This week we're celebrating Australian Primary Principals Day. To mark the occasion, we sat down with Anthony Boys, Principal of Marist Catholic College, North Shore in Sydney to discuss his approach to instructional leadership and hear how distributed leadership works in practice at his school.

When students are in the early stages of developing skills, knowledge and understanding, or encountering new material and concepts, explicit teaching, and the gradual release of responsibility are crucial for progressing the learning. In today’s article, teacher, instructional coach and researcher Dr Nathaniel Swain discusses the importance of structured approaches, teacher judgement, being responsive to students, and the potential benefits and caveats around shared curriculum materials.

Keuka College, founded in 1890 as a private undergraduate and graduate residential college, is located on the shore of Keuka Lake in New York State’s Finger Lakes region. Keuka College's CSWE-accredited, fully online Master of Social Work (MSW) degree program builds on CSWE standards to help students gain the skills and confidence to meet the needs of a growing workforce.

We know that early literacy development is not uniform. Understanding students’ strengths and identifying gaps to plan for the next steps, including targeted support where needed – and doing this as early as possible – is a challenge for teachers. A new assessment program from ACER aims to spot literacy difficulties before children fall behind and these gaps widen.

‘How can schools help young people learn to use AI thoughtfully, ethically and effectively?’ In today’s article Kara Baxter – Deputy Principal, Learning and Teaching, at Strathcona Girls Grammar School in Melbourne, Victoria – shares the thinking and process behind the development of the school’s AI policy.

How well is the outdoor space in your school serving students and staff? In this episode of The Research Files, Dominique Beech speaks with Dr Gweneth Leigh and Hannah Richardson from the University of Canberra about their 2-year study into outdoor spaces in secondary school settings, which resulted in plenty of practical tools for educators.

As a school leader, how would you describe your leadership characteristics? How did your induction support you in your transition to a leadership role? In today’s article, we share 5 open-access resources on the topic of school leadership.  

‘The practical challenge of designing units that genuinely extend gifted learners within a mixed-ability classroom, without simply adding more of the same work, remains one of the more complex tasks in primary teaching’. Wesley College’s Lanella Sweet shares a tiered unit of work built around real-world measurement tasks.

The International Mathematical Modeling Challenge (IM²C) invites students around the globe to gather in teams across a 5-day period to solve a real-world problem using mathematical modelling. This year students were asked to inform protection planning for Etosha National Park. In this article, we speak to some Australian schools who participated. 

In this episode of The Research Files, editor Jo Earp is joined by Professor Sandra Gattenhof and Dr John Nicholas Saunders who share findings from their study exploring declining enrolment numbers in year 12 arts subjects in Australia. They also talk about the implications for schools, including the arts educator pipeline, and practical supports for out-of-field teachers.