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In the context of global concerns about teacher workload and the relationship between workload and attrition, understanding the nature, quantity and intensity of teachers’ work is an essential first step in formulating robust solutions to this significant problem. Understanding teachers’ work, however, is a complex undertaking, and prior attempts have largely been focused on the quantity rather than the intensity or quality of work required and undertaken. This article reports on a pilot study of the Teacher Time Use app, a bespoke tool developed by the research team to ‘get inside’ teachers’ subjective experience of time through a focus on both workload and intensity. Our analysis shows that the app provides a simple, non-demanding way for teachers to record their work in a timely and efficient way. It also highlights the capacity of this approach to understand both the range and quantum of tasks that comprise teachers’ work and consequently the nature and subjective experience of work intensification. We argue the need for a more nuanced empirical understanding of the layering and multi-tasking of teachers’ work that characterises work intensity, and suggest that the Teachers’ Time Use app provides an effective means for recording and representing the complex dimensions of teachers’ work and time use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The National Assessment Program: Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLaN) is an annual literacy and numeracy test for all Australian students, and results from the test are disaggregated into a number of categories including language background other than English (LBOTE). For this and other categories, results on each section of the test are aggregated into state, territory and national means and standard deviations enabling comparison of performance. The NAPLaN data indicate that since the test began, in 2008, at a national level there is little difference between the results of LBOTE and non-LBOTE students on all domains of the test. This is a national result, and there is greater variation at state and territory level. However, these results defy a logic which might suggest that the LBOTE category will reflect the influence of English as a second language on test performance, rather suggesting that a second language background is not associated with test performance. In this paper, I will interrogate the variation in the LBOTE category, using data provided by the Queensland state education department, focusing on year 9 students who participated in the 2010 test. Using multiple regression and focusing on variables which are specifically related to language background, I will show that within the LBOTE category there is a wide variation of performance, and the LBOTE data are in fact hiding some of our most disadvantaged students. I will suggest alternative ways in which language learners could be identified to better empower policy and pedagogical responses to student needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]