Transcript What's mainstream? - Education Queensland

Education and Training
Reforms for the Future
The future of every young
Queenslander depends on their ability
to achieve high-level qualifications…
What’s Mainstream?
 Dusseldorp Skills Forum Research
Study in South East Queensland
 Examine implementation of ETRF
 Identify features of provision to
inform education systems
 Provide rich understanding of
perceptions, aspirations and
experiences of students and
practitioners
What’s Mainstream?
Research Questions
 What kinds of programs emerge to meet
needs of ‘at risk’ students?
 How do learning options differ?
 How do student populations differ?
 What are barriers to full participation?
 What characterises successful programs?
 What are the outcomes?
 Is a new form of ‘mainstream’ emerging?
 What lessons can ‘mainstream’ draw?
Positive findings
Most students are happy and feel safe
Most teachers are dedicated and caring
Students are remarkably tenacious
Students are perceptive and fair
Students value education
Deputies are held in particularly high
esteem
 New partnerships are developing
 There’s an honest appraisal of the
challenges
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Key findings
 Schools are changing – but is it
enough?
 Student support – but learning
improvement?
 Flexible centres retain students – but
do they provide valued credentials?
 Pathways to work – but is this the
sole business of education?
Key issues
 Re-entry is difficult
 Two stream curriculum – privileged
pathways
 Minimum change to non-VET curriculum
 Regressive pedagogies persist
 Content protectors and behaviour
managers
 Deep learning, teaching for understanding,
learning how to learn?
Further issues
 Cultural assumptions and expectations
 Desire for control and conformity
 Students want respect and a positive role in
schooling
 Professional learning needs of staff
 New labels and blame games?
 Attendance, literacy skills, behaviour
 Scramble for funds
What young people say:
 Successful teachers are ‘mad’: quirky, fun and they
listen to you; when a teacher can make you laugh,
you want to be at school
 When people do extra for us, we don’t want to let
them or ourselves down
 It’s not a shame to have a kid; you can still be a
student learner
 Some schools bother too much about the small things
 It was better in primary; secondary just didn’t work
for me, so I dropped out
 A teacher can turn a kid around: if they don’t attack
you personally, they fix behaviours and still respect
you
 Education is important for a job and for life…we just
don’t know the pathway and we keep going off track
What practitioners say:
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We have a strong emphasis on social justice, from a
position of firmness and fairness, underpinned by care
In this community, they’re authentic people with aspirations
The only way to re-engage students is to focus on their
needs
Feisty is good; feisty is resilient; without feisty some of
these kids would be dead
If you get it right in Middle Phase in managing behaviour
and curriculum, it pays off later
Kids here live with very great issues; they’re malleable, not
resilient yet
We use codes of behaviour, but the focus is on activities
where it’s fun to be and kids become more responsible
The creative process is inevitably skill building
I think we need some ‘spring in the fence’ rather than ‘zero
tolerance’
Key points of agreement
 Sorting students has (unfortunately) always
been a high school’s major function
 Traditional models carry deep cultural
assumptions
 Without confronting assumptions, new
models will lead to the same outcomes
 Australia has moved from ‘equal
opportunities’ to ‘equal outcomes’
 Do we have equitable inputs to lead to
these outcomes?
Further agreement
 Today, good jobs require literacy and
problem-solving skills
 It’s not ‘fodder for the industrial
machine’, it’s democracy that loses
 Partnership between schools and
communities is vital
 Creation of smaller learning
environments is essential
 A multistrand strategy is crucial
8. Lessons from successful
provision
 Substructures to make dynamics
manageable
 Relationships based on respect
 Relevant curriculum
 Minimum conformity/maximum democracy
 High expectations with targeted support
 Site level autonomy
 Teaching and learning reform
 Differentiated and reliable resourcing
The future of every young
Queenslander depends…
This reform is about engaging young
people in learning
You can’t even really mandate
attendance, much less participation
DSF believes in robust, rigorous options
that embrace creative pedagogy,
content and relationships…
Schools should be civilizing places