couple.

“There we were, with our kids who have pretty nice schooling, and the kids over there just really had nothing and weren’t schooled and were living in pretty dreadful circumstances”.

She and her husband, both moved by the desperate state of the school system, decided the best way to make a difference was to empower the local people through education.

Following their trip in 2002, the couple took up various forms of volunteer work in 34 | March 2013

the country before setting up the not-forprofit organisation SeeBeyondBorders in 2008, which now plays a vital role in improving access to quality education for Cambodian children.

Kate, a teacher at St Mary’s Catholic School in Manly, felt that setting up a foundation that focused specifically on education was an area where she could make a significant contribution.

During the brutal Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s, the school system was completely dismantled, and teachers were killed along with other educated people.

Decades have passed and the quality of education still remains very low.

Kate said the biggest problem schools face are that teachers only have basic training, and that’s why they implemented the Teach the Teacher workshops that are designed to build on teaching skills. The teachers the organisation works with were “drafted in by the community because they were literate so they were the most educated people in the village but they didn’t really have much in the way of skills”.

The main aim of SeeBeyondBorders is to provide sustainable development in education. The organisation operates by training Cambodian primary teachers, developing school infrastructure and providing support for local families trying to educate their children.

SeeBeyondBorder’s core programs are the teacher workshops and mentoring programs which provide targeted professional development for local teachers. The organisation facilitates a two-week Teach the Teacher program that involves Australian teachers travelling to Cambodia to demonstrate best-practice teaching methods to local teachers.

Kate said the teaching in many of the schools is very much “chalk and talk, so they just stand up at the board with a stick and the children chant and repeat things”.

The workshops guide teachers through the Cambodian mathematics curriculum, identifying pedagogy as a key part of the education process so that children understand the concepts they are learning.

At present, these workshops involve about 300 Cambodian teachers, including 70 mentors, across three locations in Cambodia. To date, 42 volunteer teachers from Australia have participated in the program, which is also accredited as a provider of professional development with the NSW Institute of Teachers (NSWIT).

SeeBeyondBorders asks volunteer teachers from Australia to fund their own travel and accommodation and also fundraise $1250 each which pays for all the resources.

The organisation pays for Cambodian teachers to travel to the workshop

community focus

Work and play are equally important to these children

The SeeBeyondBorders team in front of the new building

teachers location, for accommodation, meals and excursion fees for the teachers, as well as the provision of locally produced wholeclass maths resource kits for each school represented at the workshop.

The training Kate gained through her Master of Educational Leadership program at the Australian Catholic University and her own experiences as a teacher have been instrumental in providing sustainable educational change.

“We did not want to simply impose a Western model of educational professional development without any consideration of the cultural, economic and environmental context within which the teachers work.”

To ensure that their work is sustainable, SeeBeyondBorders also operates a mentor program. These people are Cambodian teachers who have been provided with specialist training by the foundation before being allocated a group of between two and five teachers with whom they work twice per month.

Currently there are about 70 mentors

who have been selected either by the local department of education or their school director. These people can be identified in the Teach the Teacher workshops as well.

Mentors are a fundamental part of the program as they ensure the Cambodian teachers receive the support they need to put their learning into practice in their classrooms. Kate said the mentor program is essential to the central goal of sustainability. And so far the strategy seems to be working.

Today the foundation has the support of the District and Provincial offices of education who are now working closely with the school principals and the teachers, which Kate said was definitely not there before.

Now the education officials, in the districts where the foundation operates, come together for a monthly meeting. Kate was present recently at one of the technical meetings and witnessed how supportive the officials are of the mentor program.

She said the director of the provincial office of education stood up and said the program has been very successful and that school There we were, with our kids who and government testing have have pretty nice schooling, and the shown exponential kids over there had nothing, weren’t improvements in schooled and were living in pretty maths and literacy.

“The co-operation dreadful circumstances. www.educationreview.com.au

and involvement of the government and school principals is a really big step forward,” Kate said.

She said teachers are now able to involve the children in the learning, adding that there is evidence of growing retention rates in schools.

The program has also empowered the local staff to become more independent and more responsible for the running of the everyday operations at the Cambodian offices, including organising workshops and supervising staff.

“Our biggest dream is that one day we can basically walk away and leave them to do it and then start in another district,” Kate said.

The foundation plans to keep going in the districts they are currently working in, to provide as much support as they can before handing over the reins completely.

