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Radical subject acceleration, or moving students through a subject area faster than is typical, including skipping grades, is a widely accepted approach to support students who are gifted and talented. This is done in order to match the student’s cognitive level and learning needs. This case study explored radical subject acceleration for gifted students by focusing on one school’s response to the learning needs of a ten year old mathematically gifted student. It provides insight into the challenges, accommodations and approach to radical subject acceleration in an Australian school. It explored the processes and decisions made to ensure that a gifted student’s learning needs were met and identified salient issues for radical subject acceleration. Lessons learned from this case study may be helpful for schools considering radical acceleration.

Special Religious Education is faith-based single tradition religious education taught in many Australian public schools by volunteer teachers who are adherents of the faith they are teaching. This paper derives from a qualitative study of the pedagogy of Christian Special Religious Education teachers that took place between 2010 and 2014. Love is at the heart of these Christian teachers' pedagogy. It guides their pedagogical decisions and sustains and compels them to continue regardless of the challenges they experience. This paper discusses the place of philia, eros and agape love in SRE pedagogy and uses Buber's concept of I-It and I-Thou relations to further explicate the nature of love in Special Religious Education.

Middle leaders play a central role in the Christian leadership of their school. This research explores how nine middle leaders in three distinct Anglican Schools in Australia enact their roles, and the conditions that influence faith expression within their schools. Findings demonstrate that middle leaders shape and are shaped by school culture and community. Our theory of Christian middle leadership, derived from four key themes, shows how school middle leaders navigate the personal and institutional dimensions of faith expression, through three distinct discourses. Their responses and the responses of their school enable them to interpret their role, career and calling.

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