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Assessment of executive functioning is an important element of a comprehensive assessment of intellectual abilities. Few assessments available are accessible for individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) and none have population-specific norms. This paper aims to describe the adaptation of the behavioural assessment of dysexecutive syndrome (BADS).

Adaptations were made to the BADS tests to create the BADS – intellectual disabilities (BADS-ID). Data from three doctoral dissertations were combined to explore the utility, reliability, validity and component structure of the BADS-ID. Properties of the BADS-ID were compared with the Cambridge Executive Functioning Assessment (CEFA).

The BADS-ID is accessible to IQ range 50–70 and has a two-component structure. It has good inter-rater reliability, but poor internal consistency. It has a good face and content validity but evidence for concurrent and discriminative validity is weak. All properties are comparable to or better than the CEFA.

Further research is needed to improve reliability and validity. The development of an accessible test battery with known reliability and validity for individuals with ID should facilitate research into executive functioning in this population. There is the potential to develop population-specific norms from the data.

An accessible test battery for individuals with ID is helpful in clinical situations.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the adaptation of the BADS for use with individuals with ID.

The General Industries Division will be featuring a number of new products recently added to its Surcol range of acrylic polymers.

Silberline Ltd will be showing the extended range of Sparkle Silver non‐leafing aluminium pastes which are now available from production in Scotland, and used principally for automotive top coat paints. Examples of all grades will be on show, with particular emphasis on new products and new effects for two coat finishes.

In tackling the on‐going topic of UN reform, one should be honest with the analysis of the problems at stake. It is necessary to first take into account the profound changes that have occurred since the end of the Cold War, as well as acknowledging the limits of an international organization and the shape of the UN system. It is only from that analysis that proposals can be made to rationalize and to make more efficient the functioning of the United Nations. What the organization needs is not only a rationalization, it primarily needs a vision that gives it purpose and meaning. This article proposes that its primary goals should be anticipation and prevention – it should be the advanced guard and the conscience of the world. In this context, the United Nations is an indispensable and priceless instrument in international relations.

Being literate can change the lives of Australian students. Therefore, graduating effective teachers of literacy is an imperative for Australian schools. Professional experience provides an opportunity for preservice teachers to refine their skills for teaching literacy under the guidance of a mentor teacher. This study investigates from the perspective of preservice teachers, the attributes and practices primary mentor teachers demonstrate when mentoring literacy teaching during professional experience.

This investigation utilised survey design to gather data from primary preservice teachers (n = 402) from seven Australian universities. The 34 survey items were underpinned by the Five Factor Model of Mentoring and literacy practices prescribed by the Australian curriculum. Preservice teachers self-reported their responses about their literacy mentoring experiences on a five-point Likert scale. The Five Factor Model of Mentoring provided a framework to analyse and present the data using descriptive statistics.

Findings revealed 70% or more of preservice teachers agreed or strongly agreed mentor teachers had the personal attributes, shared the pedagogical knowledge, modelled best practice and provided feedback for effective literacy teaching. Conversely, only 58.7% of the participants reported their mentor teachers shared the system requirements for effective literacy teaching.

The preservice teachers self-reported their experiences, and although this may be their experience, it does not necessarily mean the mentor teachers did not demonstrate the attributes and practices reported, it may mean they were not identified by the preservice teachers. While there were 402 participants in this study, the viewpoints of these preservice teachers' may or may not be indicative of the entire population of preservice teachers across Australia. This study included primary preservice teachers, so the experiences of secondary and early childhood teachers have not been reported. An extended study would include secondary and early childhood contexts.

This research highlighted that not all mentor teachers shared the system requirements for literacy teaching with their mentee. This finding prompts a need to undertake further research to investigate the confidence of mentor teachers in their own ability to teach literacy in the primary school. Teaching literacy is complex, and the curriculum is continually evolving. Providing professional learning in teaching literacy will position mentor teachers to better support preservice teachers during professional experience. Ultimately, the goal is to sustain high quality literacy teaching in schools to promote positive outcomes for all Australian school students.

While the role of mentor teacher is well recognised, there is a dearth of research that explores the mentoring of literacy during professional experience. The preservice teachers in this study self-reported inconsistencies in mentor teachers' attributes and practices for mentoring literacy prompting a need for further professional learning in this vital learning area.

There exists no detailed account of the 40 Australian women teachers employed within the “concentration camps” established by British forces in the Orange River and Transvaal colonies during the Boer War. The purpose of this paper is to critically respond to this dearth in historiography.

A large corpus of newspaper accounts represents the richest, most accessible and relatively idiosyncratic source of data concerning this contingent of women. The research paper therefore interprets concomitant print-based media reports of the period as a resource for educational and historiographical data.

Towards the end of the Boer War in South Africa (1899-1902) a total of 40 Australian female teachers – four from Queensland, six from South Australia, 14 from Victoria and 16 from New South Wales – successfully answered the imperial call conscripting educators for schools within “concentration camps” established by British forces in the Orange River and Transvaal colonies. Women’s exclusive participation in this initiative, while ostensibly to teach the Boer children detained within these camps, also exerted an influential effect on the popular consciousness in reimagining cultural ideals about female teachers’ professionalism in ideological terms.

One limitation of the study relates to the dearth in official records about Australian women teachers in concentration camps given that; not only are Boer War-related records generally difficult to source; but also that even the existent data is incomplete with many chapters missing completely from record. Therefore, while the data about these women is far from complete, the account in terms of newspaper reports relies on the existent accounts of them typically in cases where their school and community observe their contributions to this military campaign and thus credit them with media publicity.

The paper’s originality lies in recovering the involvement of a previously underrepresented contingent of Australian women teachers while simultaneously offering a primary reading of the ideological work this involvement played in influencing the political narrative of Australia’s educational involvement in the Boer War.

It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.

From earliest times the land and all it produced to feed and sustain those who dwelt on it was mankind's greatest asset. From the Biblical “land of milk and honey”, down through history to the “country of farmers” visualised by the American colonists when they severed the links with the mother country, those who had all their needs met by the land were blessed — they still are! The inevitable change brought about by the fast‐growing populations caused them to turn to industry; Britain introduced the “machine age” to the world; the USA the concept of mass production — and the troubles and problems of man increased to the present chaos of to‐day. There remained areas which depended on an agri‐economy — the granary countries, as the vast open spaces of pre‐War Russia; now the great plains of North America, to supply grain for the bread of the peoples of the dense industrial conurbations, which no longer produced anything like enough to feed themselves.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).