Academic literature on the topic 'Central Queensland schools'

The Queensland School Reader series occupies a special place in the childhood memories of many Queenslanders, evoking mixed reactions from those who used them. The Readers were significant because in Queensland schools they were used, virtually unaltered, for close to fifty years. They were central to the early school experiences of at least two generations of Queensland children - central because for many years other sources of reading material were scarce - particularly in isolated areas. Consequently, teachers based much of their teaching on the Readers which, in turn, were carefully “rationed” out in small doses to ensure that they lasted the allotted time. Other sources, such as The School Paper, were used as supplements but textbooks were in short supply, particularly during the Great Depression and war years.

Internationally, there is a growing body of research on industry-school partnership, particularly regarding the principles that contribute to effective and efficient partnership models that facilitate vocational-industrial education. However, there are very few articles in the literature that seek to understand the sustainability of industry-school partnerships. Hence, this paper adopted ecological system principles as a framework for understanding the threats that impact on the sustainability of such partnership arrangements. The author reports on a large-scale government led industry-school partnership, the Gateway to Industry Schools Program, established in Queensland, Australia. Central to this initiative is the Queensland Minerals and Energy Academy (QMEA), a lead organisation for 34 schools and 12 multi-national sponsor companies. This research used an explanatory case study methodology sourcing data through interviews and documents. The main findings were that resilience and adaptive capacity are critical principles for the sustainability of ISPs.

The present study examined the occupational aspirations and career development influences of children attending Years 6 and 7 at a sample of rural and remote primary schools in the central western region of Queensland. Data was collected by means of the Revised Career Awareness Survey (McMahon & Patton, 2001). Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO) codes were used to analyse the participants' occupational aspirations and the Systems Theory Framework categories were used to analyse the influences on their career development. The children's occupational aspirations were compared with state and regional labour market information. Recommendations related to career development interventions in the context of the school, family and community and future research are made.

Under the Distance Education Plan of the NSW Department of School Education, the provision of a full secondary education to rural students has been enhanced through the use of technology based communication networks. In the Riverina region of New South Wales, a pilot project linking three Central Schools into a cluster commenced in 1990. This pilot project is known as the Telematics Access Program and is similar to other projects in operation in Victoria and Queensland. Each school is linked to the other schools in the cluster by teleconference, fax and electronic blackboard computer facilities. Through the schools in the cluster sharing teacher expertise and using the technology to link students and teachers, a comprehensive Years 11 and 12 curriculum has been offered to these students. Students can select from 17 subjects currently available.

Vocational choice has been a critical issue for rural Queensland families for many years although it remains a little documented aspect of the lives of secondary school students and their parents who live in the outback. While rural education has received official recognition as an area of disadvantage in the Australian education system for almost two decades (Schools Commission, 1975; Commission of Inquiry into Poverty in Australia, 1976) vocational choice in outback schools, which is central to the relationships between both school and work and school and tertiary education, has not been prominent in the research literature in spite of several recent reports (Boomer, 1988; Australian Education Council Review Committee, 1991; National Board of Employment, Education and Training, 1991). This research project has been designed to investigate the processes of post secondary school education and vocational choices for families in a representative community and to consider the implications of this issue for schools and policy makers. The research project was initiated by Dr David McSwan of James Cook University's Rural Education Research and Development Centre and Dr Ken Stevens of the Faculty of Education at Victoria University in Wellington in New Zealand. Specifically, the research will investigate how families with year ten, eleven and twelve students in a selected North Queensland community make choices about post secondary school education and careers.

When considering the question of reading provision in remote regions, Australian historians have tended to focus on the challenge of distributing books and other reading matter affordably across vast and sparsely populated areas. In the back-blocks of Western Queensland between the wars, however, the problem of distribution had been addressed with some success: by mail orders to metropolitan book retailers, subsidised postal rates, local Schools of Arts libraries, the Workers’ Educational Association and, above all, the efficient operations of the Queensland Bush Book Club, which performed extraordinary feats of remote distribution throughout the interwar period. Isolated booklovers could almost take for granted a steady — if somewhat limited and belated — supply of books to read. Two things they could not take for granted, however, were reliable, disinterested and informed advice about what books to choose (where choice was available) and — even more important — the opportunity to share their reading experiences with others. Walter Murdoch once said, ‘It is a basic fact that when you have read a book you want to talk about it.’ That may overstate the case a little, but there is no doubt that the desire to communicate the pleasures, occasional disappointments and sense of discovery in reading books — no matter how solitary the reading experience itself may have been — was and is very strong and widespread, and that single families or households did not then (and do not now) necessarily provide congenial environments for such ‘book talk’.

