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 this case study, Angela Helsloot, Principal at Allambie Heights Public School, on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, uses data from standardised tests and benchmark reading assessments across the school to show the positive impact that Sounds-Write instruction has had in Kindergarten and Year 1. [For the complete volume, "Systematic Synthetic…

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 paper explores the complex problem of project sustainability, focusing on the leadership of three primary school mathematics leaders. Using cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), the leaders' efforts are reported, highlighting their contribution to project sustainability. The CHAT-informed research design supported the generation of…

Literacy interventions are a common educational response for supporting students with literacy difficulties. Australian schools historically offered such programs,, though recent studies were not found in the research literature. This paper reports on school-level and literacy intervention data for a randomly selected sample of 366 schools, from…

This paper claims a central role for school leaders (principals or head-teachers) in the enactment of social justice policy in schools, who act as key agents or 'gate keepers' for what counts as social justice in their contexts of practice. Social justice means different things in different contexts depending on where leaders -- who use policy as…

There is significant research addressing identities in mathematics focusing on school children and maximizing testing scores. However, mathematics confidence in preservice teachers is something that needs further attention as they will have foundational roles in students developing lifelong mathematics identities. Hence, mathematics confidence in…

Poor mathematics achievement in middle school students is evident in many countries. While some of the difficulties can be attributed to student related factors, there is considerable evidence that computational automaticity is essential for mathematics achievement. A QuickSmart (QS) mathematics intervention program was trialled with a group of…

There has been a major and growing international focus on improving the quality of teaching for decades. In Australia, there have been numerous key national initiatives introduced since 2007 with the aim of improving school, teacher and student performance. These include national testing and reporting of student achievement, national professional…