Kate’s efforts to help create a sustainable education system in Cambodia have been recognised by ACU awarding her the Student Award for Outstanding Community Engagement last year. n For more information visit the website: www.seebeyondborders.org We would like to hear if you have a similar story. Email the editor, Antonia Maiolo, at antonia.maiolo@apned.com.au March 2013 | 35

workforce

bigchair

Thu, Cainan, Samantha and Mulongecha with Elizabeth South Primary School principal, Jocelyn Osborne

Trying out the A South Australian primary school is one of the first to register for a national initiative that helps young people understand leadership.

S

tudents around the country will step into the shoes of the principal on June 6 as part of Principals Australia Institute’s “Student Principal for a Day” program.

Elizabeth South Primary School has a strong focus on leadership it should come as no surprise that their 12-year-old students have firm opinions about what it takes to be a good leader.

“Understanding when you’ve made mistakes,” says Cainan.

“Having good ideas and thoughts,” says Samantha.

“Having a goal and challenging yourself,” says Thu. “Doing your best,” says Mulongecha.

These four young people have their hearts set on some impressive careers: technical engineer, police officer, teacher and soccer player. Their ambitions have been nurtured by a whole-school 36 | March 2013

commitment to building a strong sense of leadership in their school.

What makes the school’s commitment to building young leaders even more remarkable is its context. Elizabeth South Primary serves a community which has long-term and inter-generational disadvantage with high levels of transience and unemployment.

“When we have a leadership focus that is embedded in our school community our students develop a strong sense of self-worth, self-esteem and confidence,” explains the principal, Jocelyn Osborne.

“The good thing is that you don’t necessarily need to be academically strong to be a good leader.”

Osborne believes that building children’s capabilities is particularly important for students who may not have strong role models at home.

The year 7 students take part in the Halogen Foundation’s annual National Young Leaders Day. Students in years 5 and 6 go off-site to a leadership conference managed by the school.

“We bring in local community leaders, like former student Dr Margaret Arstall who is head of the cardiology unit at Lyell McEwen Hospital, to inspire and encourage our students.”

And the school does much more than just talk about leadership. There are a number of practical ways that students can put their skills into practice. Some visit a local aged care facility. Others are involved with the Better Buddies program that links younger children with older students.

“It is completely voluntary,” explains Michael McVeity, the student counsellor.

“We find that older children are less likely to pick on younger kids when they have a positive relationship with them.

“The children we might stereotype as ‘naughty boys’ often have really good leadership skills. If we can get them to focus their energy in a positive direction – they are actually great leaders.”

The school jumped at the chance to be involved in Student Principal for a Day because it aligns with the work that they are already doing through their leadership programs and the KidsMatter mental health and wellbeing program.

“I hope that the program will excite, motivate and inspire our young people with possibilities for their future. Who knows, one of them might even become a principal one day,” says Osborne. n To find out more about Student Principal for a Day go to www.sp4d.edu.au

workforce

Teachers can help students attain a good ATAR by understanding how the marks are used. By Richard Chua

Scaling

the

HSC heights O ne of the greatest joys I have experienced as an educator is in sharing in the success of my students – to see them succeed in high school, to go on to better opportunities and to know I played a role.

This is particularly so in the Australian education system, where high school performance is the major determinant of entry into top professions such as business, health, law and science. But if helping students achieve their dreams is an important goal of education, why do so many teachers feel so disempowered to help?

The simple answer is teachers aren’t properly trained to understand how the system works, and hence find it difficult to provide the right guidance. In this article, I would like to share what I have discovered in my five years as the academic co-ordinator and founder of Talent 100 – a tuition college that educates more than 1000 students each year, and has maintained a record of 30 per cent of its final year students achieving ATARs of 99 and above.

Understanding what it really takes to succeed Most teachers believe that helping students achieve mastery of a single subject is the best way to help students achieve top HSC marks. This is certainly a starting point, but to truly maximise HSC results, you need an effective overall strategy. As with achieving any goal, there are two fundamental questions your students must answer: 1. Where to play? – What subjects should your students take?

What standard of performance must they achieve in each of those subjects?

2. How to win? – How can I help students understand the theory and minimise errors in exam so they can reach their potential in their exams?

In my opinion, many students fail to reach their potential because they are focusing merely on understanding content, mainly because that’s what teachers focus on.

However, this approach is inefficient and provides no visibility – students have no idea how they are performing relative to their ATAR objectives, nor how performance in an individual subject www.educationreview.com.au

affects their overall ATAR. The result is that students end up studying as hard as possible in every subject, and hope their results are good enough. In fact, they don’t really know, and are often anxiously waiting for their HSC results. In fact, we refer to this approach to the HSC as playing “ATAR roulette”.

