Chapter 1Final report
Introduction
1.1On 28 November 2022, the Senate referred the issue of increasing disruption in Australian school classrooms to the Senate Education and Employment References Committee (committee), to inquire and report on the following matters:
(a)the declining ranking of Australia in the Organisation for Economic Co‑operation and Development (OECD) disciplinary climate index, making Australian classrooms amongst the world's most disorderly;
(b)the impacts, demands and experience of disorderly classrooms on teacher safety, work satisfaction and workforce retention;
(c)teachers' views on whether or not they are sufficiently empowered and equipped to maintain order in the classroom and what can be done to assist them;
(d)the robustness, quality and extent of initial teacher education to equip teachers with skills and strategies to manage classrooms;
(e)the loss of instructional teacher time because of disorder and distraction in Australian school classrooms;
(f)the impact of disorderly, poorly disciplined classroom environments and school practices on students' learning, compared with their peers in more disciplined classrooms;
(g)the stagnant and declining results across fundamental disciplines as tested through National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) attributing to poorer school-leaving results and post-school attainment;
(h)how relevant Australian state, territory and federal departments and agencies are working to address this growing challenge;
(i)how leading OECD countries with the highest disciplinary climate index rankings are delivering orderly classrooms to provide strategies on how to reduce distraction and disorder in Australian classrooms; and
(j)any related matter.
Conduct of the committee's inquiry
1.2On referring the inquiry, the Senate set the first sitting day in July 2023 as the date for the committee to report. On 22 March 2023, the Senate granted the committee an extension of time to report until 16 November 2023.
1.3On 18 October 2023, the Senate agreed to extend the reporting date to 6December 2023 to allow the committee to gather additional evidence. On 30November 2023, the Senate granted a further extension to 7 February 2024.
1.4The committee presented an interim report to the Senate on 1 December 2023.
1.5Links to the committee’s interim report, as well as public submissions, Hansard transcripts of evidence, and other information published by the committee for this inquiry are available on the committee’s website.
Purpose and structure of this report
1.6This report is the final report of the committee’s inquiry and considers the release of the OECD’s latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results, and the first tranche of resources from the Australian Education Research Organisation’s (AERO’s) Engaged Classrooms Through Effective Classroom Management (Engaged Classrooms) project.
1.7The committee’s view, including its conclusions and recommendations, are provided at the end of this chapter.
PISA 2022 results
1.8The 2022 PISA results were released on 5 December 2023, after originally being planned for 2021 but postponed to 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. InAustralia, around 13 437 students from 743 schools across all jurisdictions and school sectors participated in the survey. The 2022 survey focused on mathematics, with reading, science, and creative thinking as minor areas of assessment.
1.9The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) published Australia’s results and discussed some of the findings in relation to the principal domains examined. Some of the key points from ACER’s analysis revealed that:
Australia’s proportion of high performers in mathematics was greater than the OECD average, but noticeably lower than Singapore (which was the highest performing country in all assessment domains), while the proportion of low performers was lower than the OECD average, but greater than Singapore;
students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds performed at a higher level than students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds;
students in major city schools performed at a higher level than students in regional schools and, in turn, students in regional schools performed higher than students in remote schools (see Figure 1.1); and
on average, students in the independent school sector performed higher than students in Catholic and government schools, and students in Catholic schools performed higher than students in government schools.
Figure 1.1Performance and proficiency by geographic location
Source: De Bortoli, L., Underwood, C., & Thomson, S. (2023) PISA 2022. Reporting Australia’s results. Volume I: Student performance and equity in education, ACER, p. xxviii.
1.10According to ACER, Australian students’ performance has remained steady since the previous PISA cycle, despite the disruption caused by the pandemic, while the average score across OECD countries fell for mathematics and reading. ACER noted that the ‘fall in the achievement of many countries that were previously above or on par with Australia means that Australian students’ performance is now below that of only nine other countries in mathematics (compared to 22 in 2018), and eight other countries in reading and science’ (seeFigure 1.2).
Figure 1.2International comparisons
Source: De Bortoli, L., Underwood, C., & Thomson, S. (2023) PISA 2022. Reporting Australia’s results. Volume I: Student performance and equity in education, ACER, p. xviii.
1.11However, the proportion of Australian students that attained the National Proficient Standard decreased in maths, science and reading for the first time since they were included as major domains (see Figure 1.3). Just over half of Australian students achieved the National Proficient Standard in each domain: 51 per cent in mathematics, 58 per cent in science, and 57 per cent in reading.
Figure 1.3 Between the first time a subject was a major domain and 2022
Source: De Bortoli, L., Underwood, C., & Thomson, S. (2023) PISA 2022. Reporting Australia’s results. Volume I: Student performance and equity in education, ACER, p. xxi.
1.12While Australia’s relative performance has remained mostly unchanged over the last two cycles, Australian students’ overall performance has actually been in steady decline over the past two decades, with maths dropping 37 points since 2003 from 524 to 487, science falling 20points, from 527 to 507 since 2006, and reading down 30 points, from 528 to 498 since 2000 (see Figure 1.4).
Figure 1.4Australia's PISA performance over time
Source: De Bortoli, L., Underwood, C., & Thomson, S. (2023) PISA 2022. Reporting Australia’s results. Volume I: Student performance and equity in education, ACER, p. xx.
