In this monthly series, we take a look at some further readings available on a particular topic, including open access research papers from various online catalogues. This month’s theme is creative thinking.

In today’s article, Kate Hill – an Australian teacher from Melbourne who is currently teaching Year 7 and 8 English at Braeburn School in Nairobi, Kenya – gives an international perspective on learning during the pandemic.

As educators in Australia return to face-to-face teaching, and schools around the world grapple with new ways of working to provide continuing support to students during the pandemic restrictions, readers have been getting in touch to share what’s been happening in their own context.

‘While schools will be gradually re-opening in China by mid-April, they’re closing around much of the rest of the world. How well are we prepared? OECD’s TALIS survey offers some insights,’ Andreas Schleicher, the organisation’s Director for Education and Skills, writes in his latest Teacher column.

'While people have different views on the role that digital technology can and should play in schools, we cannot ignore how digital tools have so fundamentally transformed the world outside of school,' OECD Director of Education and Skills Andreas Schleicher writes in his new column.

One of the main resources in schools is teachers, and in this column Dr Sue Thomson looks at the provision of teachers to advantaged and disadvantaged students in Australia.

The increasing number of children enrolled into primary schools globally show there is great progress being made to improve the quality of education, Julia Gillard writes. Despite these achievements, there is still one group being left behind from all this progress: children with disabilities.

Raising the expected performance standard in each year of school and holding all teachers and students accountable for achieving these higher standards may not be the most effective way to improve levels of performance in Australian schools, Professor Geoff Masters AO writes in his latest Teacher column.

There are good reasons to rethink how we organise the school curriculum. An alternative would be to structure the curriculum as a sequence of proficiency levels unrelated to age or year level, according to Professor Geoff Masters AO.

It’s often asserted that some things can’t be measured, Professor Geoff Masters AO writes in his latest column. But how true is this? And if we can’t measure something, should we stop pretending we can teach or develop it?