Short articles

At a primary school in Melbourne, students learn the skills of engineering by building their own solar powered vehicles, a task which culminates in a race to see which vehicle runs the fastest. We speak to the Assistant Principal about how it’s enhancing student learning.

In this edited version of her presentation at ACER’s Research Conference Dr Sue Thomson looks at the assessment of social and emotional skills in an increasingly fast-changing and diverse world.

Research shows that outstanding schools place a priority on attracting, retaining and developing the best possible teachers. Julie Sonnemann, School Education Fellow at the Grattan Institute shares some of her latest research in this area.

We’re so pleased to announce our 2019 reader survey is now live. Each year, we ask our readers to provide feedback to the Teacher team on the content they enjoy consuming.

Teachers looking for culturally diverse Australian children’s books can search a new, free database, compiled by volunteers at the National Centre for Australian Children’s Literature. The searchable fields include Australian Curriculum and Early Years Learning Framework codes.

To provide staff the opportunity to give and receive feedback, this Principal set out to develop close networks with other schools to increase staff interaction with their peers. As a result, student engagement and teacher confidence have improved.

How comfortable are teachers with addressing grief and loss with students? Findings from a recent trial has shown that just over two hours of training in bereavement can drastically improve a teacher’s confidence in supporting bereaved children and their families.

Dr Tanya Vaughan and Susannah Schoeffel from Evidence for Learning draw on the latest Guidance Report, Making best use of Teaching Assistants, to outline some practical suggestions to help teachers and school leaders apply evidence-based practices to their schools and classrooms.

In today’s article, we find out how leaders and teachers at a Canberra primary school are using a range of data to identify and meet the needs of children from preschool – to great effect.

In the first of two articles, New South Wales Science and Maths teacher Michelle Lucas shares an approach she’s developed to drive student agency and improve learning skills.