Punctuation has its place

Punctuation has its place.

Last week a local radio station featured a news item about some attention grabbing celebrity calling for the abolition of the apostrophe. The station, in an attempt to drum up some interest in itself, invited listeners to send in their ideas for and against the continued use of the apostrophe. I tuned out.

As a lover of language I was saddened by this attempt to dumb down our grammatical heritage. Of course the apostrophe has been a major problem for many years. We know it can be used to denote possession, as in “Tom’s watch” which indicates it is the watch belonging to Tom.  Or as an abbreviation or contraction as in “don’t” which is the short form of “do not.”

However, the apostrophe does have its problems. Just take that word “its” in that last sentence, for instance. You would think it would need an apostrophe because we are using it to identify a problem belonging to it, where it represents the subject. But its doesn’t have an apostrophe to denote possession of something belonging to it. However, neither do other possessive words indicating possession such as yours, theirs or ours. Its only has an apostrophe when it is being used to represent it's as the short form of “it is”.

When I first started teaching in Bunbury back in the late fifties I asked the children to try and find any examples of the incorrect use of apostrophes in signs in local shops.

They collected quite a few, generally where an apostrophe was incorrectly used for plural words such as apples’, tomatoes’ and haircuts’. One classic case of a mismatch between plurals and a possessive apostrophe was a hairdresser in Victoria Street which advertised itself as a Ladie’s Hairdresser.

You may think that only poorly educated people have trouble with apostrophes but that is not true. In 1971 the Mt Lawley Teachers’ College was opened. Its first principal was a much respected educator, Dr Robert Peter. During its first year of operation, questions were asked by the clerical staff as to the college’s correct form of address regarding the use or non use of an apostrophe. Was it Mt Lawley Teacher’s College or Mt Lawley Teachers’ College or perhaps, Mt Lawley Teachers College? All three forms of address were being used by various staff, students and correspondents to the college.

Dr Peter gave the matter serious thought and then declared that henceforth no apostrophe was to be used with regard to the college. From that day on the college was known as Mt Lawley Teachers College…without any apostrophe. So, if a teachers’ college cannot make up its mind about correct apostrophe usage we should not be surprised that lesser mortals have problems with apostrophes and want them killed off.

An apostrophe of course may be described as a comma with ideas above its station. Of course, I believe apostrophes have an essential place in our language and we cannot do without them. Which brings me to the important role that commas play in our language.

Back in Bunbury when I was trying very hard to convince the children in my class of the importance of punctuation I told them this story to show how important even the lowly comma could be.

In the1930s a man in the United States was sentenced to death in the electric chair. His lawyers petitioned the Governor of the state to pardon him because a lot of the evidence was very circumstantial and given by unreliable witnesses with a grudge against the man.

The Warden knew of this petition so, as the hour of the execution approached, he sent a telegram to the state Governor stating, “Execution set for 8-00am. Shall I proceed?”

Just before 8-00am a messenger came to the death chamber and handed the Governor a telegram which read “No pardon given”. The Warden gave the word and the man was electrocuted to death.

Five minutes later a breathless telegraphist rushed into the death chamber. He thrust out a telegram and said, “Warden, there was a mistake in the first message. The Governor just sent this. He put the new telegram into the Warden’s hands. It read, “No, pardon given.”

Well, it wasn’t a true story. I had made it up. However, many children were quite upset to think an innocent man had died for the lack of a comma.

Winter Sports for Couch Potatoes

Dedicated couch potatoes like me are about to arrive at our sports Nirvana. While it is winter time in Australia, the sun is shining brightly in the Northern Hemisphere. Wimbledon’s British Open tennis championship commenced last night. A week later, the first Ashes Test Match against England starts on July 7^th, followed by the British Open Golf Championships on July12. Shortly after that, the second Ashes Test will commence.

So, over the next two weeks, we members of the Couch Potatoes Fraternity are likely to suffer repetitive strain injuries to our thumb and index fingers as we click the TV remote between cricket, tennis and golf. We will be watching the cream of the crop in these three sports doing battle on large, flat TV screens, right in our very own lounge rooms.  We are also likely to cause our body clocks to go in to meltdown as we tune into the cricket at 6-00pm, then the tennis and golf at around 8-30pm, watching and clicking,  click, click, clicking, until around 2-00 or 3-00am in the morning

It is only every four years that we get the trifecta of tennis, ashes cricket and golf all featuring in the first weeks of July. How spoilt we are these days to have such large, crystal clear, high definition, coloured images coming to us instantaneously via video waves that are bouncing off satellites 32 000 kilometres up in space? It was not always so.

