School closures have undoubtedly affected all students. However, some impacts have been more pronounced for students experiencing disadvantage. A recent study looks at the unequal impacts of COVID-19 school closures on the attendance rates of high-SES and low-SES secondary students in a quasi-experimental analysis.

Last month, Holly Millican (a familiar face on Teacher’s YouTube channel) received an Early Career Teacher award. In this article, we find out about the initiatives Millican has been involved in at her school to increase student engagement in learning, which has seen her be recognised nationally.

Most schools will have students who experience some level of menstrual pain during their schooling years. So, how well are teachers prepared to deliver menstrual health education, and how can they better support students whose education may be impacted by menstrual pain?

For the past 7 months, Principal Ray Boyd and Associate Principal Rachael Lehr have been growing the school community for their new school, West Swan (Dayton) Primary School (planning name), as it’s built in Perth, Western Australia. In today’s photo story, we share some of the key moments from their journey so far.

In this episode, we’re joined by two international guests ahead of their presentation at ACER’s Research Conference 2022, Louisa Rosenheck from Kahoot! and YJ Kim from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They share what playful assessment is, and how teachers can embed this practice in the classroom.

ACER’s annual Research Conference kicks off in 2 weeks’ time and this year, Dr Diane DeBacker from the University of Kansas will be delivering the Karmel Oration Keynote, titled ‘Making learning visible: Moving from nouns to verbs’. Here, Dr DeBacker gives Teacher readers a glimpse of what she will be speaking about, and outlines the current state of competency-based education internationally.

Developing children’s reading skills as they start primary school can often mean meeting children at a range of different levels. In this article, we speak with Dr Lexie Scherer who explains how the reader-response method can help teachers find that special ‘hook’ that can open a child up to the wonders of reading.

‘Best literacy practices in specialist schools look very different to best practice in regular classrooms.’ New research published in the Australian Journal of Education explores the different observational tools needed to understand effective literacy environments in specialist schools.

‘Understanding how students construct information from their prior knowledge … allows classroom educators to determine the extent and type of unlearning needed before introducing new, challenging and truthful information.’ Associate Lecturer Justine Grogan shares some of the findings of her research in Indigenous Education.

In her latest Teacher column, Dr Sue Thomson looks ahead to the release of the PIRLS results, including the aims of this international assessment of Year 4 students’ reading skills, and how data for the 2021 cycle were collected during the pandemic.