Dee O'Connor

Spirituality is understood as an integral part of humanity; residing within every person alongside the other developmental domains. For leaders in Catholic schools in Western Australia (WA), spirituality becomes integrated with religion. However, for many leaders in a Catholic school, spirituality has not been a construct they are familiar with from a professional viewpoint. This paper reports the findings from research embedded within a year-long professional learning project aimed at pedagogical growth. Qualitative data from a pre and post questionnaire ascertained the leaders' pedagogical growth. One component focussed on understanding spirituality and how children's spirituality might be nurtured specifically when taking a holistic approach within the Catholic school context; these findings provide an original contribution to the field and are the focus of this paper. Specifically, findings affirmed the centrality of spirituality within child development and the need to intentionally address teacher (and leader) knowledge and skills in nurturing spirituality.

Australian children read for pleasure less and less as they move through primary school, with a noticeable decline emerging in the middle primary school years (Scholastic, 2019). It has also been found that reading for pleasure at school has become de-prioritised in primary schools, with greater emphasis in the broader literacy education dialogue placed on instructional reading pedagogy and standardised literacy testing (Merga & Gardiner, 2018). The research presented in this paper focuses on the aspects of school culture that meaningfully support Reading for Pleasure at School (RfPS) in Years 3-6. It aims to explore the perspectives of five educators and 14 Years 3-6 children from one Western Australian independent public school. Consistent with a phenomenological perspective, this qualitative case study collected data through semi-structured individual interviews and focus group interviews with the participants. The research found that there were notable discrepancies between the educators' and the children's perspectives of RfPS culture, highlighting the importance of children's perspectives being sought if schools wish to improve the quantity and quality of their reading for pleasure practices.