Background: This article reports research about the experiences of families with an adult child with intellectual disability as they engaged in the NDIS planning processes in Australia. Method: Parents of 19 adults with intellectual disability responded to a number of closed and Likert-type items and provided comments. Responses are reported using…

The higher education sector operates in an increasingly complex global environment that is placing it under considerable stress and resulting in widespread change to the operating context and leadership of higher education institutions. The outcome has been the increased likelihood of conflict between academics and senior leaders, presaging the…

Distributed leadership has been explored internationally as a leadership model that will promote and advance excellence in learning and teaching in higher education. This paper presents an assessment of how effectively distributed leadership was enabled at five Australian institutions implementing a collaborative teaching quality development…

The literature suggests that collaborative approaches to leadership, such as distributed leadership, are essential for supporting educational innovators in leading change in teaching in universities. This paper briefly describes the array of activities, processes and resources to support distributed leadership in the implementation of a network,…

Peer review of teaching is recognized increasingly as one strategy for academic development even though historically peer review of teaching is often unsupported by policy, action and culture in many Australian universities. Higher education leaders report that academics generally do not engage with peer review of teaching in a systematic or…

Implementing educational reform requires partnerships, and university-school collaborations in the form of investigative and experimental projects can aim to determine the practicalities of reform. However, there are funded projects that do not achieve intended outcomes. In the context of a new reform initiative in education, namely, science,…

Findings of a 3-year study of the policy implementation process in three western Australian secondary schools are presented in this paper, which focuses on the macro and micro aspects of implementation. To examine responses to the formation of school-based decision-making groups, methodology involved: (1) document analysis; (2) interviews with…

This paper presents findings of a case study that examined Australian primary teachers' perceptions of school-based curriculum development (SBCD). The study was conducted at Blackpool Primary School, a Catholic school in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Data were derived from participant observation, a teacher questionnaire, interviews with all…

Central to restructuring efforts in Australia was the establishment of school decision-making groups (SDMGs), which gave school staff and community representatives more autonomy over decisions concerning educational policy and school development. This paper presents findings of a study that examined the responses of three secondary schools to the…

This paper presents findings of a study that described the existing nature of school-based management (SBM) structures and procedures associated with school-development planning in Western Australia. It also examined the impact of SBM on the curriculum and professional activities of teachers. Data were obtained through analysis of official policy…

Recent efforts by the Ministry of Education in the state of Victoria, Australia, to combine decentralization of educational policy decision making with guidance for local schools in the development of appropriate curricula were the focus of this symposium. The six presentations made on that occasion are collected in this document. Robin Matthews's…

Examines the emergence and early implementation stages of Queensland (Australia) Education Department's policy for devolving responsibility to state schools. Clarifies the department's rhetoric in developing and promoting its decentralization policy; examines policy efficacy at the "school face" level; explores possible policy outcomes,…

A 3-year research program on workplace learning was based on action research and involved the gradual implementation of "Work Activity Briefings" every 2 weeks or whenever a major task was to be undertaken at selected construction sites managed by an Australian mining and construction company. The briefings were regular meetings between…

Student Action Teams (SATs) were established in 20 Victoria, Australia, secondary schools in 1999, with 11 of those schools continuing with their teams in 2000. The Student Action Teams are comprised of groups of students who identify a school or community issue, research it, make plans and proposals about it, and take action on it. Such…