Launched in 2010 by the Gillard Labor Government, the Australian Tertiary Admissions Rankings (ATAR) system is the first national unified system for reporting the educational attainment of successive cohorts of Year 12 school leavers. The system is widely regarded as fit for purpose, being both predictive of academic success and rates of…

A study of grade 12 curricula in Victoria (Australia) secondary schools showed a positive relationship between school size and number of subjects offered, although many small schools did offer a diverse curriculum. Increase in curriculum diversity relative to school size was uneven across fields, and evidence of actual enrollment in the additional…

Presents the results of a major survey (n=14,051) of secondary students' sense of Canadian identity, pride, unity, and purpose. The survey covered all ten provinces and the two territories. Results showed students throughout Canada share similar perceptions of a myriad of issues and concerns, demonstrating that Canadian studies courses were…

Discusses a special multicultural program, offered in a twelfth grade visual arts class which allowed Canadian students to learn about the pre-Columbian world of Mexico, and Central and South America . Through the study of pottery, students learned about the pre-Columbian cultures and created their own works which were displayed in a museum. (GEA)

The dicto-comp is a type of controlled writing combining text dictation and text reconstruction. The rationale and methods for using it in a Hong Kong high school class are described. (two references) (LB)

A goal of this double issue of English Teaching: Practice and Critique is to collectively consider what we mean when we talk about knowledge about language. How have our understandings changed over time? What are the implications of these new understandings for pedagogy in the field of language teaching? These are necessary and important…

This paper is a personal interpretation of how two half-year daily teaching assignments in grade 12 physics influenced the career of a science teacher educator at Queen's University (Kingston, Ontario, Canada). The teacher educator felt that this experience helped him speak to his preservice teachers more realistically and convincingly about the…

An educator who teaches physics to grade 12 students and a physics curriculum and methods course to preservice teachers analyzes the impact of context on teaching practice. A paper by A. Richert titled "Voice and Power in Teaching and Learning To Teach" is used as the foundation for interpreting the author's experience of teaching…

This report contains a summary of results obtained from a Gallup Poll study of adults 18 years and over, which was conducted in May 1984 in Alberta, Canada. Data were collected through personal, in-home interviews with 1,054 adults. Because of a slight discrepancy in age and sex, all results were based on a weighted, proportionate sample.…

Statewide competency testing as a high school graduation requirement represents a threat to those who encourage broad notions of reading and writing, even when a number of testing innovations in reading and writing mean a step forward in education. In Alberta, Canada, the English exam comes in a non-academic and an academic version, and…