Australian Curriculum , Assessment And Reporting Authority Research Articles

“It Was a Real Eye-Opener”: Supporting Adolescent Mental Health Literacy Through Contemporary Young Adult Literature

Increased mental health literacy in adolescents is critical, as it can lead to greater empathy and result in less stigmatising behaviour (Mitchell, 2014; Perry et al., 2014). As a prime site of influence, schools are integral to raising adolescent mental health awareness andpromoting pro-social behaviours (Carlisle et al., 2018; Lawrence et al., 2015). The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) has provided little guidance and resourcing for teachers to select appropriate texts for study. If teachers have been designated as primarily responsible for text selection (Hateley, 2014) they need support from teacher librarians to suggest and source well-written young adult literature dealing with the issues around mental health as texts for the classroom.

Teaching Australian Indigenous Games and Sports Post-Pandemic: Reimagining and Reforming

Indigenous games and sports (IG&S) form a mandated part of the Health and Physical Education (HPE) learning area of the Australian National Curriculum and to encourage the adoption of IG&S, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment, and Reporting Authority (ACARA), the independent statutory authority responsible for the development of a national curriculum, a national assessment program, and a national data collection and reporting program that supports learning for Australian students, developed resources to support teachers. The promotion of IG&S was also assisted by numerous commentators, educators, and academics who advocated for the educational and social benefits of their inclusion. Since their inclusion in the National Curriculum in 2015, their teaching has been minimal and sporadic.

Investigating the use of the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) test results

The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is a nationwide testing program for literacy and numeracy in Australia. Several studies explored and used NAPLAN numeracy test results as a source of valuable data and a potential means to improve education. This paper presents a systematic literature review to investigate the use of NAPLAN numeracy test results in those peer-reviewed articles in relation to the purposes of NAPLAN results mentioned by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). Findings showed a variety of uses of the NAPLAN numeracy test results in these studies. Most of the studies used the test results to map student progress and identify strengths and weaknesses in teaching. A significant number of studies used the NAPLAN numeracy test results that differ from the purposes mentioned by ACARA. The review concluded that there is currently insufficient use which reflects the purpose of NAPLAN test results.

Wellbeing Literacy: Conceptualization, Measurement, and Preliminary Empirical Findings from Students, Parents and School Staff.

Aims: Wellbeing literacy is the intentional use of wellbeing relevant vocabulary, knowledge and language skills to maintain or improve the wellbeing of oneself, others and the world. In this study, we operationalize the human aspects of the concept of wellbeing literacy and empirically test its relationship with wellbeing and illbeing. We also assess its incremental variance in wellbeing and illbeing, after controlling for existing and well-established predictors of these constructs within education settings. Methods: We developed and empirically tested the Wellbeing literacy 6-item (Well-Lit 6) scale to assess the concept of wellbeing literacy in the education context. The scale was developed based on a working definition of wellbeing literacy, in combination with the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA)’s definition of literacy. The Well-Lit 6 was administered via a cross-sectional survey to three Australian samples that comprise different elements of Australian education systems: students (N = 1392), parents (N = 584) and school staff (N = 317). Results: Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) suggested the six items of the Well-Lit 6 form an independent construct, empirically distinguishable from other wellbeing-related constructs (e.g., general wellbeing, resilience, and emotion regulation). Convergent analyses showed wellbeing literacy was positively related to wellbeing and negatively related to illbeing. Incremental validity analyses showed wellbeing literacy predicted variance in wellbeing and illbeing after controlling for participant demographics, resilience, and emotion regulation, showing initial evidence of incremental validity. Conclusions: Our results provide preliminary evidence that wellbeing literacy is a distinct construct from wellbeing and illbeing, and it also demonstrates significant unique variance in these constructs over and above resilience and emotion regulation. The Well-Lit 6 is a useful provisional measure of wellbeing literacy, although we suggest a fruitful avenue for future research is to develop a more comprehensive scale of wellbeing literacy that denotes specific facets of communication, allowing a fuller exploration wellbeing literacy, its components, and their antecedents and consequences. We offer further recommendations for future research and discuss limitations with our approach.

