Rebecca Vukovic

When you consider your curriculum planning for the term, or the year, linking learning goals and lesson activities to key events can be a great hook, and a chance to bring students and teachers from different year levels together. Today’s article looks at free curriculum-aligned resources for National Science Week, and a school example of planning in action for this annual celebration.

In today’s Global Education podcast we’re joined by Dr Pauline Martinot, the lead author of the groundbreaking French study that points to the first year of school as the time and place where a maths gender gap emerges in favour of boys. Dr Martinot shares how her colleagues went about conducting the study of over 2.6 million children, some key findings, and the impact of this research on schools and teachers around the world. 

Schools play a critical role in supporting student mental health and promoting wellbeing initiatives. The Australian Council for Educational Research has produced the Wellbeing Program Guide – a comprehensive catalogue of 233 wellbeing programs designed to help teachers and schools find suitable programs that are evidence-based, locally relevant, and practical for educators to implement.

Research shows that when children thrive in their early years, they have a strong foundation for lifelong learning, health, development and wellbeing. New data from the 2024 Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) show there has been an overall increase in the percentage of children developmentally on track on 5 AEDC domains since the baseline was established in 2009. 

Research shows that outstanding teachers and school leaders regularly share their skills, knowledge, expertise and best practice with others, both within and across schools and learning networks. Every week Templestowe Heights Primary School in Victoria opens its doors to educators from other schools to share their leadership expertise and to watch their classrooms in action.

In this episode of Teacher Staffroom, we share some of the highlights from the past month on Teacher, including an article on the International Mathematical Modeling Challenge and a contribution from Rachael Lehr on how to start the term off strongly.

Australia’s year 4s achieved the country’s best-ever result in the latest Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). Alongside the year 4 and 8 assessments, students, teachers and principals at participating schools completed a questionnaire – those findings have been released today.

To celebrate our 100th episode of The Research Files podcast series, the team at Teacher have delved into the archives to choose clips from our favourite episodes. In this very special episode, you hear from your regular hosts Jo Earp, Rebecca Vukovic and Dominique Russell, as well as and a whole lot of guests including researchers, teachers and school leaders. 

It has been an exciting month here at Teacher magazine because we launched our new monthly themes. In this Teacher Staffroom podcast, I’ll take you through our theme for May. I’ll also run you through some of the highlights from our editorial, including 2 pieces on the topic of AI, and chat about a new report by the Australian Council for Educational Research that explores teacher self-efficacy in classroom management. 

Megan Gilmour is the CEO and Co-founder of MissingSchool, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to raising awareness of the educational and social needs of children who miss school because of serious illness or injury. In today’s Q&A we hear more about her work to help students stay connected to their classmates.