This text prepares pre-service teachers to best meet the needs of students entering the challenging middle years of their education.

Big Fish, Little Fish: Teaching and Learning in the Middle Years provides pre-service and early career teachers with a pathway to understanding the needs of students as they make the important transition from primary to secondary schooling. The book explores contemporary challenges for teaching and learning in the middle years, with a focus on student experience, identity, engagement and resilience. Key issues, such as teaching academically at-risk students, the impact of education policy on middle years students, and teacher preparation and identity, are given comprehensive coverage. Unique to this text is its focus on and analysis of the history of middle-years education, as well as its in-depth discussion of the experiences of young Indigenous and Maori students. Drawing on the wide-ranging expertise of its contributors, Big Fish, Little Fish prepares pre-service teachers to best meet the needs of students as they enter the challenging middle years of their education.