Many schools choose to organise students into classes according to their perceived "ability", despite evidence that the practice is not beneficial for students, overall. Class grouping by "ability" can exacerbate existing social inequalities by segregating students according to pre-existing educational advantage, which has…

Developing students' reading and numeracy skills remain key goals of contemporary schooling. In Australia, the National Assessment Program -- Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests have assessed these skills since 2008. Previous research found a significant gender gap in favour of females for the NAPLAN writing test, yet no study has examined…

School funding policy in Australia not only promotes educational equity in some ways but also creates substantial between-school resource inequalities due to its embrace of market ideologies. School funding policies are designed to promote school choice and competition, based on the assumption that they are both a right and an effective lever for…

This article details how and why we have developed a flexible and responsive process-based rubric exemplar for teaching, learning, and assessing critical and creative thinking. We hope to contribute to global discussions of and efforts toward instrumentalising the challenge of assessing, but not standardising, creativity in compulsory education.…

Considerable interest lies in the growth in educational achievement that occurs over the course of a child's schooling. This paper demonstrates a simple but effective approach for the comparison of growth rates, drawing on a method first proposed some 80 years ago and applying it to data from the Australian National Assessment Program. The…

This study examines public opinion about the National Assessment Program--Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) in Australia, based on an online survey conducted with a sample of New South Wales (NSW) residents (n = 2,017). Our study participants did recognize the benefits of NAPLAN despite their opinion generally trending toward negative viewpoints of…

The Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) has created the first longitudinally linked dataset of Australian students' National Assessment Program -- Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) participation and results. This technical paper describes the creation of the Longitudinal Literacy and Numeracy in Australia (LLANIA) dataset, including the…

We explore how relational trust was evidenced within the leadership activity of one mathematics leader using cultural-historical activity theory as a theoretical perspective. We use data from interview and observation sources to suggest that relational trust was a motive object of that mathematics leader's activity. Findings contribute knowledge…

National testing of students has become an increasingly prevalent policy tool, often implemented to drive improvement through increased accountability and heightened competition between schools. Such testing has been found to generate negative emotional responses among students, including increased stress and anxiety. However, there is little…

Kendall Hammond, Associate Principal at Nollamara Primary and Intensive English School in Perth, explains how their commitment to explicit direct instruction made Sounds-Write a natural choice for the teaching of reading and spelling in a school where three-quarters of students have English as an additional language. [For the complete volume,…

In Australia, it has been observed that there have been significant declines in the proportion of students studying senior sciences over the last two decades (Commonwealth of Australia 2017 & 2018; Steidtmann et.al, 2023). It has been suggested that one of the causes for this decline could be a link between students' literacy achievement and…

Background: The transition from primary to secondary school presents a challenging developmental milestone which often marks a decline in academic performance. Social-emotional skills are recognized as fundamental to academic success but longitudinal research is needed to determine the extent of their association over this transition period. Aim:…

In recent years, numeracy has had an increasing focus in the Australian educational system, with policies and assessments in place for both students and teachers. In order to address the requirements of their careers, teachers need to have sufficient numeracy capabilities. In our study, we explored the numeracy capabilities of post-graduate…

Students' prior achievements in school have significant correlations with their later achievements. Specifically, students' prior numeracy achievement is the most important predictor of later numeracy success. However, the assessment of this predictor across gender and its trend across students' year levels is often overlooked or not adequately…

This study examines the effect of school socioeconomic composition on student achievement growth in Australian schooling, and its relationship with academic composition utilising the National Assessment Program--Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) dataset. Previous research has found that school composition predicts a range of schooling outcomes. A…