My first memories of being involved in these northern hemisphere summer sporting spectacles during our Australian winter time, started when I was ten years old, in 1948. In March of that year I had wagged school, with my father’s permission, to go to the Western Australian Cricket Association’s cricket ground, affectionately known as the WACA, to watch Don Bradman’s Australian cricket team play against the Western Australian state side.

On that magic Friday afternoon, I saw Don Bradman make 115 in his very last innings at the WACA. A few days later The Don and his team boarded a ship in Fremantle for the four week voyage to England. The Australians arrived in April and, after a week practising at Lords cricket ground in London, they played cricket matches six days a week for the next fifteen weeks, until the middle of August. They never lost a match. They won four of the five Ashes Test matches, one was drawn because of bad weather, and they were never defeated in any of the thirty odd County matches that they played. Because of their unbeaten record, that 1948 Australian Test Team lives in cricket history, forever known as Bradman’s Invincibles. That game that I wagged school to see, played at the WACA over three days in mid-March, 1948, was the one and only time that Don Bradman’s Invincibles ever played in Australia. And I was there. I saw them. I saw Bradman make a century.

As the 1948 winter closed in, my father kept me fully informed about the progress of the Australian team as they played against various county sides. When the long awaited first day of the first test arrived we had an early tea so that Dad and I could huddle over the radio at 6 o’clock that night to hear the first ball bowled.

1948 was the very first year that the ABC broadcast a direct radio coverage of the Ashes Tests from England. The previous Ashes series in England had been in 1938, before the Second World War put a sad stop to cricket for a few years. In that 1938 series, the technology was not available to enable direct radio broadcasts from England. The ABC broadcast those games in England in 1938 from its studios in Sydney. Former NSW cricket captain, Alan McGillivray, commenced his long and distinguished cricket commentating career in that Sydney studio, broadcasting what were called The Synthetic Tests.

McGillivray would set the scene for his radio audience and then be handed a  telegraphic message telling him that Stan McCabe had just driven a ball through mid-off for four. These messages were called “cables” because they were transmitted from London by cable that stretched all the way to Australia. On receiving the cable McGillivray would hit the table with his pencil to simulate the sound of bat hitting ball and then describe in his eloquent fashion how the ball had sped past the fieldsman, who then gave chase to it as it crashed into the pickets. This was followed by the appreciative applause of the crowd, supplied by an ABC sound effects technician.

McGillivray would pad it out a bit, describe how the ball was returned to the bowler, repeat the scores, comment on the enthusiastic crowds and the threatening rain clouds coming in from the west. Then he would receive another cable telling him that Jack Fingleton had glanced the ball to deep backward square leg for two. McGillivray would hit his pencil on the table and continue his colourful, if synthetic, commentary. It was not a trick or a fraud. His vast listening audience knew what was happening, but they appreciated the opportunity to be so closely involved in a test match being played over 12 000 miles away. That’s 19 200 kilometres away in the new money.

The real an authentic overseas radio broadcasts of the Ashes Tests in 1948 were hugely popular, especially the very colourful commentary of John Arlott. Each night Dad and I listened to the static filled broadcasts direct from England as John Arlott’s rich baritone voice painted glorious word pictures for us of the great battles being waged by Australia and England on those green cricket fields in England.

It was sixty seven years ago, but I can still hear Arlott saying “And now, here comes Lindwall from the Kirstall Lane end. His shirt tails flapping in the breeze…” Ah, yes, it was glorious to be such a part of it all while almost 20 000 kilometres away. In those days we had a very large radio, I think it was a Stromberg-Carlson. It stood about four feet tall, that’s 1.3 metres in the new money, and was quite a significant piece of furniture. Each night my father would put some blankets and a pillow at the base of the radio where I would snuggle up and listen as the cricket ebbed and flowed and the static came in waves that sometimes drowned out the broadcasts altogether. I was only ten years old but my father allowed me to stay up as long as I could listening to the test broadcasts. He said they were history making and I should remember them. They were and I certainly do.

