amt 61 (1) 25 Background

It is recognised that young people between the ages of 11 and 15 undergo momentous phys-ical, emotional and psychological changes as they move towards adulthood. A paper prepared as part of the Junior Secondary Review in South Australia describes adoles-cence as: …a significant stage of life in its own right. Rather than being a way station between childhood and adulthood, adolescence has its own characteristic elements and chal-lenges. Adolescence is a construct defined by social, biological and other factors. This view that adolescence is in part socially defined implies a significant role for school i