In the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) there are different systems for secondary schooling for young people and this paper focuses on public comprehensive secondary schools. These are frequently characterised as the "schools of last resort" by parents with the ability to make a choice about which school sector their children…

Australian adolescents living in regional communities are significantly more likely to perform worse at school, relative to those in metropolitan communities. These disparities are partially due to the development of lower educational expectations among regional adolescents. In the current study, we tested whether the differences in educational…

In this article we explore Australian policymaker perspectives on the quality assurance of career development (CD) programmes in schools. We found that Australian policymakers are concerned about the quality of CD provision in schools and have a wide range of approaches that they deploy to ensure and assure quality at the school level. Quality…

Principal succession is an inevitable phenomenon in school systems. Given the relevance of principal succession for leadership quality and school improvement, there has been a lack of research in recent decades that has synthesized principal succession. This study aims to review the literature from 2003 to 2019 on principal succession in schools.…

Professional learning for quality teaching is a lifelong enterprise. Nevertheless, it entails a considerable cost with varying outcomes. Drawing on Snyder's hope theory and Pantic's teacher agency, this paper aims to present a model aimed at deepening our understanding of teachers' intentions and competencies in inclusive education. The model…

While numerous studies have reported the effect of school socioeconomic status (SES) on achievement, the factors that can cause this relationship are not well established. This study is, therefore, an attempt to understand school SES and students' mathematics achievement relationship by assuming that this relationship occurs through a correlation…

At the 2016 Commission in Birmingham, I reported on a Quality Music Education Framework that Dr Emily Wilson and I had developed for the Victorian Department of Education, which was to become a framework for the delivery of "quality" music education across the State of Victoria for the school years, Foundation to Year 10. In this address…

This paper reports the findings of a meta-synthesis of studies which investigated the ways in which teachers described their pedagogical practices in three different contexts: the Maldives, Australia and Nepal. Each of the studies was focused on making teachers' classroom practices visible in an effort to establish a shared language and…

The present article investigates the relationship between the degree of tracking and inequalities in reading literacy of second-generation and non-immigrant students in 28 Western countries. The article takes into account that next to between-school tracking, there are also more subtle forms of tracking, such as tracking within schools or classes.…

The key premise of professional development (PD) is that learning to teach continues throughout teachers' careers. And yet, experienced teachers are often portrayed in media and public policy as resistant to such learning and afraid of change. This paper seeks a more nuanced understanding of why experienced teachers might resist the prospect of PD…

The introduction of new assessment policy can reverberate throughout all levels of schooling. This paper presents an in-depth investigation into one school's response in the Junior years of secondary education to the introduction of a new Senior years' assessment system. The investigation focuses on the educational context of a high-performing…

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'…

Vocational education and training (VET) in schools promises a seamless entry into apprenticeships, skilled work and further education options, with many best practice examples of this type of training delivered in schools identified around Australia. This synthesis identifies insights emerging from existing research on the delivery of VET to…

This research used the responses of 187 Tasmanian teachers to a questionnaire comprising 52-Likert-type items, two multiple-choice items, and two open-response items to investigate differences in teachers' beliefs about aspects of schooling related to students' secondary school completion. Exploratory factor analysis of responses to the…

This research investigated what the term Quality Physical Education (QPE) meant to Health and Physical Education (HPE) teachers in Australian Capital Territory (ACT) schools. A total of 14 HPE teachers who taught middle school or above, representing government and independent schools, took part in focus group interviews about their understanding…