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Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Teacher Staffroom, where we catch you up on the latest evidence, insight, and action in education. I'm Dominique Russell.
As you may know, we recently announced the winners of the 2024 Teacher Awards. We also had the pleasure of announcing the winner of our $500 prize for completing our annual reader survey. It’s certainly the time of year for awards, because plenty of other educators are being recognised around the country, and students as well. In this episode of Teacher Staffroom, I’ll catch you up on all of this exciting news. Let’s get started.
Earlier this month, we wrapped up our annual reader survey. It’s the tenth year in a row that we’ve run our survey, and, in the survey, we ask you for your feedback on Teacher, as well as the topics you’d like us to cover in the future. Your feedback is one of the most valuable things to our team, and to thank you for the time you take to complete the survey, we run a prize draw for all respondents based in Australia. The prize this year was a $500 VISA gift card, and our winner was Rose Maker from Darwin in the Northern Territory.
So, in terms of the topics you told us you’d like us to cover in the future, in this year’s survey, you let us know you’d like more content on leadership, more research news articles, and for us to focus on topics like curriculum implementation, literacy, teacher wellbeing, and more.
For the first time, we also asked you to tell us what your favourite thing about your role is. Here’s what a primary school leader from New South Wales told us:
I love that I am able to make a difference and leave an impact in the world each and every day.
And an early years educator from Victoria said:
Making a difference to the children and families I work with – especially hearing from them years later to say how much they loved preschool.
And finally, a K-12 teacher from Queensland said:
I love seeing students’ achievements as they complete their education, especially those who overcome obstacles and go above and beyond.
We also asked you for your feedback on Teacher Awards. We’re now in the second year of the Teacher Awards and the insights you’ve provided to us are so valuable. In case you missed it, we announced our 2024 winners of the Awards earlier this month. Across our 8 Categories, individual educators and teams were recognised from South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. It was our esteemed Judging Panel that had the challenge of selecting the winners, and here is what one member of the Panel, Dr Kat Ross, said:
These awards were a pleasure to read and see the incredible work of teams and individuals who are striving to support their students and communities. Teachers are far too often overlooked and underappreciated, and I am glad I could be a part of something that helps to bring recognition to the incredible teachers making huge impacts.
If you’re eager to find out more about the winning educators and the work they’ve been recognised for – you’re in luck. In October, we’ll begin sharing the stories of our 8 winners in articles on our website. And, the Awards will be back in 2025, so it’s not too early to start thinking about who you might nominate for next year.
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We also had the pleasure of speaking with another Award winner recently – a 2024 NAIDOC Teacher of the Year Award winner, Rebekah Lindsay from Googong Public School in New South Wales, right near the ACT border.
Googong Public School is a new school, having opened to students last year. In our Q&A, Rebekah spoke about being the founding principal of a new school, how she has worked towards embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives into all aspects of the school and also the positive impact this is having on student outcomes.
It was really interesting to read about how Aboriginal perspectives have been key in the school’s design, even down to the school uniform. Rebekah shared that the Land is represented by the school buildings, the sky is represented through the signage and artworks that depict significant birds in the area, and the school uniforms represent water that flows in, through and around the school. They also have bush tucker gardens on the school grounds and yarning circles in the playgrounds.
One point that really stood out to me, though, was where Rebekah described how she ensures everyone at the school champions the value of embedding First Nations perspectives. Here’s a little bit of what Rebekah had to say:
We all engage in compulsory Aboriginal culture and history professional learning delivered by the New South Wales Department of Education, but we also engage in professional learning from Reconciliation Australia, and more importantly we engage in learning through the consultation with the Aboriginal community. Furthermore, Aboriginal perspectives are not always delivered as part of a separate professional learning session to our staff, we often include discussion in relation to Aboriginal perspective as a lens applied to whatever the topic we are focusing on. Underlying all of what we have implemented is continued high expectations of our staff to continually learn from our community and be responsive to their needs, including continual consultation and evaluation of what we are doing and the direction we are heading. We are always looking for opportunities to promote cultural safety and pride.
So, that point there brings me to question for you to reflect on. Championing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and perspectives requires staff members to be confident in their own cultural competency. So, as a school leader, are your staff afforded sufficient opportunities and support in this area?
Staying in New South Wales for a moment, and that’s where 2 of the 4 music teachers have been shortlisted for the 2024 ARIA Music Teacher of the Year Award – Susan Sukkar from Petersham Public School and Casey Allen from PLC Sydney. They’re joined by fellow nominees Nathaniel Miller from Bulman School in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory and Hayley Wedding from Seaview High School in Seacombe Heights, South Australia.
The annual award is presented in partnership with The Song Room and it’s now in its eighth year. It celebrates the role music teachers play in not only fostering a love for music in students, but also improving students’ wellbeing, learning and community connection. The winner is voted by the public and it will be announced later this year, on 20 November.
And finally, we can’t forget to acknowledge some great news for students interested in video games – the winners of the annual STEM Video Game Challenge have also been announced recently.
Since 2014, this annual challenge has invited students across the country to design and build their own playable video games. In the 10 years it’s been running, the challenge has aimed to foster students’ STEM skills and inspire the next generation of digital problem solvers through a fun and authentic learning opportunity.
This year, the challenge was open to students in years 3-12. Students could work individually or in teams and enter into one of 6 different competition categories based on their age and the game platform they chose to use. At the end of the challenge, teams submit an original, playable, video game alongside a Game Design Document that shares the overall creative process and design goals for the game. The students are supported throughout the challenge by a team mentor, which is usually a teacher.
They also need to draw inspiration from the year’s theme – this year that was ‘stars’ and it was interpreted by students in many different ways. For example, some leant into the geometric shape and others were inspired by space.
For the first time this year, a judge winner has also been announced. The challenge’s judging panel is comprised of volunteers from the education, game development and technology sectors. The 2024 judge winner is Matt Coffey.
Spanning 4 states in Australia, the winners were selected from 518 entries comprised of 1,470 students. We shared the details of each winner in an article, so head to our website to read that in full if you’re interested, and you’ll also be able to see some images of their creations.
So, as you can hear, it really is the time of year for Awards and there’s one more upcoming date to put in your calendar. The winners of the Prime Minister’s Prizes for Excellence in Science Teaching are set to be announced on the 8th of October, and we’ll be taking a closer look at those winners as soon as they’re announced.
That’s all for this episode. Thanks for listening. You’re now all caught up on the latest evidence, insight and action. I’ll leave all the links to the full articles I mentioned today in the transcript of this podcast episode, which you can find under the podcast tab at our website.
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