According to creative writing pedagogies academic Susanne Gannon ("English in Australia, 54"(2), 43-56, 2019), and the Federal government-commissioned NAPLAN review (McGaw et al., 2020), NAPLAN has restricted how writing is taught in secondary schools. A NAPLAN-influenced structural approach to teaching writing has subsumed the…

Cross institutional benchmarking provides the opportunity to ensure comparability of standards by comparing learning outcomes and assessment practices, and acts as a catalyst for change and improved practice. The comparability of standards is crucial for the transparency and portability of qualifications as well as the assurance of quality student…

Australian education policies increasingly value equity and diversity, but these policies are not necessarily implicitly supported through curriculum. This study explores the hidden curriculum in senior school Drama and Theatre Studies in the state of Victoria, through an equity audit of texts prescribed through each subject's playlists, solos,…

In this paper, we present a novel approach to defining, teaching, and assessing creativity by examining its origins and delineating the processes involved. The rationale for introducing this framework developed from studying existing thinking and questioning the current metrics for measuring creativity, which we posit are unfit for purpose. We…

The National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is intended to assess all Australian students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 to ensure equity and inclusion. This paper explores the extent to which equity and inclusion are achieved for students with disability through NAPLAN reporting. Document analysis of publicly accessible NAPLAN…

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) outreach programs aim to increase participation in STEM fields. However, the impact of these programs is rarely measured due to inherent difficulties in conducting long-term evaluations. This article presents a decadal evaluation of the Science and Engineering Challenge (SEC), an Australian…

The GPS Cows Module is a co-developed, Australian resource that aims to increase the knowledge and skills of high school students in emerging agricultural technologies. It aligns with many outcomes in the New South Wales (NSW) Stage 4 Technology Mandatory Syllabus, a compulsory subject for Stage 4 students (Years 7-8), that engages students in…

This paper is a retrospective exploration of the long-term and deep-reaching impact of an educational aspirations program, "Burunga M Gambay (Learning together)" (BMG, 2012), on the career pathways and life-long learning of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander high school students. The current project, "where are the Ghundus…

In this study, the evaluation of mathematical proficiency (MP) in one NSW Year 12 standardised exam paper was investigated. By considering the multi-strand model of MP, a literature-based criteria for scoring the assessment of MP in individual exam questions was first developed. The criteria were then applied to quantitatively evaluate the 2023…

A critical aim of teacher quality research is to identify and distil its multiple components. While many such components have been identified in the literature, there is a scarcity of research that has attempted to empirically investigate how these elements integrate within a larger profile of teacher quality, including how particular teachers'…

This paper provides evidence that a short, fully online, well-constructed diagnostic test based on research literature can give teachers information about their students' thinking and strategies that is sufficiently accurate to use for formative assessment purposes. The example is a test for students beginning to learn to solve equations. The main…

Objective: The objectives of this study were to (1) measure the acceptability of Students As LifeStyle Activists (SALSA) Youth Voices (SYV) programme, (2) determine the skills gained by peer leaders from their participation in SYV and (3) determine whether peer leaders were able to design and implement an action to promote healthy eating and…

This paper discusses educational insights drawn from a mixed-methods study in Religious Education (RE). The study involved 238 teachers and school leaders, working in 65 Catholic schools in Western Australia (WA). The focus of the study was the educators' perceptions of a large-scale, standardised assessment (LSA) called "The Bishops'…

The 'responding' strand of the Australian visual arts curriculum promotes twenty-first century learning skills through students' analytical engagement with artworks and artists. Assessing students' experiences and engagement is one strategy to improve teaching and learning in responding. However, there are no validated, subject-specific student…

This paper explores the continued cultural consecration of narrow forms of knowledge and literate practice in senior Australian English curricula. Despite the prevalence of Personal Growth approaches to English throughout Australia in the latter decades of the Twentieth century, the analysis of curricula reveals a contradiction between stated…