The quality of writing 7–13

This article examines the implications of the Primary Strategy for primary school teachers. It focuses on the framework for learning and teaching across the curriculum (DfES, 2003, Chapter 3 ‘Excellent primary teaching’) and questions whether the new framework is in fact a return to a ‘whole’ curriculum approach. The key issues explored are: curriculum and assessment; and sharing practice; all of which present challenges for primary teachers. The downward impact of curriculum and assessment issues on the early years is considered.     

Re-reading the reading lesson: episodes in the history of reading pedagogy

Reading pedagogy is constantly an object of discussion and debate in contemporary policy and practice but is rarely a matter for historical inquiry. This paper reports from a recent study of the history of reading pedagogy in Australia and beyond. It focuses on a recurring figure in the historical record—the ‘reading lesson’. Presented as a distinctive trope, the reading lesson is traced in its regularity in and through the discourse of reading pedagogy, starting in 1930s Australia and moving back into 19th-century Europe, and with specific reference to the UK and the USA. Teaching reading is expressly identified as a moral project—something that, it can be argued, clearly continues into the present.     

Free Gay Community Newspapers: Advertising Synergies Led To Expansion

In the 1990s a key shift occurred in Australian gay publishing with the rapid expansion of free city-based newspapers. These increasingly commercialized free newspapers adopted a business model based on seeking more readers in order to attract more advertisers. Their success was such that the overall national print run of gay and lesbian publications increased six-fold between the start and the end of the decade, 90% of which were free newspapers. This expansion coincided with the growth of a visibly more diverse gay and lesbian community. Newspaper publishers adopted building and defending this community as their primary political project that allowed a range of synergies to develop between the newspapers and the growing number of community groups, events and businesses. Each helped the other grow which led to greater knowledge of the community's activities and its political aspirations.     

The involvement of external agencies in extra-curricular physical education: reinforcing or challenging gender and ability inequities?

Within the UK and internationally, schools are increasingly being encouraged to call on external agencies and draw on the services of individuals, including sport coaches, to ‘help teach or lead sports within the school setting and out of school time’. This trend arises from and has contributed to a changing policy landscape and relations that characterise ‘physical education and school sport’ (PESS) and the growing use of the terminology of ‘PESS’. Previous research has highlighted that neither PESS considered broadly as a policy space, nor specific initiatives centring on ‘partnership-based’ development of physical education (PE) and/or sport in schools, can be assumed to facilitate greater equity in provision for young people. This study reports on research that has sought to build on past studies revealing gender and ability inequities amidst PESS developments. The research was designed as a small-scale case study investigation to critically explore the equity-related messages being conveyed in and through the hidden curriculum in a context of coaches’ involvement in extra-curricular provision. Utilising observations and interviews with coaches and PE teachers, data collection focused on ways in which ideas of ability, masculinity and femininity were being constructed and reproduced in and through coach's pedagogy, and sought insight into the prospective impact of the particular constructions on girls’ and boys’ involvement in extra-curricular PE. Analysis revealed that the hidden curriculum expressed in and through the organisation of extra-curricular PE and coaches’ pedagogical practices in this context can be seen as reaffirming limited conceptions of ability in PE and gender inequity in relation to girls’ and boys’ respective participation opportunities. Discussion critically addresses the relationship between policy and pedagogy in PESS in pursuing apparently ongoing tendencies for long-standing inequities to be reproduced in and through extra-curricular provision.