You are a Year 5/6 teacher in an inner city primary school. You have just completed a professional development workshop on literacy programs for boys. Partly as a result of this workshop, you have developed a strong belief about the need to engage boys and girls in literacy activities which ask them to write about their feelings in response to events and characters in stories and novels.
As part of your planning you have decided to ask students in your class to imagine they are the young boy in the novel, 'Goodnight Mr Tom' and to write about their feelings and reactions when the boy is forced to return to his mother in London. You intend to use their responses as part of gathering data for the assessment of a unit on the theme of 'Growing Up'.
Bobby is a boy in your class. He spends most of his time engaged in physical activity, playing cricket, rugby league and practising martial arts. He plays in a very successful representative rugby league team. The team is coached by his father, who is an ex-first grade footballer.
Bobby's response to the task you had set was not a very effective one. After sending home Bobby's report which commented on Bobby's difficulty with the writing task, Bobby's mother sought an appointment with you to discuss his result.
In the meeting with you, Bobby's mother suggested that the task you had set was inappropriate for boys and had unfairly discriminated against Bobby: 'writing about feelings was not something that boys should be asked to do', she said.
You have just left the meeting with Bobby's mother. You are reflecting on your assessment task, Bobby's response and his mother's reaction within the context of the policy framework in NSW schools.