Teachers are effective agents who can introduce and support students’ self-regulated learning (SRL) in classrooms. This qualitative study presents an integrative, ecological model of SRL-in-context from the teachers’ perspectives. Data were obtained from in-depth interviews, participant observations and informal conversations gathered from the classrooms of six teachers working in three different state primary schools located in Queensland, Australia. The model builds on teachers’ beliefs and understandings about SRL, the different ways through which they adopt SRL-supportive practices and the enactment of SRL in classrooms. It represents a complex structure of nested and mutually dependent systems with teachers having a central position, thereby forming the microsystem. However, teachers’ efforts to support students’ SRL are influenced by the exosystem (e.g., school, curriculum) and macrosystem (e.g., home, community) in a reciprocal fashion. The SRL-in-context model has implications for both theory and practice.

Sixteen eager, curious, faces from six to twelve years looked back at me on this, my first day of school in Gunpowder. To set the scene: it was a small, rural community near Mount Isa in central Queensland. The classroom was big. It fitted all of the students' desks in a U shape, the teacher's desk, three work stations and had floor space to spare. Last year's work hung from the walls and ceiling. I was working with the principal and sole teacher Mrs Jacques. I was nervous, excited and eager to start this new year. Having participated in the Isolated Children's Project at the beginning of 1998, when the opportunity arose to participate in the Isolated Schools Project 9ISP) again, I leapt at the chance to apply for a second time'. As a soon-to-be graduate, I wanted to gain as much experience in as many various teaching avenues as I could. This was the perfect opportunity.

Residential schools are an important mechanism by which equitable access to laboratory provide hands-on experience and face-to-face learning for students enrolled in distance mode. This paper elaborates on the evaluation of residential school conducted as a part of undergraduate materials science and engineering course for the distance/flexible students enrolled at Central Queensland University, Australia. The students in this course are adult students who are employed full-time as practitioners and juggling with work, family, and study commitments. This cohort differs greatly in their technical knowledge and professional experience from the students who are enrolled internally. Internal students are predominately students who have progressed from secondary school to tertiary education without any workplace experience. A three day residential school provided the opportunity for students to work individually (undertake quizzes) and as a group (conduct laboratories, pursue group project) to ensure they had access to lecturers and their peers in progressing their tasks and assessment items. The students travelled from throughout Australia to attend the residential school and its design acknowledges the need for the time allocated to be focused, meaningful and worthwhile so students can maximise time at the residential (and the subsequent follow up activities) and minimise time away from the workplace.

With approximately half of Australian university teaching now performed by Sessional Academics, there has been growing recognition of the contribution they make to student learning. At the same time, sectorwide research and institutional audits continue to raise concerns about academic development, quality assurance, recognition and belonging (Red Report, 2008; May, 2013). In response, universities have increasingly begun to offer academic development programs for Sessional Academics. However, such programs tend to be centrally delivered, generic in nature, and contained within the moment of delivery, while the Faculty contexts and cultures that Sessional Academics work within are diverse, and the need for support unfolds in ad-hoc and often unpredictable ways. In this paper we present the Sessional Academic Success (SAS) program – a new framework that complements and extends the central academic development program for Sessional Academics at Queensland University of Technology. This program recognizes that experienced Sessional Academics have much to contribute to the advancement of learning and teaching, and harnesses their expertise to provide school-based academic development opportunities, peer-to-peer support, and locally contextualized community building. We describe the program’s implementation and explain how Sessional Academic Success Advisors (SASAs) are employed, trained and supported to provide advice and mentorship and, through a co-design methodology, to develop local development opportunities and communities of teaching practice within their schools. Besides anticipated benefits to new Sessional Academics in terms of timely and contextual support and improved sense of belonging, we explain how SAS provides a pathway for building leadership capacity and academic advancement for experienced Sessional Academics. We take a collaborative, dialogic and reflective practice approach to this paper, interlacing insights from the Associate Director, Academic: Sessional Development who designed the program, and two Sessional Academic Success Advisors who have piloted it within their schools.

