Our guest for this episode of The Research Files is Professor Anne Castles. She’s a Keynote speaker at ACER’s Research Conference next month, which is exploring how to improve continuity of learning in the first 12 years of a child’s life. We’ll be discussing some of the research on learning to read, and getting a taster of what delegates can expect from her presentation.

The new Fading Notes report explores the provision of music education in Australian primary teaching degrees. Researchers surveyed lecturers responsible for music education within Initial Teacher Education degrees, representing a student pool of more than 4,600 primary teaching students across 73% of universities delivering generalist primary teaching degrees. Topics included music training hours, and knowledge, skills and competency to teach. Here are some of the results.

‘The result of unresolved concerns could well lead to an unwillingness to use immersive technology with students. Yet, often, the barriers are surmountable.’ Dr Susan O’Donnell and Adrian Rayner, from the VR Learning & Design Hub, look at teacher’s prior concerns and some of the solutions.

What does it mean to be a totally inclusive school? In today’s episode of Teacher Staffroom, we discuss a Teacher’s Bookshelf article that delves into this question, as well as a School Improvement podcast episode which explores the topic of diversity, equity and inclusion in greater detail.

Recruiting career changers into teaching has become a strategy to address teacher shortages in hard-to-staff schools. In today’s article we speak to Dr Babak Dadvand from La Trobe University about his research that aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of how career change teachers navigate challenges in these schools in the early years of switching to the profession.

In this episode of School Improvement, we’re joined by Angeline Aow and Sadie Hollins, 2 of the authors of Becoming a Totally Inclusive School: A Guide for Teachers and School Leaders. We’ll be talking about what we mean by Total Inclusivity, and exploring the Continuum on Becoming a Totally Inclusive School – a 6 stage framework to help schools and educators move from theory to practice.

Convened by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), Research Conference 2023 will explore how to improve the continuity of learning from birth to 12 years. It’s a big topic made compelling through the latest research from experts in early childhood and primary education.

‘At Dromana College we had an issue with only a few teachers having the confidence to write a decent rubric…As a school, we therefore came up with our own guidelines on how to construct rubrics for years 7-10.’ In this reader submission, Assessment and Reporting Coordinator Jodi Wilson shares how the Victorian secondary school has been helping teachers to improve their own rubric design skills.

‘[Do] teachers need to be trained therapists? A resounding no. Teachers can provide the best support to students impacted by trauma by developing positive relationships, implementing evidence-informed classroom practices, providing effective instruction and managing the classroom environment so that all students, including those affected by trauma, can thrive,’ Dr Lorna Hepburn writes in our latest reader submission.

In this extract from their new book, Leading Improvement in School Community Wellbeing, Dr Donna Cross and Dr Leanne Lester are discussing the role of ‘wellbeing champions’ in a school setting, and the 4 key elements school leaders need to prioritise when it comes to staff wellbeing.