Articles

In our annual reader survey we ask you to finish the sentence ‘to me, wellbeing means…’. In this infographic, we share some of your responses.

How many students were enrolled in how many schools across Australia throughout 2021? How many full-time equivalent staff members? What was the average student-teacher ratio? Find out what schools looked like in 2021 in today’s infographic.

How effectively are you acting on feedback given to you by students? In this episode of School Improvement, we speak with Dr Ilana Finefter-Rosenbluh about her recent research into the impact of student perception surveys on teachers’ practice, and she shares some strategies teachers and schools can employ in order to improve their practice in this area.

Students have a diverse range of personal and contextual factors that influence their access to and achievement in their education. A new global study calls for a re-evaluation of education systems to promote personalised education.

‘Children with dyscalculia lack basic number sense, which affects every aspect of their ability to process numbers including performing arithmetic operations, understanding fractions and algebra.’ Rachel Parker, Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Council for Educational Research, gives an introduction to the neurological condition dyscalculia, including the signs, diagnostic tools and evidence-based ways to support students.

‘To say that teachers have a significant impact on students’ motivation and engagement is not controversial, nor particularly enlightening. Trucks can be filled with the research papers that show this.’ In this reader submission, Professor Andrew Martin says a more informative exercise is to dig into the ways teachers make a difference to students’ motivation and engagement.

Mathematics teacher Holly Millican shares three fun classroom activities she uses with her students to help engage her students in learning algebra: Solve Me Mobiles, Digit Disguises and combining like terms.

Home support of children’s literacy skills in the early years is a well-known indicator of their reading progress at the start of school. A new study has explored how different reading experiences at home have an impact on children’s continued reading development at school.

‘Clearly, the decline in Australia’s PISA scores is a complex problem, necessitating complex and varied solutions. What is evident from these data, however, is that the decline in scores cannot be attributed to one particular school sector, but it is shared across the whole system.’ In her latest Teacher column, Sue Thomson examines achievement, school climate and student wellbeing in Australia’s three school sectors.

How do you support and celebrate neurodiversity in the classroom? What strategies do you use to ensure all students in diverse classrooms thrive at school and beyond? In this article, we outline five further readings which explore neurodiversity in education, and offer strategies for effective and informed teaching.