The notion of Queensland as a ‘Smart State’ is the Queensland Beattie Government’s response to global conditions that require a new type of worker and citizen for a new knowledge economy. The role of education in the success of the ‘Smart State’ is clearly outlined in the Queensland Government’s vision statements and policies, identifying teachers as a key factor in the production of this new type of worker and citizen. In this study I explore the relationship between Queensland’s Smart State policy and the daily practices of teachers as they are implicated in the building of a ‘Smart State’. The study takes place during what is unquestionably the largest and most comprehensive reform effort to be imposed on Queensland schools and teachers, under the auspices of a ‘Smart State’. The research includes policy analysis of two key Smart State documents, and fieldwork involving semi-structured interviews, observations and artefact collection of the work of two primary school teachers. Using Fairclough’s theories regarding the relationship between discourse and social change, it is possible to show how changes occurring in contemporary organisations are related to changes in discourse, in particular, those surrounding the discourses of a ‘knowledge economy’ or ‘globalisation’. The ‘Smart State’ is conceptualised in this study as regimes of discourses that may produce new practices and new ways of acting and being (Fairclough, 2001a). The interdiscursive, linguistic and semiotic strategies used in Smart State policy are analysed to show how this discourse is emerging into a hegemonic position, while identifying the dominant discourses reiterated in the policy as necessary skills for a new type of worker. These discourses are mapped onto those identified through the fieldwork of teachers’ daily work practices to determine if Smart State discourses are becoming apparent in teachers’ work. This study is significant because it makes visible the current relationship between the discourses of the ‘Smart State’ and teachers’ daily work. In this current climate of rapid change and economic survival it is important that the operationalization of a ‘Smart State’ can be attributed to teachers’ work as new ways of acting and interacting become a part of their daily practices.

"This study investigates the driving forces that affected the formation and development of Queensland School School Advisory Councils in the 1990's. To ground the study, it focuses on the nature, purposes and conditions of two School Advisory Councils within Central Queensland. Using an interpretive and interview-based research framework, policy documents, policy makers and school personnel were investigated. It is evident that the introduction and establishment of these councils had a far-ranging impact on the managerial, structural, and economic culture of schools." -- abstract.

The participation of parents in the governance of schools has received an increasing amount of attention over the past decade as the state continues to devolve certain powers to schools as well as engaging in a rhetoric which calls for increasing 'democratic' involvement by members of the community. This study examines, within a regional focus, issues such as the socio-economic and political contexts of parent participation, as well as the roles of school governance, leadership and parents in participation in education. The problematics of this involvement are described in a short review of the literature which theorises specific contexts of participation: including power and democracy, socio-economic factors,, curriculum, 'parent politics' and the role of the principal. These perspectives focus on the three main players in the drama - parents, the state and principals within a regional environment. In this study the relationship between parents and school is a particularly significant one and is represented primarily by the work of Connell (1985). The focus on parents of Central Queensland also enables exploration of the different conceptions of parent participation developed in other parts of Australia and in the US and Great Britain.

The historical background of parent participation is then discussed within a 'genealogical perspective' which follows the development of parent participation in Australia through a number of important stages. These include: education's early religious inception, followed by secularisation, politicisation, corporatisation and finally to the model with which we have become increasingly familiar today - marketisation. The study then focuses on the way in which the transformation of education in Australia has important implications for the management of parent participation in the Central Queensland region -a particularly important site for study given the socio-economic framework adopted. The theoretical framework informs the methodology adopted in the study - an historical review of policy, a series of semi -structured interviews of some of the key stakeholders in parent participation and the review of the theoretical literature.

Within the restrictions of time and resources, the findings of the study confirmed the problematic nature of parent participation in relation to genuine philosophies of democracy and issues of power now 'disguised' within the rhetoric of the market place. The role of education as a perpetuator rather than a changer of existing inequalities was confirmed and the polarisation of parents into 'participating advantaged' and 'non participating disadvantaged' groups was demonstrated.

The study found that the scope for participation is a rather narrow one that tended to restrict the autonomy of the school, and did not extend to include concepts of citizenship and democracy which are essential components in true involvement. Another important factor in the success of parent participation was found to be the role of the principal and his style of leadership and the implications for a transformational style in a climate which encourages a formal transactional management style. In addition, the findings of the study indicated the absence generally both in the literature and in practice, of participation by indigenous parents.

