Hello and welcome to this podcast from Teacher magazine, the resource for K-12 educators published by ACER, the Australian Council for Educational Research. I’m Rebecca Vukovic.
Throughout the school year, there are many important events and celebrations on the education calendar, and this month has been no exception. From Australian Primary Principals Day to National Science Week, we've marked these occasions by sharing stories and resources that we hope resonate with educators across the country. In today's Teacher Staffroom episode, I'll take you through some of those highlights, as well as a selection of other standout content we've published this month. I'm especially excited to revisit some of the fantastic podcast episodes we've released recently, so stay tuned for those. As always, I'll be posing questions throughout the episode so feel free to pause the audio, gather some colleagues, and discuss how you might respond to these prompts in your own school context. Let's get started.
We kicked off our celebrations this month by marking Australian Primary Principal’s Day – a chance to recognise the incredible work happening in primary schools across the country and the dedicated teachers, support staff and principals who make it possible. To mark the occasion, I sat down with Anthony Boys, Principal of Marist Catholic College, North Shore in Sydney to record a podcast for our School Improvement series. Our conversation explores the vital role principals play in shaping school culture, supporting teachers and helping young people thrive. In this episode, Anthony shares his approach to instructional leadership, explains how distributed leadership works in practice at his school, and reflects on his involvement with the Menzies Leadership Foundation.
In this clip I’d like to play for you now, Anthony is talking about the important responsibilities of a primary principal and why the role matters so much in a child’s educational journey.
I think primary principals shape the beginning of a child's educational story. And so that responsibility is enormous and privileged and it's beautiful. It's a beautiful responsibility. And the most important responsibilities, I think, include creating a culture of safety and belonging, building strong foundations for literacy, numeracy and curiosity, because these are the gateways to future learning. Supporting teachers to be expert observers of learning. It's my experience that primary teachers notice everything and principals must honour and develop that skill and honour that interface that the primary educator is.
To partner with families and build trust between home and school – that's formed early and lasts for a school lifetime. And protecting childhood, ensuring that learning is joyful, playful and developmentally appropriate. Primary principals matter because they shape that first chapter of a child's identity as a learner and when early experiences are positive, the children will carry that confidence, I believe, into their adolescence. When they're not, then we spend years trying to rebuild what was lost in that time. So, I think that speaks to some of the responsibilities of the primary school principal.
Reflecting on your own leadership practice, how effectively are you creating the conditions for teachers to thrive through clarity, support and trust? What evidence do you have that these conditions are making a difference?
This month we also celebrated National Science Week – an annual celebration of science and technology. The 2026 theme is ‘Seeds of Science: Nurturing knowledge for all’ and it highlights how scientific knowledge grows when it is cultivated and applied to real-world challenges. In an article published over on the Teacher website, I share the story of the Victorian Space Science Education Centre (VSSEC), a specialist STEM learning facility located on the campus of Strathmore Secondary College. VSSEC uses the theme of space exploration to engage students and teachers in STEM learning. It offers a range of hands-on learning programs and immersive experiences for students from year 3-12. I actually visited the school to witness some school excursions in action and to speak with Michael Pakakis, Director of VSSEC and Assistant Principal at the College.
Make sure you check out the full article to learn more about the centre, and to hear about how my brilliant colleague Jo Doyle, a Research Fellow here at the Australian Council for Educational Research undertook an evaluation of VSSEC’s flagship program called Mission to Mars. I also share a link to The Australian Science Teachers Association’s free ‘Seeds of Science’ teacher resource book, which offers educators practical ways to explore the 2026 theme with students.
Moving on from Science Week now, I’d like to tell you about some content that proved really popular with our readers this month. Firstly, Dr Nathaniel Swain – a teacher, instructional coach and researcher – published an article titled: Explicit instruction – the role of responsiveness and teacher judgement. In the piece, he discusses the importance of structured approaches, and the potential benefits and caveats around shared curriculum materials. Here’s a short quote from the article on the importance of teachers remaining responsive to student’s needs:
Most educators would agree that teachers should be responsive to the students in front of them. Planning to collect and use formative assessment is a powerful component of effective practice. To achieve responsive teaching, we also need to be willing to adjust our instruction in real-time, based on how students are progressing. Checking for understanding is a key prerequisite and it must be frequent (occurring after each small segment of learning, usually every 3 to 5 minutes of active teaching), equitable (so all students respond), and verified (so the information indicates what students know and can do, not simply what they self-report). Only after frequently checking for understanding can teachers seek to make responsive changes to the lesson as they work through it.
After reading the article, consider these questions:
How do you currently adapt your instruction to meet students' needs during a lesson? How do you decide when it is appropriate to deviate from your planned lesson sequence?
What evidence do you gather during a lesson to determine whether students are ready to move on, need additional support, or would benefit from further challenge?
Another popular piece this month was our podcast episode with Andrew Fuller, a renowned clinical psychologist, author and family therapist. Ahead of the National Education Summit in Melbourne this September, Andrew and I sat down to discuss his work on converting neurodiversity into ‘neuro-advantage’. In this episode, we explore 3 key themes – transitions and regulation, school belonging and finding your people, and how educators can help turn neurodivergence into a genuine advantage for young people. I’ll play a short clip for you now – it’s Andrew talking about why he sees all teachers as ‘treasure hunters’.
I've learned that really, the limitations that we place on kids are our own limitations of imagination. And the more that we can lift those, the more we can start to see possibilities. And I think what's wonderful about that is in a world that does seem a little bit focused on draining the creativity out of our educators, sadly, I would love to have a school, I would love to have a profession that essentially sees itself as treasure hunters. My job is primarily to find out, Rebecca, what's great about you and help you make more of it. And to believe in you probably more than you believe in yourself. And that's that really cool gig to have when you think about it. That's a really great thing to be able to do.
After listening to the episode, consider these questions:
How well do you know the interests, passions and strengths of the students in your class? How could you create more opportunities for students to connect through shared interests?
Think of a neurodivergent student you teach. How might you reframe one of their perceived challenges as a potential strength or future advantage, and what support would you provide to help them develop that strength further?
Before I let you go, I’d like to quickly whip through a few final pieces that I wouldn’t want you to miss. Of course, I know how much you all love our infographics and there are 2 news ones this month. One explored new research on students’ views of the benefits of reading in their spare time. The other explored the long-lasting impact that teachers have beyond the classroom. Make sure you check them out, over on the Teacher website.
And finally, just yesterday we published a very special podcast episode with 2 guests – ACER’s CEO Lisa Rodgers and the CEO of the Australian Council for Educational Leaders (ACEL) Lisa Newland. Ahead of ACEL’s National Conference in September, presented in partnership with ACER, Teacher Editor Jo Earp sat down to ask both guests about their own personal approach to leadership, what great leadership looks like in practice and what they’re looking forward to most about the conference. Make sure you check it out.
That’s all I have for you today. Thanks for listening. I’ll leave the links to the full articles and podcasts I mentioned today, in the transcript of this episode, which you can find under the podcast tab at our website. We’ll be back with a new episode very soon.
Teacher magazine is published by the Australian Council for Educational Research.