Understanding scaling helps students know “where to play” As a student, I developed a data-driven approach to understanding how the scaling system works. The outcome of that exercise was that I discovered how to breakdown any ATAR into a rank/position in each subject. In the table below, I’ve given a brief summary of what it actually takes to score an ATAR of 95/97/99.

With this knowledge, I set myself a rather lofty goal. I wanted to score a UAI/ATAR of 100.00 – which meant that I needed to score in the top 20 of students in the state. How was I going to achieve this, if I could already name 20 students in my own school who were naturally more intelligent than I was?

Once I had my blueprint for scoring that ATAR, I had full visibility on what I needed to do. I could adjust my study patterns accordingly, re-allocating my limited time, to its most productive/ ATAR-maximising use. Although I was relatively strong in maths, I actually took the tactical decision to study less maths in favour

Subject

ATAR 95

ATAR 97

ATAR 99

English Adv.

Top 15-20%

Top ~10%

Top ~5%

Physics

Top 15-20%

Top ~10%

Top ~5%

Chemistry

Top 15-20%

Top ~10%

Top ~5%

Economics

Top 15-20%

Top ~10%

Top ~5%

Maths Adv.

Top 15-20%

Top ~10%

Top ~5%

Maths Ext. 1

Top 60%

Top 45%

Top 25%

Maths Ext. 2

Top 90%

Top 80%

Top 50%

Source: UAC Report on Scaling (2011)

March 2013 | 37

workforce of some of my weaker subjects, because I knew that whether I came first or 20th in my own school, I would achieve a scaled score of above 99/100. The “smarter” students in my school of course competed furiously for the top place in mathematics, unaware that we would eventually receive almost equivalent marks after scaling.

In your HSC year, time is an incredibly scarce commodity. If you know how to “ration” it, you have an advantage over your peers. One of the reasons why our students at Talent 100 have scored such good results is because the very first thing we teach them is how scaling affects their ATAR. After teaching theory, teachers should perfect exam technique.

It is common to see a student who is brilliant in class, but average in

examinations. Despite their hard-work and clear knowledge of the subject, these students always seem to be let down by careless errors, or simply panic and nerves.

Part of the reason for this, is that the natural tendency for most teachers is to only focus on teaching content. Exam practice is usually an after-thought – a luxury for those who are able to finish the theory early. Students may conceptually understand the subject matter, but when placed in the pressure-test of an examination, they end up losing a significant number of marks because they are not used to test conditions.

What I found as a student and as a teacher, was that understanding the theory got you between 60 and 70 per cent of the marks. If you wanted to score in the 80 to 90 per cent range, you really needed to have a clinical approach to doing exams.

Success = “How to win” + “Where to play”

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To ensure top performance, exam practice really needs to be integrated into learning systems. For this reason, we set our homework in examination format, so students get to practise their exam technique on a weekly basis, rather than leaving this to the last minute.

Education needs improved productivity Recently, the Australian government has focused heavily on bringing productivity metrics to education, planning to pay out $400 million to top-performing teachers.

While I have doubts about how such a system can be implemented effectively, I believe productivity metrics should be introduced into the education system.

I believe that as educators, we have a duty to help our students succeed.

Teachers could play a more effective role by first understanding what ATARs their students are looking for, what ranks their students need to achieve that, and creating a development plan for students can work towards.

With greater awareness of the importance of each subject, students will achieve better results. n Richard Chua graduated from Sydney Grammar School with an UAI/ATAR of 100.00. He currently works as business associate for Google in California.

Specialised Pencil Grips, Perspex Slope Boards & NEW Coloured Guideline Pads The Specialised Pencil Grip range can reduce hand stress & fatigue, often associated with poor pencil grasp, by encouraging correct finger position, enhanced comfort, and control. ‘The Pencil Grip’, ‘Crossover Grip’, ‘Jumbo Grip’ and ‘Writing CLAW’ are used within classrooms with enormous success as a learning and assistance tool.

The Perspex Writing Slope Board assists students to adopt an upright sitting posture & maintain correct wrist position & pencil grasp. Good visual contact is also achieved & using coloured Perspex can increase attention.

School purchase orders accepted. Phone or email consultation available with our Occupational Therapist.

MTA Supporting education for more than 50 years with over 10,000 teaching resources in stock and online. Your supplier for Art & Craft consumables, Mathematics, Robotics & ICT, English & Literacy resources, Music, Sport & Science. www.teaching.com.au

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For more information visit www.pencilgripsplus.com.au enquiries@pencilgripsplus.com.au 0414 367 391