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.

Over 8,300 children aged between 8 and 12 answered the question, 'what would make things better for kids in South Australia?' as part of an engagement project by the state’s Commissioner for Children and Young People. Here, we share some of their responses related to school.

New research has shown that while the use of immersive virtual reality (IVR) increases student enjoyment and presence in a task, when used on its own it does not improve procedural or declarative knowledge when compared to the more traditional learning activity of watching a video.

Results from the 2021 Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) collection cycle show that of all early childhood developmental domains, children’s language and cognitive skills have seen the most significant shift. Find out more in today’s infographic.

With the rapid growth in digital technologies, digital writing skills are becoming more and more relevant for students. A new research project from Deakin University will look at the potential to complement traditional writing tasks in schools with contemporary forms of digital writing.

As an educator, how do you approach talking to your students about climate change? Can you identify key gaps in students’ knowledge? How do you manage issues of eco-anxiety and climate grief? In this article, we outline five further readings which explore climate change education in Australia.

A recent study has analysed the experience of over 3000 children aged four and five attending preschool in the United Kingdom during the COVID-19 pandemic. Children's achievement in prime learning areas, as well as their overall development, during September 2020 and July 2021, were compared to national pre-pandemic averages recorded in the 2018/19 school year.

How can a student’s social-emotional motivation at school impact their behaviour and achievement? In what ways can we support students’ social-emotional development? These are some of the questions explored in Dr Rebecca Collie’s study into the role of prosocial motivation in the classroom.

With the growing use of STEM across various industries in Australia, how can we ensure equitable opportunities and pathways for all students? How can schools build successful partnerships with industry specialists to rethink STEM education? In this article, we outline five further readings which explore STEM education in Australia.

With plenty of ‘get rich quick’ hype circulating around social media, and well-marketed trading apps luring people in to investing, it’s important to understand cryptocurrency. In this context, schools and teachers have an important role to play. Here, Dr Carly Sawatzki, Dr Jill Brown and Peter Saffin explore how teachers can understand students’ learning needs in this area.