Service delivery methods for adolescent language intervention in Australia: a scoping review

ABSTRACT Background Provision of language support for Australian adolescents with communication and learning needs is supported by Speech Pathology Australia (SPA) and the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). This literature review aims to describe the settings in which an adolescent may interact with speech and language pathology (SLP) services and the service delivery methods engaged for language intervention. Method A comprehensive and systematized database search was conducted. Extracted literature was measured against recognized quality, validity, and applicability standards then thematically analysed and critiqued. Results Australian research regarding service delivery settings and intervention methods for adolescents is scant. Prevalence rates were found to vary significantly across settings; however, available current data is limited and discrepancies within settings were found to be influenced by a range of factors. Available data demonstrated that Australian adolescents presently receive language intervention within secondary schools, health-based services, private practice, and juvenile justice. Service delivery methods used in these settings included one-on-one, pull-out methods, collaborative and consultative methods, and response to intervention. Conclusion High prevalence rates in juvenile justice and flexible learning programmes suggest significant need for language intervention which in turn may reflect the need for additional language support in secondary school settings to address the school-to-prison pipeline. Factors that influence SLPs’ decisions for service delivery methods are largely unknown from available Australian literature. Further research across all settings is critical to guide best practice principles for SLP service delivery decisions for this age group.

You Are Not Alone: Pre-Service Teachers’ Exploration of Ethics and Responsibility in a Compulsory Indigenous Education Subject

Aunty Mary Graham, Kombu-merri elder and philosopher, says: "You are not alone in the world." We have a responsibility to each other, as well as to the land; and violence is the refusal of this relationship that binds us (Rose). In this paper, I use Emannuel Levinas’s ethics as first philosophy and epistemological violence to consider how non-Indigenous educators come to know Indigenous people. In his philosophy, Levinas presents a paradox: that to act as if one is a free being, as first philosophy, is to ignore that one is not alone in the world and that the presence of others evokes responsibility. However, to claim to know another is to bring them into one’s totality, one’s knowledge framework; an act of reducing another to who you think they are. We must find a new relationship to knowledge, one that is not based on possession. For non-Indigenous educators learning about teaching Indigenous students and perspectives in schools, much of the curricular material draws on the corpus of knowledge constructed by non-Indigenous researchers, politicians, and professionals about Indigenous people (Nakata, Cultural Interface). This material is already bound by others' interests and motivations. How can non-Indigenous educators engage with Indigenous peoples, histories and knowledges in a way that foregrounds the responsibility that our entanglement prompts? In this paper, I present data from my research into pre-service teachers undertaking a compulsory university subject in Indigenous education, where the pre-service teachers wrote weekly reflective learning journals. This data is drawn primarily from the end of the semester, where students reflected on what their learning would mean as they moved into future practice. I explore the role of responsibility in regards to the ethical violence that Levinas discusses.

NAPLAN discourses: a systematic review after the first decade

ABSTRACT In 2018 NAPLAN (National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy) reached a 10-year milestone. Introduced in 2008 by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), NAPLAN assesses student literacy and numeracy in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. As a key education reform in Australia, NAPLAN has provoked critical debate across public, political and academic fora. This study synthesises themes emerging from a quantitative systematic review of NAPLAN-related literature to identify the main discourses that have emerged in response to this large-scale standardised assessment programme. The dominant discourses coalesce around ‘datafication’, ‘social justice’, ‘affect and emotion’, and ‘accountability and performativity’. The stakes are high in these discursive struggles around NAPLAN as large-scale standardised testing is reconstituting the purposes of education, the professionalism and professional identities of educators, and affecting parents and students’ engagement in schooling.

Teacher confidence to implement the principles, guidelines, and checkpoints of universal design for learning

ABSTRACTUniversal design for learning (UDL) is an inclusive pedagogical framework for breaking down barriers to the learning process for all students. The framework consists of 3 principles, 9 guidelines, and 31 checkpoints. UDL has been named by the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) as a recommendation for all classroom teachers in Australia as a means of personalising learning for students with disability and diverse learning needs. To measure the confidence of Australian teachers in implementing this inclusive pedagogical framework, 97 teachers were surveyed. Results demonstrated that primary teachers were generally more confident than secondary teachers at implementing the principles, guidelines, and checkpoints underlying UDL. However, in both groups confidence levels varied in relation to the underlying elements of the inclusive pedagogical framework. Both primary and secondary teachers were more confident at implementing principle one, compared with principles two and three. The implications of this study will be discussed.

The Australian curriculum: a critical interrogation of why, what and where to?

