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This paper reports the results of a recent questionnaire completed by 377 Australian primary and secondary physical education (PE) teachers who had used the sport education curriculum model. As such, it constitutes one of the few large-scale accounts of teachers' perceptions of a curriculum model first proposed by Siedentop in the early 1980s. The purpose of the questionnaire was to discover how teachers imple-mented the model and to report whether they believed it produced better learning outcomes, was responsive to particular types of students and their needs and helped students accept responsibility for their own PE. The report provides support for the view that sport education can be an exemplary context for pursuing a broader range of learning outcomes than PE has traditionally sought and achieved, and that many teachers' disappointment with the nature and quality of interactions with students can. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigated associations between classroom environment and student affective outcomes in Australian secondary schools. The Technology-Rich Outcomes-Focused Learning Environment Inventory (TROFLEI) was used to assess 10 classroom environment dimensions: student cohesiveness, teacher support, involvement, investigation, task orientation, cooperation, equity, differentiation, computer usage, and young adult ethos. A sample of 4,407 secondary school students from 286 classes in Queensland and Western Australia responded to the TROFLEI and three student outcome measures: academic efficacy, attitude to the subject, and attitude to computer use. Multilevel analyses with the 10 TROFLEI scales as explanatory variables and the three outcome scales as response variables were conducted. Statistically significant associations between classroom environment and these student affective outcomes were evident. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of the Commonwealth's drive to enhance Australia's competitiveness in the global economy, Australia is five years from implementing 'National Benchmarks' to leverage measurable literacy outcomes from schools. This 'back to basics' agenda is in tension with another drive to foster advanced thinking skills in children. Teachers are being positioned as deskilled technicians on the one hand and model 'new economy' workers on the other, whilst working to meet the needs of diverse student populations. This article discusses the impact of these tensions on 'Riverside Primary School' located in a culturally diverse, socio-economically disadvantaged suburb of Adelaide. A case study of student-teacher interactions during a literacy lesson is used to illustrate how dominant educational and political discourses operate at a classroom level to construct children as 'normal', 'gifted' or 'slow'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]