Graham Daniel

Family-school partnerships: towards sustainable pedagogical practice

The role of family-school partnerships in facilitating childrens educational engagement and achievement is now widely recognised. However, the theoretical foundations of family-school partnerships remain under-developed and research in many aspects of this field is incomplete. The need for the development of a rigorously informed and theorised foundation to inform practice presents a challenge for educational research, and for the fields of teacher education and professional learning, in addressing the lack of instruction around effective involvement of families in partnerships with schools. This paper argues that when critically framed, a pedagogical conceptualisation of family-school partnerships provides a useful way forward in re-theorising this field of practice.

When he's around his brothers' he's not so quiet: The private and public worlds of school-aged children with speech sound disorder

UNLABELLED Children interact with people in context: including home, school, and in the community. Understanding childrens relationships within context is important for supporting childrens development. Using child-friendly methodologies, the purpose of this research was to understand the lives of children with speech sound disorder (SSD) in context. Thirty-four interviews were undertaken with six school-aged children identified with SSD, and their siblings, friends, parents, grandparents, and teachers. Interview transcripts, questionnaires, and childrens drawings were analyzed to reveal that these children experienced the world in context dependent ways (private vs. public worlds). Family and close friends typically provided a safe, supportive environment where children could be themselves and participate in typical childhoods. In contrast, when out of these familiar contexts, the children often were frustrated, embarrassed, and withdrawn, their relationships changed, and they were unable to get their message across in public contexts. Speech-language pathology assessment and intervention could be enhanced by interweaving the valuable insights of children, siblings, friends, parents, teachers, and other adults within childrens worlds to more effectively support these children in context. LEARNING OUTCOMES 1. Recognize that children with SSD experience the world in different ways, depending on whether they are in private or public contexts. 2. Describe the changes in the roles of family and friends when children with SSD are in public contexts. 3. Discover the position of the child as central in Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model. 4. Identify principles of child-friendly research. 5. Recognize the importance of considering the child in context during speech-language pathology assessment and intervention.

Preparing pre-service teachers for the profession: creating spaces for transformative practice

Within professional learning communities, the processes of shared reflection and critique, or critical transformative dialogues are considered crucial for the maintenance and improvement of professional practice. This paper focuses on the development of the processes of critical transformative dialogues and their application in the professional development of pre-service teachers. Participants reported a growing understanding of the importance of a continuing critical dialogue, and an appreciation of the value that critical feedback has in developing professional skills. The paper argues for the value of providing spaces for early engagement in the processes of critical transformative dialogue as part of professional preparation. A cumulative model of transformative practice for supporting pre-service teachers’ emerging schema for teaching is proposed.

School Choice and Parent Involvement Among Australian Children Starting School

In this chapter, we examine the connection between school choice and parent-school involvement in an Australian sample of over 3700 6–7 year-old children. Parents provided information on the type of school the child attended (government-public, Catholic, independent-private), the most important reason for their choice, and whether they had visited the child’s classroom, contacted a teacher, attended a school event, and volunteered at the school. Results showed that, overall, Australian parents had participated in 2.84 activities; however, higher levels of involvement were reported by parents whose choice was based on school academic reputation, availability of specific programs, or religious teachings (average = 3.00) compared to parents whose choice was based on convenience (average = 2.69) or familiarity (average = 2.76). Involvement also differed by type of school, but when both school type and reasons were included in the analyses, school type was no longer a significant predictor of parent school-based involvement. Level of parent-school involvement was largely determined by parents’ reasons for school choice.

Inclusion and the Practice of Repeating Kindergarten in Australia.

Abstract International evidence indicates there may be little or no academic benefit for children who are retained, and the possibility of negative long term socio-emotional outcomes for these children. Drawing on data from the nationally representative Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (n = 4464), this paper provides an Australian perspective on the practice of grade retention, specifically investigating repeating the Kindergarten year. Our results indicated that nearly half of grade retention occurring by Year 6 occurs in the Kindergarten year, the main reasons being related to learning and behavioural difficulties. The analyses identified a number of child and family factors associated with grade retention, the strongest predictors being maternal mental health and parental receptive language concern, with school readiness, receptive language skills, and child hyperactivity also relevant factors. The paper considers implications for early intervention to support children’s academic trajectories through school.