ᅟThis Garth Boomer Memorial Lecture contextualises in the broadest sense the creation of the Australian curriculum. As such, this sociological account will argue that the national curriculum is both a response to and articulation of globalisation, set against the intricate complexities of Australian educational federalism. The analysis will demonstrate how this emergence had a long and slow gestation and was enabled by the political contingency in 2007 of all Labor governments at the federal, state and territory levels. The Australian curriculum now has an institutional home in the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) and appears to have bipartisan political support, apart from ideological debates about what should be included. The lecture considers the Australian curriculum as working together what knowledge students need to know (disciplines) and what sort of people they ought to become (cross-curriculum priorities and general capabilities). The argument will situate the national curriculum against the broader national schooling policy assemblage (NAPLAN, My School, Melbourne Declaration, teacher and school leader standards) and interrogate it in terms of the limitations imposed by this contingent framing. These limiting factors include lack of an intellectual rationale, the distance of ACARA from schools, classrooms and teachers, and the restrictive legislative and compositional character of the Australian Institute for Teachers and School Leaders (AITSL), which frames standards for teachers, who are central to the productive enactment of the Australian curriculum. The overall argument is set against Garth Boomer’s innovative curriculum theorising

Teaching Asia: English Pedagogy and Asia Literacy within the Australian Curriculum

The study was prompted by the introduction of three cross-curriculum priorities within the new Australian Curriculum, and the growing emphasis for students to become ‘Asia literate’. It aimed to examine the attitudes that New South Wales English teachers currently hold towards addressing the cross-curriculum priority ‘Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia’ within 7–10 classrooms. Sociocultural theory and qualitative research were utilised as a means of exploring and accounting for the ways in which these attitudes have been shaped, and the implications this has on curriculum enactment. The study examines the influences that have shaped teacher attitudes towards addressing the cross-curriculum priority, the perceived evidence of political and economic motivations behind the inclusion of the priority, how English teachers define ‘Asia’ and the consistency of such definitions with those put forth by The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), and whether English teachers feel prepared to address this cross-curriculum priority in a way that enriches student learning and literacy. The research findings reflect that although English teachers believe that there is value in addressing the cross-curriculum priority, many feel ill-equipped or under-resourced to address it in a way that promotes deep learning and understanding for students.

Positioning Australia’s contemporary health and physical education curriculum to address poor physical activity participation rates by adolescent girls

Background: Given the wealth of research identifying how schools are in a strong position to promote physical activity (PA) among children, it would be reasonable to suggest that initial experiences of physical education and school sport are critical factors influencing whether a student will develop a healthy relationship to PA. However, research in Australia equally identifies how secondary school-aged young people are increasingly failing to meet national guidelines concerning PA levels and participation rates, with adolescent girls displaying the most disturbing trends. Purpose: This paper examines how the recent Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) Health and Physical Education (HPE) structure aims to address such concerns as poor PA levels and participation rates by adolescent girls. Methods: A theoretical approach, consisting of document and literature analysis, was undertaken to develop insights into the current developments surrounding the ACARA HPE implementation, in an attempt to address identified socio-cultural issues within contemporary HPE practices. Such an approach is aimed at heightening effective pedagogy. Conclusion: This paper provides a vision for supporting future student inclusion in HPE, by acknowledging potential barriers to the adoption of PA by adolescent girls and identifying strategies that will collectively promote curriculum priorities and classroom practices accordingly.

Who’s steering the ship? National curriculum reform and the re-shaping of Australian federalism

This paper explores the repositioning of state curriculum agencies in response to the establishment of the Australian Curriculum and the key national policy organisation responsible for its development: the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). I begin with an analysis of the federal Labor government’s role in the early years of the Australian Curriculum reform, arguing that Labor was afforded a rare window of political opportunity that enabled the fundamental restructuring of curriculum policy at the national level, and which has significantly altered intergovernmental and inter-agency relationships. Following this, I engage with research literature that has sought to theorise the changing nature of Australian federalism in relation to schooling reform. I then present an empirical analysis based on interviews with policy-makers in ACARA and curriculum agencies in four Australian states (Western Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria). My analysis draws attention to three dominant trends: powerful new roles for ACARA in driving national reform and inter-agency collaboration; increased policy overlap and blurred lines of responsibility; and an uneven playing field of intergovernmental and inter-agency relationships and powers. I conclude by considering the implications of emerging reform trends for conceptualising the shifting dynamics of federalism in Australia and beyond.

