From the ALL Team

Since the launch of our publication Choice and Fairness: A Common Framework for all Australian schools, we have given many briefings to different organisations, politicians, and interested individuals and have engaged with the media to move the discussion from the status quo to how Australia could have a more equitable school system. We also presented our proposal to the National School Reform Agreement panel in late September.

This week the PISA results have been published. The data supports the overview we raised in our publication – Australia has a two-speed education system driven by social segregation and inequality related to funding and resources. We can see clearly through the data that 15-year-olds from disadvantaged families are now five years behind their peers. Our system is not meeting the needs of every child.

Next week, we expect that the Education Ministers will discuss the Expert Panel’s report to inform a better and fairer education system. This coincides with VCE and HSC results. We will share our insight into what these major education announcements reveal.

Our work to promote a common framework for Australian schools will not end once the review has made its findings known. We plan to continue the conversation in conjunction with other organisations through roundtables and forums with politicians, educators, researchers, and the media. One initiative is our supporting the Australian Secondary Principals’ Association’s National Equity Summit in March, building on the ‘next steps’ we outlined in Choice and Fairness.

We continue to support efforts to move beyond the ATAR ranking system to a Learner Profile and the assessment of a broader set of student skills. This year we have been working in collaboration with Melbourne Assessment, Deakin University, University of Melbourne, RMIT, and the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre to put in place a trial of learner profiles as part of tertiary admissions. It is an exciting development to have an alliance of this kind testing this new form of assessment

Building on student passions to create deep learning remains a priority for us.  We have launched a series of professional development materials with COOL Australia. These will be trialled next year by schools under the leadership of the South Australian Association of School Principals. We look forward to sharing more later as we learn from what works.

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From the ALL team.