Reflecting on a day of dangerous bushfire conditions in NSW, I recount my leadership responsibilities as a principal, highlighting the shaping force of my English teaching past in my response to certain managerial demands that I faced. I illustrate how the sense of ethical responsibility and a commitment to openness that came to define my…

Disruptions to learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic have been one of the most concerning consequences of school closures in Australia during 2020. Carefully planned curriculum sequences and learning progressions were flipped into online formats, with teachers having very little time to prepare and students being unused to learning away from each…

This article explores the effects of neoliberalism and performative educational cultures on secondary school drama classrooms. We consider the ways Deleuze and Guattari's schizoanalysis and Butler's concept of gender performance enable us to chart the embodied, relational, spatial and affective energies that inhabit the often neoliberal and…

At a time when political leaders and media pundits seek to narrow the English curriculum and reduce its knowledge structure to the "basics," it is helpful to revisit the potential of different approaches to learning in English that have evolved over time. In this paper I reflect on the semantic features of personal growth, cultural…

In this article, the author shares her experience during the final semester of Year 11 Theatre Studies when she performed a monologue about Hermione from "The Winter's Tale". This experience was extremely significant to her because it nearly made her lose faith in one of the most important parts of her life, drama. She believes this…

In this paper, I argue for a response to the needs of linguistically and culturally diverse students that is both high challenge and high support. In elaborating this argument I draw on an English literature programme that was designed for a year 7 boys' class (the first year of high school) in an Australian public school. The students in the…