The increase in the number of selective high schools by the NSW Liberal government under the initiative of the then Minister of Education and Youth Affairs in 1988 attracted widespread community and professional attention. Over 9,000 families applied for admission to Year 7 in the 17 selective high schools in the first year of operation of the new selective high schools. Why parents and students applied for admission is the subject of this study. Data were collected from students and their parents in eight of the selective high schools as to their reasons for accepting an enrolment offer. Factor analyses revealed that there were two main factors that accounted for the reasons advanced by students and parents. These factors were labelled as Academic and Choice~Reputation and the analyses of these scales by gender and type of schools suggested that there were significant differences between the reasons advanced by students and their parents.
Recent national reports stress the importance of inservice education in helping schools face a period of great change. This small study examines the relationship between inservice education and educational change in a large and successful comprehensive secondary school Teachers outlined their involvement in inservice education and other professional activities and assessed the usefulness of each in the maintenance and development of the school's curriculum and pastoral care.They rated inservice education courses less useful than other professional contacts and sources of information School-focused policies must provide facilities which give direct support to schools facing educational change in a form teachers recognize as relevant, taking account of these other professional activities.In spite of the increase in real terms of expenditure and resources devoted to inservice education in Britain since the publication of the James Report in 1972 (DES, 1976(DES, ,1978a, it is apparent that many teachers are critical of the quality and relevance of current inservice policies and provisions. For example, a recent survey on teachers' perceptions of inservice courses showed that only 29 per cent of respondents favourably received the existing provisions (Lodge, 1979). This result must be disappointing to those who plan inservice education, especially since the results mirror those of surveys (Cane, 1969; DES, 1970) conducted prior to this period of development.With the current pressure on Local Education Authorities (LEAs) to review their expenditures, it may be an appropriate time to question some of the current inservice policies and practices. Contemporary educational thinking and writing places great stress upon the part inservice education must play in document makes clear this central purpose of inservice education:... is that which every teacher will expect to benefit from throughout his career iri order to keep abreast of the subject, to extend and reform teaching techniques, to accommodate new patterns of school reorganisation, or to prepare for new responsibility. (DES, 1977: p. 29) The range of inservice support developed through the last decade of expansion to achieve this objective is quite broad. Many different points of initiative at national and local levels have produced diverse patterns of support. Yet the basic elements of long and short courses, teacher centre facilities and advisory support facilities are well established in most areas and are described elsewhere (Henderson, 1978). The current 'policy' would seem to eschew centralized planning and emphasize variety, flexibility and response to local needs; all of which are self evident virtues. Yet if the evidence from the surveys cited above is to be believed, current patterns of inservice provisions are not responding adequately to teachers' needs as they see them.Recent discussion of school-based and school-focused inservice proposals recognizes this situation (Henderson, 1979) but there is a lack of empirical evidence as to the precise arra...
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