Teaching graduates are expected to meet new test standard from July 1 this year.
Given how much money, time and effort has been invested in schooling reforms, why aren’t we seeing substantial improvement across Australia?
AAP/Dan Peled
Average NAPLAN results don’t tell the full story. Diving into the details is essential if we are to understand what is going on in Australian education.
Indigenous children in Australia continue to slip below national minimum standards for literacy.
Neda Vanovac/AAP
The lesson to be learned from Aurukun is around the impact of out-sourcing education to commercial interests.
Refugees try to warm themselves with a fire at a refugee camp at the border between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
EPA/Yannis Kolesidis
Research shows linking teachers’ pay to performance has little impact on student achievement. Similar tests to the ones the government proposes for young children now face a backlash in the UK and US.
We need to understand that some students make faster progress than others.
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The Grattan Institute’s new report, Widening Gaps, invites us to think differently about how to measure student progress and tackle entrenched inequalities in achievement.
Australia ranked 5th on the literacy test, ahead of the US and the UK.
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The political obsession with back to basics literacy is leaving schools behind. What is taught in school is becoming increasingly distant from what is required in the real world.
Changing attitudes: why is it ‘cool’ to be bad at maths?
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You wouldn’t feel so confident about claiming you weren’t good at reading, so why is it okay to be openly negative about mathematics?
The majority of children in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania are attending school – but the evidence suggests they’re not all learning.
Reuters/Darrin Zammit Lupi
2013 was the year of Gonski; 2014 the year of higher education reform; 2015 has been the year of … hmmm … wait, what actually happened this year? Just a lot of chat really, with much debate, but little…
There is little evidence to suggest that testing teaching students on their literacy and numeracy will have any impact on the quality of teaching and learning in Australian classrooms.
Extensive research shows that textbooks are crucial to children’s learning.
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Textbooks have been at the centre of two major South African court cases. They may not be a magical cure for all the country’s education ills, but research shows they are a critical part of learning.
Young children enter care as a result of neglect or abuse, which has a big impact on their ability to engage in school.
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A new report finds children in care are less likely to achieve the national minimum standards in literacy and numeracy – with the gap growing as they get older.
Why are we splitting our children up into arts and sciences at an age when hormones are raging and peer pressure is so powerful? It’s time for an overhaul of post-16 education.
Teachers can learn a great deal from their pupils’ mistakes in maths.
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What if instead of dismissing wrong answers as a sign of failure, maths teachers tried to understand how their pupils came to that answer and then guided them in the right direction?
When asked to document their own literacy practices, children in Ghana revealed a rich life of learning outside formal school structures.
There are about one million children not attending formal school in Ghana, but a programme in two small villages is a reminder that learning happens outside traditional classrooms too.
Children struggle to develop the basic “building blocks” of maths if they’re just copying down everything the teacher tells them without understanding it.
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When rote learning and parroted answers replace real engagement with the material, children are bound to battle with maths. After-school homework clubs offer a different way of thinking.
MPs call for new campaign on literacy and numeracy.
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With England once again in the spotlight for having poor adult skills, it’s timely that we have a new report from MPs calling for a campaign to fix the problem. But while there is lots of evidence out…