Curriculum visions: The Australian Curriculum, Assessment, and Reporting Authority (ACARA) and Dwayne Huebner discuss civics and citizenship

This article considers the Australian Curriculum, Assessment, and Reporting Authority's (ACARA) plan for Civics and Citizenship, assessing the role of religions therein. Through a dialectical hermeneutic, ACARA is brought into a mutually critical conversation with the work of curriculum theorist Dwayne Huebner. Both of their distinct visions are found to make space for diverse religious identities, and to affirm students taking responsibility for what they make of this world. They clash, however, over the path to societal harmony and the place given to discussing our deepest differences in belief and practice. In this article it is argued that a constructive use of Sacred Texts in Civics and Citizenship may facilitate a synergy between ACARA and Huebner that is educationally viable and democratically profitable. This would require that curriculum content is decentred to serve a dialogical pedagogy built on the sharing of our foundational narratives as together we pursue the common good.

The new Australian Health and Physical Education Curriculum: a case of/for gradualism in curriculum reform?

In March 2012, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) released for public consultation the Shape Paper for the Australian Curriculum: Health and Physical Education (HPE) that was finalized for publication in August 2012. This paper set out the key propositions for a ‘futures-oriented’ curriculum suggesting that HPE should: take a strengths-based approach; focus on educative outcomes; develop health literacy skills; value learning in, about and through movement; and include an inquiry-based approach. As the Lead Writer of the Shape Paper, I believed my task was to consider both what is and what could be. This Fritz Duras Lecture introduces the research and thinking behind the HPE Shape Paper, helping to illuminate this case of curriculum-making. It also reflexively asks if this case is notable for its gradualism, interrogating the strengths and weaknesses of gradualism as applied in curriculum reform.

Australian Students with Disabilities Accessing NAPLAN: Lessons from a decade of inclusive assessment in the United States

Australian legislation and educational policies may espouse, but not yet fully enact, inclusive assessments for all. In relation to the National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), for example, almost 5% of students are either exempt or withdrawn. The achievement levels of these students, many of whom have disabilities, are not being accurately benchmarked. In contrast, the United States, for more than a decade, has been developing and applying a range of strategies in an effort to provide assessment for all students. Lessons from these experiences are summarised, and three key strategies are provided, to assist the Australian Curriculum, Assessment, and Reporting Authority (ACARA) and associated testing authorities in promoting the development and implementation of a more effective and inclusive assessment regime for all Australian students.

The Cost of Quality and Coherence: An Investigation of Early Childhood Teacher Workloads

In Australia, profound changes are occurring in relation to early childhood education. The introduction of a National Quality Reform Agenda by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in July 2010 has developed a National Quality Standard to improve the quality of early childhood education and care in states and territories across the country. Concurrently, Australian education is in the midst of the roll-out of its first national curriculum. The Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) was established in December 2008 and charged with the task of improving the coherence and quality of curriculum, assessment and reporting across Australia. The convergence of these two major reform agendas at this point in time have had significant implications for early childhood professionals in Australia. Recently, a pilot study of early childhood teachers employed in the state of Queensland (Kindergarten - Year 3) was conducted. The purpose of the study was to better understand the way in which the national reform agendas in the areas of curriculum are impacting current teaching practices and workloads. This paper presents the findings from this study in light of the literature, and highlights key issues arising from the research.

Australian teacher education reforms: reinforcing the problem or providing a solution?

Educational reform represents a long-term focus of Australian governments. National policy documents have emphasised quality education for all and improved teacher quality for over 30 years. The gaps in achievement among various groups of learners represent a problem for an education system seeking to achieve national quality benchmarks, standardised levels of teacher quality and common outcome for all Australian learners. The national response to address this condition includes a set of initiatives to standardise teacher quality. This paper includes descriptions of selected national quality initiatives: the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) and Education Services Australia (ESA). Their inclusion provides the reader with an opportunity better to understand these initiatives. The paper concludes with a discussion of some potential scenarios resulting from the implementation of these quality initiatives in an effort to standardise the quality of teacher education across Australia.

National curriculum and federalism: the Australian experience

Whilst the past 35 years have seen numerous attempts at national curriculum collaboration in Australia, these have invariably failed largely due to the constitutional reality that the States have responsibility for curriculum. Federal government involvement in curriculum can only be achieved, therefore, with the consent of the States. To achieve this, in 2008 the Rudd Federal government passed the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) Act (2008) which legislated the establishment of ACARA, a national education authority which brought together, for the first time ‘the functions of curriculum, assessment and reporting at the national level’ (Julia Gillard, media release, 2008). Among its mandates, ACARA is responsible for the development of national curriculum, one of the key election platforms on which the current Rudd Federal Labor government was elected in November 2007. Whilst the ACARA Act appears on the surface to represent unprecedented intergovernmental collaboration and a transition to co‐operative federalism; cracks in this co‐operative veneer are starting to appear. In this article I draw on critical theory to examine three varied forms of Federal–State relations spanning three different eras, as they relate to issues of national curriculum – those of corporate federalism, coercive federalism and co‐operative federalism. Specifically, I will argue that the ACARA Act is not an instrument of co‐operative federalism but rather a euphemism for a continued reliance on a new, more subtle form of coercive federalism as a means to ‘deliver’ national curriculum in Australia.

