Editorial

In the first article for this issue of the Australian Journal of Education, Carly Steele, Graeme Gower and Tetiana Bogachenko report on the creation and enactment of culturally responsive assessments for a group of First Nations students undertaking a Bachelor of Primary Education degree to become teachers as part of an On Country Teacher Education (OCTE) program. As part of the evaluation of the OCTE program, bi-annual interviews were conducted with the students (n = 25), and annual interviews conducted with the lecturers (n = 15) and principals (n = 14) of the schools where the students were employed as Aboriginal and Islander Education Officers (AIEOs).The second article in this issue examines reporting practices related to students with disability in the Australian national assessments of literacy and numeracy (NAPLAN). The National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is intended to assess all Australian students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. Kathryn Richardson and Greta Rollo explored the extent to which equity and inclusion are achieved for students with disability through NAPLAN reporting. The third article reports on a study that investigated relationships between students’ self-perceptions, behaviours and reading achievement. Following 127 primary schools students (Years 3 and 4) over two years, Ian Hay and Yvonne Stevenson used measures of students’ self-concept in reading, their effort in reading and English subjects, and their use of self-handicapping strategies (e.g. putting off doing homework until the last moment so they can attribute poor performance to limited time), along with their teachers’ reports of their attentive, sociable and settled behaviours in class, to investigate influences on reading achievement at two time points. Our final article, by Linda Gilmore, Karen Sullivan and Brenda Hughes reports on a component of a broader study of teaching practices among Australian teachers that focused on teachers using physical activities during class time. Over 70% of the teachers in the study (162 of 222 teachers) indicated that they used physical activities during their classes and most provided examples of the activities they included.