Vale Peter Freebody

It is with great sadness that we learned of the passing of Peter Freebody on 30th August from cancer. He will be remembered as a cherished colleague, a scholar of great breadth and depth and a generous mentor.

 Dr Peter Freebody engaged with SFL since the early days of his doctoral thesis in 1983 on the effects of cohesion on comprehension. As Senior Consultant to the Australian Curriculum: English, he made the momentous decision to include a Language strand, interacting with the Literacy and Literature strands. The Language strand was divided into three sub-strands reflecting the three SFL metafunctions. This not only made language itself visible as an object of study, but legitimated a functional approach.

 Peter was an active member of the LLEN Expert Panel, contributing sage advice and supporting younger researchers. He brought a wider literacy perspective to our work, always with a keen eye on issues of educational disadvantage.

Peter was advisor to numerous Australian State and Commonwealth literacy education and assessment advisory groups; Life Member of PETAA; Recipient of the prestigious International Literacy Association's Research Panel’s WS Gray award for contributions to literacy education internationally.

 His wisdom and warmth will be sorely missed.