Disciplinary climate
1.13Consistent with the previous survey, the 2022 PISA questionnaires considered several aspects of school climate. This included whether students feel supported in their learning and if the disciplinary climate in mathematics classes allows students to concentrate on learning.
1.14Australian students were asked how often—never or hardly ever, some lessons, most lessons, every lesson—certain things happen in their mathematics classes. This included asking whether students do not listen to what the teacher says and whether there is noise and disorder in the classroom.
1.15Overall, Australia ranked 33 out of the 37 OECD countries that participated in the survey, with only Greece, Sweden, Chile and New Zealand having a lower average index of disciplinary climate than Australia (see Figure 1.5). Australian students reported similar levels of disciplinary climate in their classes as France, and a notably less favourable disciplinary climate than the OECD average.
1.16Although the Australian education system was reported as being resilient following COVID-19, the share of Australian students who reported that they could not work well in some or every mathematics lesson increased by over 10percentage points between 2012 and 2022.
1.17In addition, the share of students in schools whose principal reported that instruction is hindered by a lack of teaching staff increased in 58 countries between 2018 and 2022, and by more than 30 points in Australia. Around 40percent of Australian students reported that they get distracted by using digital devices in mathematics lessons, while over 30 per cent get distracted by other students who are using digital devices.
Figure 1.5Average index of disciplinary climate by jurisdiction
Source: OECD, PISA, 2022 Reading, Mathematics and Science Assessment. The index of disciplinary climate ranges from -5 to 5, with higher values in the index indicating a more positive disciplinary climate.
Engaged Classrooms project
1.18As foreshadowed in the committee’s interim report, AERO released the first tranche of materials from its Engaged Classrooms project on 4 December 2023. The new resources are designed to support classroom engagement and professional learning for teachers and school leaders.
1.19The project builds on AERO’s existing Focused Classrooms Practice Guide and is designed to support teachers and school leaders to:
explicitly teach and model behaviour to support learning;
build positive relationships with students;
establish and maintain high expectations, routines and rules;
effectively manage disengaged and disruptive behaviours; and
implement a whole school approach.
1.20The resources include a suite of foundational resources, including explainers, practice guides, and skills resources that cover important evidence-based practices for effective classroom management. According to AERO, these resources will help address increasing disruption in classrooms by providing teachers and leaders with:
… a range of practices to manage day-to-day whole class teaching and learning, as well as function-based thinking and tiered intervention models of support to help understand and address patterns of more persistent behaviour for the small number of students who may need additional help. It is crucial pre-service teachers and teachers at all stages of their careers are supported to develop and implement these practices to help improve classroom environments and student learning outcomes.
Committee view
1.21As noted in the committee’s interim report, student behaviour and engagement in Australian school classrooms is of growing concern to many teachers, school leaders, and parents. Regrettably, the OECD’s PISA 2022 survey has continued to show a decline in the disciplinary climate in Australian classrooms. Indeed, the share of Australian students who reported that students cannot work well in some or every mathematics lesson increased between 2012 and 2022 by over ten percentage points.
1.22Furthermore, the survey results continue to show a steady decline in student performance across the domains examined. Just over half of Australian students achieved the National Proficient Standard, with a significant number of students failing to demonstrate they have more than basic skills in the areas of mathematics, science and reading. These results confirm the recent National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy findings, which show that one in three Australian students failed to reach expectations in basic numeracy, reading, and writing skills.
1.23The committee believes that Australia should examine how high performing countries are achieving better results than Australia, including the extent to which the experience of these countries can inform Australian schools, and how funding for students in Australia and other countries correlates with student performance and academic standards.
AERO’s Engaged Classrooms project
1.24In view of the trend revealed in the latest PISA results, the committee welcomes the release of the first tranche of materials from AERO’s Engaged Classrooms project, which aims to support classroom management and professional learning for teachers and school leaders. The committee is hopeful that these resources will help teachers to practically apply the best evidence-based teaching strategies in their classrooms. The committee understands that AERO will continue to consult with teachers, leaders and other stakeholders in the development and quality assurance of existing and future resources.
1.25The committee also notes the recommendations in the report of the Independent Expert Panel’s Review to Inform a Better and Fairer Education System (ExpertPanel). In particular, the Expert Panel has recommended that governments, school systems and approved authorities work together to develop a national measure of student wellbeing, which includes the collection of comparable national wellbeing data covering classroom disruption by the end of 2028.
1.26The Expert Panel has also called for the urgent implementation of the Unique Student Identifier to develop a foundation for enhanced data linkage to help establish a clearer picture of each student’s education experience.
1.27Overall, the committee is encouraged by the recommendations of the Expert Panel and the release of AERO’s classroom management resources. However, the committee remains concerned by the latest PISA results and the stagnant and declining academic performance of Australian schools. The committee believes that these issues deserve ongoing scrutiny. The committee therefore recommends that the Senate tasks this committee to undertake an extensive inquiry into the performance of Australian schools overall.
1.28The committee recommends that the Senate refer an inquiry into declining academic standards in Australian schools to the Education and Employment References Committee. The terms of reference should include:
students' proficiency in literacy and numeracy;
the experience of principals, teachers and parents in meeting the challenge of raising academic standards;
the extent to which the experience of other countries with high or markedly high academic standards can inform Australian schools; and
what support could be provided to teachers and what improvements could be made to the Australian Curriculum to raise academic standards in Australian schools.
Senator Matt O'Sullivan
Chair