connected solutions Archives

This is the second day in a series of posts on education priorities for the 2025 federal election. Today’s posts are about why we need connected solutions.

The middle years

For more than two decades I have conducted research in the field of young adolescent learning and teaching, with interests in student engagement and wellbeing; teacher self-efficacy; and professional learning. During this time, policy-makers and systems have sporadically focussed on the middle years (Years 6/7-9/10) with specific initiatives, such as the 2015 implementation of the Junior Secondary Guiding Principles.

The impetus for the focused attention has ranged from responses to structural shifts, such as moving Year 7 into secondary schools, to concerns about the wellbeing of our middle years’ students across a range of academic, social and emotional indicators. The initiatives have been characterised by their transient and short-lived nature. They are often a reflection of political cycles, which in turn impact the sustainability of reforms to achieve long-term transformation.

The most recent evidence provides an alarming insight into how we are travelling in the middle years. It is the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022 data. PISA is an international comparative study of student performance, directed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It measures the cumulative education outcomes of 15-year-olds in 81 countries.

Lower than the OECD average

The findings reveal Australia’s mean index score is lower than the OECD average for: students’ sense of belonging; student-teacher relationships; disciplinary climate in mathematics classes; feeling safe at school; resistance to stress; curiosity; and perseverance. Exposure to bullying is higher than the OECD average. These scores occurred despite our investment in schooling that is just above the average of the OECD countries.

Students in various states and sectors also report variations across these indicators, highlighting the inconsistency of experiences around the nation. This is gravely concerning data.

Furthermore, it aligns with persistent evidence of declining mental health and wellbeing of young adolescents over the last two decades. That has surged since the COVID pandemic, with the peak of onset coincidentally occurring at 15 years of age.

Young people’s mental health and wellbeing is now a leading health concern. It accounts for 45% of disease globally in those aged 10–24 years.

It is clear that the middle years in the education life course requires urgent and sustained attention in Australian education.

The intention is there

The intention to improve middle years education is evident in the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration. It provides the vision for Australia to achieve a world class education system that encourages and supports every student.

The middle years receive special attention in the Declaration which states: [T]he middle years are an important period of individual growth and learning when a balanced set of cognitive, social and emotional skills are developed.”

And: “[T]his is also a time when they are at the greatest risk of disengagement from learning.

“Through directly addressing each student’s range of needs, schools must focus on enhancing motivation and engagement”

The need for learning with positive student-teacher relationships, strong peer relationships and age-appropriate pedagogies are the salient factors to achieve effective engagement, with the promotion of student agency at the core. The implications of disengagement are profound, with students life chances diminished when appropriate climates for learning are not in place.

Moving in and moving out

In addition to age-appropriate teaching and learning, the Declaration explicitly calls for the improvement of transition into – and out of – the middle years.

Transition from Year 6 into Year 7 has been identified as an area of concern for decades. The words ‘gap’ and ‘plunge’ are commonly used to describe the impact of ineffective transition. That leads to disengagement, lack of achievement and disillusionment in the middle years.

Some hope

The Flying Start Initiative in Queensland was a timely approach to ensure the efficacy of the introduction of a prep year and the shift of Year 7 into secondary schools. It also included an intentional model of Junior Secondary Guiding Principles that explicitly shaped teaching and learning for the middle years. It included a focus on distinct identity and sense of belonging related to effective transition into Year 7. While the standalone Principles has now been abandoned as explicit policy, many of the concepts have been embedded into practice. We can share some promising findings of the impact of intentionally shaping middle years pedagogy.

Our study tracked 317 Year 6 students in 18 Primary Schools into Year 7 in 11 Secondary Schools. We discovered that the intentional approach resulted in students’ sense of belonging at school remaining mostly stable and positive through the transition. It set them up for success and avoiding the gap that might negatively impact their engagement and success at school. However, there is little evidence about the effectiveness of transition out of the middle years, and the relevance and veracity of the senior school models which vary around our nation.