The Australian Curriculum: A Look Through the Lens of Christian Education

The development of the Australian Curriculum is an ambitious task that involves meeting the needs of a large range of interest groups, each with its underlying philosophy and conceptualisation of what constitutes an effective and viable curriculum. The context of independent, Christian education systems and schools adds an important dimension to a discussion of the challenges that confront teachers and administrators as we move towards the implementation of a national curriculum. The observations and questions presented in this paper are not exhaustive, but are based on seminars and consultation sessions, discussions with a variety of teachers and subject coordinators, and wide reading of the documentation that has been forthcoming from the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) and other sources. The purpose of this paper is to promote discussion and reflection relating to the issues that confront teachers and educational institutions as they prepare for the implementation of the Australian Curriculum, particularly in the context of Christian education.

The Interaction Between Text Difficulty and Translation Accuracy

ABSTRACT The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) has been developing language-specific curricula for a range of languages in the Australian Curriculum: Languages and has also undertaken development of a Framework for Australian Languages, to provide guidance for the development of curricula for specific Australian Languages (Aboriginal languages and Torres Strait Islander languages) to accommodate the varied situations across Indigenous Australia. Foremost among the challenges for the Framework for Australian Languages is the multiplicity of languages potentially to be covered. It is estimated that there were some 250 Australian Languages at the time of the first sustained contact with outsiders. Of these only about 20 are still spoken 'right through'. The other languages are in various states ranging from minimal documentation and language use through to significant advances in language revitalisation (Walsh, 2001). Because there are so many languages, the framework is not, and cannot be, a language-specific curriculum. The learner pathways for the framework are: first language learner, language revival learner and second language learner. Typically the first language learner pathway will be for Indigenous students 'on country' in more remote parts of Australia. The second language pathway, on the other hand, will typically be learned 'off country' as is the case for Pitjantjatjara in places like Adelaide and other centres in South Australia quite distant from the Pitjantjatjara homelands. The largest array of languages is in the language revival learner pathway, which will most often be studied by non-Indigenous as well as Indigenous students. In this article we explore some of the framework's challenges in embracing the concept of Babel- from the Biblical story of the scattering of people across the earth and the 'confounding' of communication through the introduction of multiple languages. KEY WORDS Australian Curriculum, curriculum, curriculum development, Aboriginal languages, Torres Strait Islander languages, intercultural language learning, curriculum design, linguistic and cultural diversity [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE FRAMEWORK FOR AUSTRALIAN LANGUAGES The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) has been developing language-specific curricula for a range of languages, and has also undertaken the development of the Framework for Australian Languages (hereafter the Framework). This document will provide guidance for the development of curricula for specific Australian Languages. It therefore has been pitched at a high level of generality so as to be able to accommodate the varied situations across Indigenous Australia. One point of comparison might be to consider what a Framework for European Languages might look like: it would need to cover Finnish and French as well as German and Greek! The Framework has been designed so as to assist people in developing a language-specific curriculum for potentially any of the 250 Australian Languages. THE ECOLOGY OF AUSTRALIAN LANGUAGES Broadly speaking, it is estimated that there were 250 Australian Languages at first significant outside contact. Roughly 20 of these are still spoken 'right through' with the remainder in various stages of decline or revival (Schmidt, 1990, p. 1-2; Commonwealth of Australia, 2012, p. 34). In addition, for most languages there is dialectal variation which can be important for group identity and thus adds to the complexity of the overall linguistic situation (see, for example, Dixon, 2010). Particularly over recent decades there has been an extraordinary increase in language revitalisation activity (e.g. Troy & Walsh, 2010; Walsh, 2001). Some languages that had been written off are gaining new texts and new vocabulary. One such example is Butchulla from south-east Queensland for which a lullaby has been performed and written by the Aboriginal language activist, Joy Bonner (see https://open. …