Please note that the journal has been published in a limited form this issue, as work continues on the development of the journal's forthcoming interactive digital edition. See details in the report below.
Curriculum Leadership is delighted to announce new support from two key education partners, The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) and The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL). These organisations will be working closely with the journal’s parent organisation, Education Services Australia (ESA), on future editions, guiding the strategic direction, planning and delivery of the journal. At the same time the journal will continue to offer an independent service to school leaders and other educators, providing articles, literature summaries and news representing a wide range of views within the Australian education community. The collaboration with AITSL and ACARA will support ESA in the delivery of some exciting improvements to the journal. In particular, the familiar web-based version will be complemented by an interactive digital edition. This image-rich version of the journal will be published monthly and will consolidate selected content from the fortnightly web version. Developed initially for iPads, it will be free to download and available at the App Store. An announcement will be made in the web version of the journal as soon as the first digital edition is available. The interactive digital edition will also be made accessible via android devices in the near future. Marking the new collaboration, Curriculum Leadership will henceforth be titled Curriculum and Leadership Journal.
International research provides compelling evidence that school libraries and teacher-librarians make a significant contribution to student literacy and learning outcomes. After summarising previous research, this article presents recent research focused on Gold Coast schools. These new Australian findings offer an evidenced based snapshot of school libraries and teacher-librarians, from the principals’ perspective. They indicate that school NAPLAN scores for reading and writing were generally higher when student-to-library staff ratios were lower and when the school employed a teacher-librarian. In light of the National Plan for School Improvement, the findings are of potential interest to education authorities, policy makers, school leadership teams, teacher-librarians, teachers, parents and researchers. They offer evidence to inform policy development and strategic planning for school libraries and professional staffing.
Researchers have trialled the use of a new resource to meet the needs of science students who are learning English as an additional language – Teaching Science.
The subject of geography offers a distinctive way to approach citizenship education, and in particular the links between citizenship education and issues surrounding ethnic diversity – SAGE Open.