The most memorable of all of those 1948 tests was the final day’s play in the Fourth Test at Headingly in Leeds. Dad and I, on that wintry night, huddled close to the wireless in front of the fire, listening to the broadcast. It was the last day’s play and at stumps the day before, England was 400 runs ahead. At 6.00pm that night the voices of John Arlott and Alan McGillivray crackled across the world to tell us that the England Captain, Norman Yardley, to everyone’s surprise, had not declared the England innings closed but was batting on into the final day. This meant that he could use a heavy roller before play started to further break up the already crumbling pitch. It also meant Australia would have less than a day to make the runs. The commentators were sagely saying that there was almost no hope of Australia winning the game.  

After about fifteen minutes of play, Norman Yardley did declare and sent Australia in. They needed to make 404 runs on that last day to win the match. No team in history had ever scored 400 runs in the fourth innings to win a test – and the Australians had to do it in less than 340 minutes on worn wicket. A very worn wicket!

By lunchtime in the match, Bradman and Morris were batting well, but Australia was facing a very stiff task. In Perth it was 8 o’clock on a cold winter’s night. By that stage I was well and truly rugged up in the blanket bed Dad had made for me in front of the radio. During the night we both listened and cheered as Bradman and Morris began to get on top. I stayed awake as long as possible but finally, somewhere between Lunch and Tea of the final day of the fourth test, sleep overtook me

At 6.30am the next morning Dad woke me and said, “We won!” He gave me a quick summary, telling how Morris made 182 and Bradman was 173 not out. Morris was dismissed just before the magic 404 was reached but Bradman and the 21year old, Neil Harvey, got there with 15 minutes to spare. A famous victory which kept intact the undefeated record of Bradman’s “Invincibles”.

  That 173 Not Out was Don Bradman’s last test score. In the Fifth Test he was out second ball for a duck when he played a ball from Eric Hollies on to his stumps. Australia bowled England out for just under 60 runs, put them back in and bowled them out again to remain undefeated. Australia did not need a second innings, so the great Don Bradman did not get the chance to make the six runs that he needed too average exactly 100 runs per innings in his long and illustrious career. Still, an average of 99.94 ranks him at about twice as good as anyone else who has ever played Test cricket.

Those static radio broadcasts of the 1940s are long gone. In the early 1970s they started sending TV telecasts direct from England in scratchy black and white vision.  Now we can watch all of the action in living colour, with the benefits of delayed action, slow motion replays. For a couch potato, life cannot get much better than this. Have to finish now. The tennis starts in an hour and I need to massage my remote control thumb and index finger in preparation for the long winter of TV sports ahead. Bring it on!

 PS: Weather alert. While I do acknowledge that it is winter time in Perth, the temperature today was 24 degrees with a bracing minimum of 9 degrees around sunrise.  They do say it may rain in two days’ time. I hope so, because we really need the water.

 As I sat in Perth’s pleasantly warm, morning sunshine today, having morning tea with my lawn mower man, I reflected that everyone in England would be wishing for very similar weather to see them through the feast of summertime tennis, cricket and golf. We of the Couch Potato Fraternity certainly hope that they get their wish.

What makes us happy?

What makes us happy?

A very good question. Presumably, if we could find out what makes us happy we would all live happily ever after. Perhaps that only happens in Fairy Stories?  Still, the Constitution of the United States says that each of its citizens has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So happiness is obviously important. At least Thomas Jefferson thought so.

Somebody once told me that we can choose to be happy or sad. It is an interesting concept which I found hard to believe when suffering from an abscessed tooth, or perusing my bank statements.

Speakers at the 2015 Sydney Writers' festival explored aspects of happiness and wellbeing when they addressed the topic: How to live. Those discussing how we could live happily and well were writers and social commentators, Hugh Mackay, Leigh Ann Hewison, Anne Manne, Douglas Coupland and Paul Dolan. 

What was made quite clear early in their discussion was that happiness is not the same as pleasure, which is generally fleeting. Mackay said that the Happiness Industry had a lot to answer for by making us believe that we deserve to be happy.  He said that meaning in life, and therefore happiness, comes from a  life of service, community and 'the hard work of love'.

Paul Dolan, an economist who advises the British Government, said happiness comes from what we choose to pay attention to. Dolan said that if we can identify what gives us purpose and pleasure in life and focus on those things, then we will lead happier lives. Other panelists offered similarly sage thoughts, which generally indicated that if we could live life with purpose and a sense of wellbeing, then we would be happy.

