Middle schooling reforms challenge the traditional ways young adolescents have been educated (Anfara et al., 2003; NMSA, 2003).  While the impetus for taking up middle schooling reforms has differed from country to country, the common element has been a focus on young adolescents as a distinct group of students with unique developmental needs and an urgent requirement to improve learning outcomes and long term engagement with formal schooling for this age group (Chadbourne & Pendergast, 2010; Dinham & Rowe, 2007).   Interestingly just as middle schooling reforms seem to earn a legitimate position within a country’s national educational discourse there is an inevitable ‘slip’ from mainstream education agendas.  In the United Kingdom, the introduction of the National Curriculum in the late 1980’s supported a two tiered schooling system, which has disseminated the uptake of middle schooling practices.  In Australia, evidence of this can be seen in new national curriculum frameworks where reference to middle years is significantly absent (Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth, 2011; Bahr & Crosswell, 2011). Whereas, in the USA middle schooling has experienced a “boom-to-bust” cycle and is struggling to reinvent itself in response to new educational priorities (Beane, 2001; Faulkner & Cook, 2006).   

This paper presents an overview of the history of middle years reforms internationally, presenting the United Kingdom, Australia and the USA as separate case studies. It traces the various educational environments that originally led to the prominence of middle years reforms in each country, outlines key milestones and the current educational agendas impacting on middle years.

As such, this paper is highly significant as it outlines the historical, current and possible future of middle years reforms in the UK, Australia and the USA.  These three countries have all experienced middle years reforms in very different ways and have had significant influence on the ongoing international discussion about middle years education.   This paper addresses the current gap in the middle years literature that provides such an insight or timely snapshot.

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