As staff and students around Australia settle into the 2024 school year, we’ve been busy at Teacher sharing content to help you with your planning. In this first episode of Teacher Staffroom for 2024, we bring you up to speed with a selection of these stories so you don’t miss a thing.

The longstanding Prime Minister’s Prizes for Excellence in Science Teaching recognise one primary and one secondary STEM teacher for their outstanding contribution to the field. The 2023 winners were announced late last year and in this episode, we speak with them both about the work they’ve been recognised for.

NAP-ICT Literacy measures the skills of Australian students in year 6 and 10. In our latest expert Q&A we catch up with Dr Tim Friedman and Dr Kristy Osborne from the Australian Council for Educational Research to find out more about recent revisions to the assessment, what teachers can learn from the latest round of data, and classroom activities to support student learning.

Professor Geoff Masters, CEO of the Australian Council for Educational Research, joins Teacher for a series on world-class learning systems. In Episode 1, we find out more about the 5 systems he’s been exploring for a multi-year study commissioned by the National Centre on Education and the Economy in Washington DC.

The latest 'State of our Schools' survey from the Australian Education Union - conducted in early 2023 - shows that of almost 6,000 respondents, a vast majority are spending hundreds of dollars of their own money each year on items for work.

School absence has an impact on student outcomes, so being aware of attendance rates for your class, year group, or whole school, and understanding the reasons behind the absence is important. With this information to hand, what will make a difference? That’s the topic of Dr Kirsten Hancock’s research.

Welcome to the first edition of Researching education: 5 further readings for 2024. When we asked you for the topics you’d like us to cover on Teacher in the next 12 months, artificial intelligence (AI) was the most frequently requested. So, in this edition, we’re taking a look at AI.

We know teachers are interested in how they could incorporate the use of generative AI to support them with managing their workload in general. In this edition of Teacher’s Bookshelf, we share an exclusive extract from Leon Furze’s new book Practical AI Strategies: Engaging with Generative AI in Education which focuses on ways to use generative AI to assist with lesson planning.

Welcome back to a new year of Teacher content. As usual, we are kicking things off with a look at some of the significant events, celebrations and themes for 2024 that you can use in your lesson planning. As well as the key dates in each term, we’ve also included links to more information and resources.

Our first podcast episode of 2024 focuses on effective leadership communication. We catch up with Jacinda Euler Welsh, Principal of Brisbane Girls Grammar School, to talk about different tools to engage with different members of the school community, the importance of consistency and honesty, and nurturing a 2-way communication process.