These were all very interesting reflections on Happiness and reminded me reading some years ago of a study by some researchers in the USA. They were studying anxiety and well being...maybe that is not exactly how they worded their project. Anyhow, they chose several fraternity houses in a large university and tested the students residing therein as to their levels of anxiety.

They then divided the students into two similar groups. One group carried on with their lives as usual, the other were given a specific task to perform on a regular basis. Six months later the researchers again tested the students for anxiety levels. 

The 'do nothing different' group recorded anxiety levels that had stayed at the same level or had increased. The 'do something specific' students all had lower anxiety level than they had registered six months earlier.

And what was the special activity undertaken by those in this less anxious group? The researchers had asked that they do each others' laundry each week! Yes, after six months of doing something nice for their fraternity house mates, these students had all lowered their anxiety levels and increased their feelings of well being. Doing good for others made them feel better about themselves.

When I was a school principal I used to tell this story to the parents, in order to encourage them to participate in a variety school activities. I used to write in a February school newsletter, "Not only will you be helping the children, but  it will make you feel good." Some of them believed me.

To my mind, it seems Hugh Mackay is on the right track. Then again, Someone much earlier did encourage us all to treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves. In fact, He went quite a bit further by saying that we should not only love our neighbours as ourselves, but that we should also love our enemies and be kind to those who persecute and speak evil of us. This is a recipe for happiness? Well, that's what He said.

I always try to keep this in mind when I am at Subiaco Oval cheering for the West Coast Eagles and am seated next to a loud and obnoxious opposition  barracker. It is not always easy...as Malcolm Fraser once pointed out? But, when that obnoxious opposition barracker is forced into a sombre silence by the Eagles resounding victory...well, that really is happiness.

Sometimers Disease.

Dementia is a terrible affliction and Alzhiemers is its scourge. Everyone has great sympathy for those who suffer from it and tremendous admiration for family members who must deal with its effects. However, doctors tell us it is quite normal for all of us to suffer from memory loss from time to time.

Older people often refer to their own natural memory lapses as “Old Timers Disease”. I am well and truly past my retirement age but I prefer to classify my memory lapses as “Sometimers Disease”. The reason being that sometimes I forget and, after a while, sometimes, I remember.

A recent conversation with my beautiful wife, Lesley, was a classic example of “Somtimers”. We were having dinner when Lesley, suddenly remarked, “I have just remembered who the French mother was in last night’s episode of Mad Men. I’ve been thinking about it all day. It was Julia Ormond.”  I don’t watch Mad Men.

“Julia Ormond!” I exclaimed. “She was beautiful. She was in Legends of the Fall with Brad Pitt and, and, oh, you know, that Welsh actor who played the father. You know him. He was in Silence of the Lambs. Oh, what was his name?”

“Oh, yes, I know him. His name is… It’s, ah, it’s ah …”

I continued. “Julia Ormond also played Queen Guinevere in First Knight, with Richard Gere as Sir Lancelot. King Arthur was, oh, I know his name but I just can't think of it. He was Scottish."

“Anthony Hopkins,” said Lesley quite triumphantly.

“No, King Arthur was not Anthony Hopkins,” I replied. “He's Welsh. This actor is Scottish. He was in the first James Bond film. Oh, you know who I mean.”

“Anthony Hopkins was the father in Legends of the Fall,” said Lesley, rather curtly.

“Oh, yes. So he was.” I replied apologetically. “But who played King Arthur in First Knight?”

“I know who you mean,” said Lesley. “I just can't think of his name.”

In our mutual blissful ignorance Lesley harkened back to Mad Men. “Another face I remember in that episode was Mimi Rogers. You remember her, don’t you? She was married to, oh, you know, what was his name? He was married to Nicole Kidman.”

“”Not Keith Urban?” I suggested helpfully.

“No, no. Before him. Oh, you know who I mean. He was featured in those TV adverts for roast lamb dinners and he starred in Risky Business.”

“It was Sean Connery” I said dramatically.

“No, it wasn't. Definitely not,” said Lesley, derisively.

“No, no. I just remembered. It was Sean Connery who was the actor who played King Arthur in First Knight with Julia Ormond and Richard Gere.

“Oh yes, of course. Sean Connery. How could we forget him?”

We continued to talk about Sean Connery’s many fine films when Lesley blurted out, “Tom Cruise”. 