The study concluded that the policy of participation at the school level has also been under -researched in relation to bringing parents together with the school. It also revealed some further issues of participation which highlight the findings of recent studies of family rates of participation in the USA drawn from the works of Chubb and Moe (1990), Levine et al., (1992). These could be further investigated within an Australian context.

The notion of Queensland as a Smart State is the Queensland Beattie Governments response to global conditions that require a new type of worker and citizen for a new knowledge economy. The role of education in the success of the Smart State is clearly outlined in the Queensland Governments vision statements and policies, identifying teachers as a key factor in the production of this new type of worker and citizen. In this study I explore the relationship between Queenslands Smart State policy and the daily practices of teachers as they are implicated in the building of a Smart State. The study takes place during what is unquestionably the largest and most comprehensive reform effort to be imposed on Queensland schools and teachers, under the auspices of a Smart State. The research includes policy analysis of two key Smart State documents, and fieldwork involving semi-structured interviews, observations and artefact collection of the work of two primary school teachers. Using Faircloughs theories regarding the relationship between discourse and social change, it is possible to show how changes occurring in contemporary organisations are related to changes in discourse, in particular, those surrounding the discourses of a knowledge economy or globalisation. The Smart State is conceptualised in this study as regimes of discourses that may produce new practices and new ways of acting and being (Fairclough, 2001a). The interdiscursive, linguistic and semiotic strategies used in Smart State policy are analysed to show how this discourse is emerging into a hegemonic position, while identifying the dominant discourses reiterated in the policy as necessary skills for a new type of worker. These discourses are mapped onto those identified through the fieldwork of teachers daily work practices to determine if Smart State discourses are becoming apparent in teachers work. This study is significant because it makes visible the current relationship between the discourses of the Smart State and teachers daily work. In this current climate of rapid change and economic survival it is important that the operationalization of a Smart State can be attributed to teachers work as new ways of acting and interacting become a part of their daily practices.

By examining the example of its operation in one (1) secondary college in Central Queensland this thesis examines issues surrounding the performance reviews of middle managers holding Positions of Added Responsibility in the Catholic Diocese of Rockhampton in the context of teacher appraisal generally.

In Queensland, the vast majority of school -aged children attend government state schools, with a significant proportion attending private schools. There is, however, a small but growing number of children who attend no school, but are schooled in their own homes. Some of these, because of distance, have no choice, but there are others who could attend school but do not. It is this latter group in particular, who have become more prevalent in recent times.

In 1940 a small group of mathematicians and classicists began to work on Japanese codes with the encouragement of the Australian Army, and several of them began to learn Japanese. In the same year the Censorship Office in Melbourne launched a Japanese course to meet the needs for censors with a command of Japanese. This was the first Allied response to the demand for Japanese linguists. Some of the graduates were posted to Wireless Units in Queensland or the Northern Territory where they derived intelligence from Japanese wireless communications. After US forces had been forced to abandon the Philippines, General Douglas MacArthur had set up his headquarters in Australia. While the US Navy established the Fleet Radio Unit Melbourne, MacArthur created Central Bureau in Brisbane to deal with encrypted messages. This was staffed by graduates of US language schools, the Censorship Office School in Melbourne and Bedford Japanese School. Soon afterwards the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section was formed, which provided linguists to follow the troops as they fought their way towards Japan: they interrogated prisoners and translated documents found on the battlefield.

In the national and international landscape, there is very limited exploration of cultural constructs of excellence, in particular, in Indigenous contexts. This pilot study aimed to centre the voices of Indigenous people in conceptualising excellence in Indigenous education, as well as to share understandings between Indigenous and non-Indigenous practitioners. Qualitative data collection methods were used including collaborative yarning, storying, and semi-structured interviews. Data were analysed using cross-case analysis to examine the views of educators across three school sites. Indigenous participants highlighted the importance of nurturing culture and identity; building up young people; and, building a culture of inclusivity and belonging. Supportive leadership was also identified as an enabler for enacting excellence in schools. A direct outcome of this project was a whole-school policy that builds on a strengths perspective and forefronts the embedding of Indigenous knowledges and perspectives, supporting the wellbeing of Indigenous students, affirming the identities of Indigenous students and having specific strategies to engage with local Indigenous communities.