The need for connected solutions – a longitudinal framework with efficient pit stops

In this brief commentary I have focused on the middle years. This is my area of passion and research, and where the stakes are especially high. However, similar challenges exist in all phases across the life course, from early childhood education to tertiary education. The opportunity to seek enhancements for confluence in our schooling system reduces abrupt shifts that serve as pit stops and potentially detours between phases, which have become increasingly compartmentalised. The possibility to explore greater connectedness and a longitudinal framework of success for our students is needed now. And it must be said, the mental health and wellbeing of our students must sit at the front of the class. Investing in a consistent and evidence-based approach is paramount to addressing the declining mental health and wellbeing of our young people.

Professor Donna Pendergast is the Director of Engagement in the Arts, Education and Law Group and former Dean and Head of the School of Education and Professional Studies at Griffith University. Her research expertise is education transformation and efficacy.

This is the second day in a series of posts on education priorities for the 2025 federal election. Today’s posts are about why we need connected solutions.

The neologism ‘polycrisis’, a situation where several seemingly unrelated crises are occurring at once and where attempting to address one may have adverse effects on another, is currently receiving significant academic airplay. I was asked to write a short piece for AARE on the upcoming Federal election with a focus on ‘connected solutions’ and ‘building stronger alignment across sectors and policy portfolios’. It it seemed to be a relevant place to start in completing this task. However, it was soon apparent that if I followed the threads provided by various crises in and impacting on education this would become a very long piece. So instead, I have taken two projects I am currently working on, showing the interconnectedness between them, and indicating how they intersect with what, in my opinion, should be other policy priorities in the upcoming election.

Education crises: Teacher shortages and student attendance

There are multiple crises facing education. These relate, amongst other things, to teacher shortages, to the fair distribution of the academic benefits of schooling, and to providing young people with an adequate preparation for living in a complex and fast changing world. Education policy is needed to address these crises. For example, policy is required to consider how to make hard to staff schools more attractive places to work, to ensure that the curriculum is inclusive of difference, where young people are exposed to both powerful knowledges and also see their own community knowledges valued, and to ensure that school funding is targeted to favour schools and communities most in need.

Many of these crises intersect with each other. I am involved in two different ARC discovery projects, one looking at school attendance and another teacher shortages in hard to staff schools. While these projects are with different teams and have a different focus, the findings are overlapping. This can be seen for example in how the teacher shortages affect young people’s engagement with school.

The emotional impact of losing a teacher

In one focus group interview with Grade 11 students at a hard to staff school in a high poverty urban area, they spoke of the emotional impact of having a teacher they liked and to whom they could relate at the school on a Friday and then suddenly disappearing on a Monday. This impacts on young people’s engagement with school. One student in the group stated that:

You just don’t feel comfortable at school anymore … yeah, we’re expecting teachers to leave now because it’s so common.

And another from the same group:

It’s also a bit unmotivating because if the person that’s getting paid to do this doesn’t want to do it anymore, why would you want to go and do it as well?

Addressing the teacher shortage then is necessary to address young people’s engagement with schooling. But addressing student attendance and teacher shortages needs to go beyond education policy.

Many of the issues facing schools cannot be solved without addressing other issues occurring outside the field of education. I will give just two examples here. The point is that what is needed is a consideration of how the policy landscape across different fields can be worked together to solve educational problems.

What are we doing about the housing crisis and its impact on education?

In interviews with school principals in both ARC projects the housing crisis, for instance, has been raised as a serious issue affecting schools. In relation to attendance, principals have spoken about how insecure housing has led to young people constantly moving house and changing schools, and often falling through the cracks when it comes to monitoring attendance. One stated about their local community:

There are no rentals. People can’t afford it. We are averaging probably eight students, maybe in a week at the moment going to places where the rental is more affordable… biggest movement that I’ve seen in the community, since doing this job, and that’s the rental crisis. Most of the rent starts round about $500 a week, and for families who aren’t working, who are receiving Centrelink benefits, they can’t afford that… We’ve got homeless families on a waiting list for rental… It’s unreasonable to expect them to come to school because they can’t afford the bus fares. It’s too far for them to walk

