Contesting lost ground for the middle years in Australia: using the case study of Queensland

This article provides a commentary on middle years and middle years teacher education reforms in Australia. It discusses the rise of the middle years movement from its grassroots in the schooling system to a position where it attracted interest from state education departments, governing bodies and teacher education programs. It argues that recent evidence suggests that middle schooling has lost ground in the Australian context, and mainstream education agendas are falling silent on the subject. This is illustrated in the new national curriculum frameworks, where reference to middle years is significantly absent, and in Queensland where the transition to secondary schooling is changing to Year 7 with junior secondary reform. The article looks at ways of breaking this growing silence, using Queensland as a case study.