Offers information about how you can re-vision middle schooling in your school

1. SECOND GENERATION MIDDLE
SCHOOLING: WHERE TO NOW?
Dr Catherine Hart
Luther College, Croydon

2. OVERVIEW OF PRESENTATION
• The research study – the evolution of middle
schooling at Luther College
• The Middle Schooling Movement in Australia:
An overview
• First generation middle schooling
• Towards second generation middle
schooling – opportunities and challenges
• Where to from here?

3. Premise of study
First generation middle schooling is
unfinished and exhausted
Second generation of middle schooling
emerging
Focus on transformative pedagogies to
promote lifelong learning needed

4. Research Aims
Exploration of polemics of middle schooling at
Luther College with specific focus on:
 Examining the principles and practices
underlying the establishment of middle
schooling at Luther College
 Exploring the current principles and practices of
middle schooling at Luther College
 Identifying the opportunities and challenges of
second generation middle schooling at Luther
College

5. The Research Study
Small-scale pilot study: single case study
site – two „snapshots‟
Data collection: Literature review,
document analysis, key informant
interview, participant observation
Time frame: March-September 2011

6. The Middle Years
Defining the „Middle Years‟
Distinct learning needs
Concept of risk – deficit model?

7. Middle Schooling
Middle schooling does not have one
generic meaning, in the Australian context
it is generally taken to mean a progressive
approach to curriculum, pedagogy and
assessment (and sometimes
organisational) practices that are
responsive to the developmental needs of
young learners in their social context

8. The Middle Schooling Movement in Australia
First Generation Middle Schooling characterised by:
• A range of specific middle years projects across Australia
• The inclusion of middle years schooling in broad national
educational initiatives
• The production of middle schooling ideas and resources by
a range of formal agencies
• Research on middle schooling by Australian academics
• The rise of middle schooling professional associations
• The introduction of middle schooling units and programs in
pre-service and postgraduate teacher education courses
• The recognition of middle schooling in the policies and
activities of a diverse range of school education agencies
• The increasing adoption of middle schooling in educational
institutions across the spectrum in most Australian States.

9. Beyond the Middle
First generation middle schooling was unfinished
because it had not secured systemic approaches
or high intellectual demand. It also found that the
movement was exhausted as it was a decade
old and had not kept apace with the rapid
changes in students‟ lives
Beyond the middle: A report about literacy and numeracy development of target group
students in the middle years of schooling (Luke, Elkins, Weir, Land, Carrington, Dole,
Pendergast, Kapitzke, van Kraayenoord, Moni, McIntosh, Mayer, Bahr, Hunter,
Chadbourne, Bean, Alverman, & Stevens; 2003)

10. Luther College
Established in 1964 by the Lutheran
Church of Australia as a Year 7-12
Co-educational Boarding school
Luther College offers a program of “Christian
education which serves students, parents, the
church, the community and strives for excellence
in the development and creative use by all
students of their God-given talents”

11. Snapshot 1: 1997-2001
Victorian context
1997: Middle School Planning Group [MSPG]
established and Terms of Reference for middle
schooling at Luther identified:
1. Improving school family relationships, teaching and
learning and student involvement for the middle
years
2. Improving its transition program and the education
offering for the middle years

12. Snapshot 1 cont.
1998: Luther College Middle School Report
(Independent Education Consultant) endorsed
suggestions of the MSPG
Middle School Unit established – years 7-9,
staged implementation (1999-2001), Head of
Middle School, Year 7 Transition Coordinator,
Year 8 and 9 Coordination subsumed into other
roles, introduction of Focus Teachers in Year 7

13. Characteristics of First Generation middle
schooling at Luther
LEADERSHIP
I just read the literature and immersed myself in it … Now
as I read the literature and got on top of the area I started
to draw some broad directions around things that we
needed to do… a lot of the literature just spoke to me
about good principles of learning … I also was and do
believe that Middle Schooling if it is done well, is the
answer to a whole lot of the other chestnuts of schooling
like boys education and a whole lot of things that provide
literacy across the curriculum.

17. Characteristics of First Generation middle
schooling at Luther
LEADERSHIP cont.
it takes a lot of patience and it takes minute chipping
away and persistence and a determination that you are
going to get there but you will have a hundred different
ways of getting there and so the change process is
messy and tricky and you will have lots of fights and
tussles along the way with people who think they know
better or believe there are other realities that need to be
dealt with.

19. Characteristics of First Generation middle
schooling at Luther
LEADERSHIP cont.
a metaphor that works for me was this tumbleweed that I
started rolling and what I had to do all the time was pull
the other bits of the weed in as it kept rolling and make
sure that when I made a strategic decision, the whole ball
kept moving and that all the parts of the ball sat in
relation to one another

21. Characteristics of First Generation middle
schooling at Luther
TEACHER TEAMING
• The role of the Focus teacher
• Primary teachers within a perceived secondary
school setting – the prevalence of „two-tiered‟
thinking

22. Characteristics of First Generation middle
schooling at Luther
INTEGRATED CURRICULUM
I started with nothing, I had to bring people around to
understand what integration was because none of these
things were in place in the school. What I did know was
that I had some good teachers in the school and I had to
re-culture them and get them to understand the
foundations. I did an enormous amount of PD
[professional development]. Everyone who was a Focus
teacher in those days went to a lot of PD and
conferences, to begin to talk the language, you had to
have a common language.

23. Characteristics of First Generation middle
schooling at Luther
LEGITIMISING MIDDLE SCHOOLING
• The Middle School
• Varied teaching and learning strategies

24. Snapshot 2: 2010-2011
Luther College today: 1200 students, 160 staff,
no boarders, significant demand (significant
increase in Luther education across Australia –
85 schools, over 35,000 students), laptop school,
arrival of new Principal April 2010, a new 5 year
strategic plan
A decade later the social milieu is quite different
I arrive at Luther College as a Year 7 Focus
teacher and Senior English teacher in July 2010

28. Middle Schooling at Luther College today
Significant „wins‟
Significant challenges – significant growth of
school population, change fatigue, staff attrition,
interrupted learning continuum, competing
curricular demands, erosion of Focus teacher
role….
First generation middle schooling still evident?

29. Moves towards whole school pedagogical renewal
• Leadership restructure to allow greater focus
on pedagogy
• Time for depth of learning
• Professional learning communities
• Research and evidenced based practice

31. Where to now?
• Re-visioning of a shared philosophy of Middle School
• Forecasting rather than backcasting
• Learning spaces
• ICT
• Blurring Curriculum boundaries
• Signature pedagogies?