there is evidence inclusive schooling will help those left behind
- Written by Linda J. Graham, Professor in the School of Early Childhood & Inclusive Education, Queensland University of Technology
The recently released Gonski 2.0 Review aimed to examine how school funding should be used to improve school performance and student outcomes. A particular area of focus was to improve outcomes across all student cohorts including disadvantaged and vulnerable students, and academically advanced (“gifted”) students.
The report sets out a radically different vision of Australian school education but does not fully explain how this vision can be achieved.
Read more: Gonski review reveals another grand plan to overhaul education: but do we really need it?
This omission has been rightly criticised. But there has been little acknowledgement of the positives in the report or the problems it seeks to address. These problems are real and are important to confront as they affect us all and will increase in the future.
By far the biggest problem is more than one quarter of Australian school students are “missing out” from their school education. This affects their ability to participate in an increasingly high skills economy, setting them up for a lifetime of precarious work or welfare dependency.
The presumption has always been that these students just aren’t “smart enough” to “keep up” and seldom is the need to do so questioned. Gonski 2.0 changes that by recognising and challenging deep fault lines in our education system that have extremely negative equity effects.
What’s the problem?
The report notes our current age/grade system leaves too many students behind. It acknowledges the huge range in the learning readiness of students the same age, stating the:
most advanced students in a year group can be five to six years ahead of the least advanced.
The presence of this gap does not mean students at the lower end are destined to remain there. These students can and do succeed, but it takes the right supports from expert teachers and the time to provide them.
Yet, our system is currently structured in such a way that those who fall behind get left behind. This is because the Australian curriculum is content heavy and the pressure to cover this content over the course of a year leaves teachers with little time to provide the individualised support needed by almost one in five Australian students.
“Summative assessment”, or benchmarking, is used as a blunt tool to determine what students have or have not learned. They are then graded A-E against the achievement standards. In some schools they’re also ranked against their peers.
By the end of their schooling, some 26% have still not achieved a Year 12 Certificate or its equivalent.
What is Gonski’s solution?
The report proposes a “radical” new approach based on:
all students being educated in mixed-ability classrooms
greater use of formative assessment to determine where students are in their learning
differentiated teaching to meet students at their respective point of need
a redirection in focus from comparative achievement against an age/grade standard to individual growth in achievement against a defined learning progression.
Authors: Linda J. Graham, Professor in the School of Early Childhood & Inclusive Education, Queensland University of Technology