Tom Cruise? Tom Cruise? Ah, yes, Lesley quickly explained that it was Tom Cruise who had been married to Mimi Rogers.

We often have forgetful conversations like that. Sometimes we forget and, sometime afterwards, we remember. I hope we never become as bad as a friend of mine at whose home we had dinner recently. After we had I enjoyed a pleasant meal, Lesley and our hostess took some of the dinner plates into the kitchen prior to serving up the dessert.

In their absence I began telling my friend about our recent very forgetful conversation about various film stars.

“Oh yes,” said my friend. "We both used to have the same problem. Always forgetting names. However, the wife and I went to a doctor. He gave us several techniques to help us jog the memory. He was very good. Fixed us up, that's for sure.”

“Really. Well he seems like just the fellow we should visit. What’s his name?”

My friend stared at me for a few seconds, but did not say anything. He was thinking very hard. His brain was turning over furiously but he wasn't getting any traction.

At length he said to me, “It is the name of a flower.”

“A petunia,” I suggested.

“No. No. It has a very pleasant perfume.”

“Could it be a gardenia?”

“No, no, not a gardenia. It has sharp thorns.”

“Oh, you must mean a rose.”

“Ah, yes. That’s it. Rose.” With that he leaned back in his chair and called out to the kitchen, “Hey, Rose, what’s the name of that memory doctor we saw last month?”

This edited story was published in the LIFE section of The Australian newspaper on May 15, 2015.

Mixed or straight grades?

Mixed or straight grades?

Some straight talk about mixed grades!

This article was originally published in the WA Principals Leaders' Library in May, 2007. The question is still being debated in 2015. 

At the end of each school year principals are involved in the thankless and stressful task of estimating enrolments and organizing next years’ classes.

Sometimes these estimates are accurate and the principal eases into the New Year wearing the smug, self satisfied expression of the coach of the Grand Final winner

However, as Murphy’s Law dictates time and time again, these Term Four estimates are often wrong. During that traumatic first week back at school the numbers go wildly astray and that smug expression is extinguished. Stress lines and frowns cloud the principal’s face as classes are reorganized to the great consternation of children, teachers and parents. The next two weeks are spent on the telephone or in uncomfortable face to face interviews with parents whose children have been relocated from a straight class to a mixed grade. They are not happy!

“Why have you taken young our young Einstein out of Year 4 and put him DOWN to a Year3/4 class?”

“My daughter’s best friends are all in the other Grade 4 class. She cries all the time. Why have you split them up? She used to love school. Now she hates it!”  And so on.

I still have vivid memories of the first day of school somewhere in the late 1990s. We had a welcoming assembly at 9- 00 am after which I wore my smug smirk back to the office, pleased that my predictions had been accurate and all classes were now in their rooms busily embarking on another enjoyable year.  

It was then that I noticed nine sets of parents and their assorted youngsters clustered around the reception desk, being handed enrolment forms by a clearly flustered Registrar. Just as I always worry on aeroplanes when the Flight Attendants start rushing towards the cockpit, my school experience had taught me that if my Registrar appeared flustered then I should be very, very worried. She followed me into the office and told me that the entire nine sets of parents at Reception were all living in area and enrolling their children in Year One.

Suddenly I had 36 children in Year One and any reorganization of the numbers meant that I had to form several mixed grades throughout the school. The scenario that followed is familiar to many principals. Emergency staff meetings. Reorganized classes. Relocation to other rooms. Some children became emotional wrecks, some staff wondered why their Principal was not clairvoyant enough to foretell that nine unexpected pupils would all turn up on Day One and a great many parents turned feral!

If only I knew then what I know now. Mixed grades are good for you, or at least for the children fortunate enough to be chosen to be in one. That is what some educational research tells us. And quite a few parents are starting to agree with them.

Suzanne Witt of the Australian Capital Territory Council for P& C Associations points out that overseas research shows that children in composite classes do no worse academically than their peers in straight grades and their social skill development is enhanced. Children in these classes are more confident, co operate better, work better in team situations, are assertive, show more initiative, are more independent learners and better problem solvers. What is more, they more easily make friends outside their peer age group. (1)

Firstly, let us be clear about the terminology. Composite classes have always existed, usually because of administrative necessity. Mike Berson’s “A Fair Chance For All”, published by WAPPA , outlines quite clearly that for much of the time between 1850 and 1950 a great many Western Australian schools were one teacher schools containing children from “First Bubs” to Standard Six (Grade 7) with some catering for students up to Junior and Leaving. Principals are often forced to combine classes because of the pressure of enrolments or the lack of staff.