Hard to staff, hard to house

In the hard to staff schools, principals also spoke about the difficulties of securing appropriate housing for teachers in the local area. (See Scott Eacott’s AARE blog Housing: how to fix the teacher shortage – EduResearch Matters). Many of the schools facing the biggest issue with attendance are also those that are the hardest to staff. Indeed, the lack of teachers, and the high turnover of staff have also been noted by principals in both projects as a factor that hinders student attendance. The housing crisis has become an issue in the current election, but we are not seeing the links being made to education, apart from the dubious association being made between international higher education students and the rental market.

What are we doing about toxic masculinity and its impact on schooling?

Much has been written recently about the Netflix series Adolescence and the lessons it provides about online safety and the dangers of online activity promoting toxic forms of masculinity (see the excellent AARE blogs by Sam Schulz and Sarah McDonald What happens when the manosphere goes to university – EduResearch Matters and Stephanie Wescott and Steven Roberts What schools should do now the manosphere thinks it’s back in charge – EduResearch Matters.

My first book in 2001, and subsequent work with Bob Lingard, Wayne Martino and Amanda Keddie, all explored the relationship between dominant forms of masculinity and violence and the implications for schooling. In that work we indicated the problems that confronted female students and teachers in schools. We argued, as many are now, that schools needed to be working to challenge those forms of masculinity that are now finding fertile ground for breeding on the Internet. However, while the Internet has facilitated the spread of such masculinities, we need to recognise that the problem predates the newly identified ‘manosphere’ and that all policy domains have continually failed to make significant headway in relation to gender, especially when it comes to violence. It’s time for that to change.

During the course of our work on the attendance project a principal pointed us towards an article in the State’s only statewide newspaper, the Courier Mail. The article provided an account of life for teachers in one remote Queensland high School where:

15 per cent of staff at (the high school) had reported experiencing bullying, sexual harassment… staff members claimed there was a culture of workplace violence and sexual harassment which had led to an exodus of staff. (1^st September, 2022).

The frustrated student

In an interview with a principal, on that same project, we were told about a grade 8 student who was living in a ‘domestic violence’ situation. The principal indicated that this student, who could ‘barely read’, sat in class feeling ‘frustrated’, ‘stupid’ and ‘inadequate’. And then:

Someone says something to him, and he goes out and he thumps someone… this has happened multiple times

In the 2022 election, gender was firmly on the agenda. In the 2025 election it has been less so. However, given the ways in which politics are shaping up in the US with the rise of the new right and outright misogyny (alongside racism, homophobia and transphobia) establishing itself as an acceptable political discourse, and the ways in which these discourses travel, it should be a major agenda item.

Teachers, especially female and non-binary teachers, deserve this. Or they will not stay in the profession. Young people who are the target of violence in schools, especially for being ‘different’, will not attend or engage with school if we don’t. Young people growing up in home environments where violence is common practice, will have their education affected by that violence (although it should be noted that for some young people, school can be their only safe space). Addressing gender-based violence as a policy priority will be good for all and for education.

I hope politicians are reading AARE blogs in the lead up to the 20225 Federal election

What I wanted to come across in this piece, by way of example, is that schools are regularly having to deal with crises that are not of their own making (as indicated by Naomi Barnes in her AARE blog Schooling now in a crisis: Inky darkness, crippling anxieties, overreactions, love, care and glorious beauty – EduResearch Matters. As such education policy needs to be joined up, connected, and there be real effort across policy sectors to build stronger alignment between different policy portfolios. As I was putting this piece together, I found myself continually revisiting the EduResarch Matters website, and it struck me that if politicians in different portfolios wanted to see how their responsibilities connected with education, there could be no better place to start than on this website.

Martin is a Capacity Building Professor in QUT’s School of Education. He is a former president of AARE. He researches in the area of social justice and education.

connected solutions

The urgent need for connectedness