In recent years though, there have been occasions where school have created composite classes because of deliberate educational choice. These classes are generally referred to as Multi Age Groups, Fluid Groups, Vertical Groups, Family Groups.

With all Australian state education systems now operating on some form of Outcomes Based Education some schools have formed multi age groupings in an attempt to teach by stages, not by ages. Jean Rice, an experienced Principal and widely respected early childhood educator was one W.A. school administrator who established composite classes by choice in the late 1990s. Jean says, “At that time at Forrest Crescent Primary School I had 80 Pre Primary children and 100 Year One children. Obviously I was going to have to form at least one P/1 class out of administrative necessity. However, I had professional motivation to form a composite group. I firmly believed a P/1 would be beneficial for the children and their teachers.”

Jean discussed the situation with P/P and Year 1 parents, informing them of the educational and social benefits. She asked them to choose between straight and group classes. In the first year only 12 parents volunteered to have their children in the P/1 class. Jean says “A majority of these were P/P parents who felt their children would gain some advantage being in a more formal Year One environment.”

During the year Jean closely monitored the outcomes of all P/P and Year 1 children. She found there to be no significant differences academically in literacy and numeracy levels but that the P/1 children were clearly advantaged in their social and emotional development. They more easily took on leadership roles, cooperated better in team situations, had greater self confidence and self motivation to learn. Parents also noticed these differences and the next year Jean had over 30 parents volunteering for the composite classes.

There is strong evidence that positive relations among peers plays an essential role in a child’s social development (2) and that composite classrooms promote social development and engage younger and less socially skilled children (3). For those who desire a co operative, respectful and socially mature learning environment a composite class has many attractions.

Robert McCubbin Primary School in Box Hill, Victoria, is one of a growing number of schools whose websites proudly proclaim that they have arranged mixed grade classes on purpose to “cater for individual development.”

·  The multi age classroom is the perfect vehicle for developing learning which recognizes that all children develop at different rates

·  The multi age classroom seeks to challenge a child’s interest and understanding, while at the same time matching skills to the child’s developing abilities.

·  It allows for the individual growth of each child. They are free to find their own levels in social, physical and intellectual areas.

·  Multi aging provides an opportunity for a wider range of relationships and experiences

· A more natural learning situation is established. Children work at their own pace with their programme not geared to the work of a single year but adjusted over two or more years.

· Pre Primary and newcomers are a minority within the classroom allowing for a lot more personal attention from teachers and older children.

· Older children are encouraged to develop responsibility and independence. Children are able to care for each other and are able to learn from each other in both behaviour and school work. Children can provide a variety of models for each other.

· There is a sense of community within the multi aged classroom which helps build a child’s self confidence and feelings of security.

· In a multi age classroom children will be working with content and processes from a range of academic levels. Open ended experiences and inquiry based units of work allow for different levels of achievement.

· Benefits also come to the older children from the qualities of leadership and responsibility which they develop.(4)

Some researchers argue that multi aged classes are relatively successful because principals, “in an effort to reduce the burden on multi grade teachers, place more able, more independent and more cooperative students in multi grade classes.” (5)

That may be true. It is probably also true that wise Principals tend to put their more capable teachers in charge of multi aged classes. This makes it easier for the principal to discuss the situation with a concerned parent in those torrid days of February when classes are being reorganised. Parents generally have a good idea about which teachers are “quality” and will take note when the choices are between a straight grade with a “very ordinary” teacher and a mixed grade with a highly esteemed and very effective teacher. Not to mention all of the aforesaid social and emotional advantages such classes possess.

So when the need arises next year to come face to face with parents concerned about mixed class groupings, just put on your premiership winning smile…and give it to them straight!

1. Susanne Witt. ACT Parents and Citizens Newsletter, April, 2004. http://www.schoolparents.canberra.net.au/composite_classes.htm
2. Chase and Doan. Full Circle. A new look at multi age education. 1994
3. Sandra Stone, “Creating the multi-age classroom”, Glenview, Illinois. Good Year Books, 1996.
4. www.robmacps.vic.edu.au
5. Mason and Burns: “Simply no worse and no better.” Review of Educational Research, 66 (3) 307-322. 1996