This episode of our School Assembly podcast is all about professional learning. Our Series 3 Principal Dan McShea joins us from Queensland’s Notre Dame P-12 College to share how it links back to strategic planning and key teaching and learning documents. We’ll also find out about his biggest challenge, key learning and proudest achievement since we caught up last.

In this edition of Researching education: 5 further readings, we’re sharing 5 pieces of content on the topic of outdoor and environmental education. In the below resources, you can read about the experience of one Australian school introducing a hybrid model for year 7 camp, access an open-access book offering practical advice for teaching outdoor education, and more.

We know the global teacher shortage is impacting many different school contexts, and that encouraging young people to consider a career in teaching is an important part of the long-term picture. Dr Tracy Woodroffe joins us to discuss her 12-month research project that gathered perspectives from Aboriginal students and teachers. These perspectives informed recommendations to encourage more Aboriginal young people in the Northern Territory to consider teaching.  

This episode of our School Assembly podcast is all about policies and processes. Which documents are the responsibility of the Foundation Principal? Is there a template that schools work from? Our Series 3 Notre Dame P-12 Principal Dan McShea joins us from Queensland to share some of the planning that goes on behind the scenes at a new school.

In today’s School Improvement podcast, Professor John Munro explores leadership for the provision of gifted education. Drawing on themes from his book published by ACER Press, Leading Improvement for Gifted and Talented Students, Munro discusses what it takes to develop a vision, putting together an action plan, upskilling teachers and collaborating with the wider community. 

In Teacher’s first reader submission of 2025, Brisbane-based senior educator Jessica J Griffin reflects on her own leadership practice and philosophy, and how this has changed over the course of her career – moving beyond authority to collaboration, empathy and resilience.

It’s a special, bumper episode of School Assembly as Teacher Editor Jo Earp chats to Dan McShea about setting the teaching direction, and also checks in on Ray Boyd and Rachael Lehr, who we followed in Series 1, and Series 2 principal Jo Camozatto to find out what’s been happening at their schools.

In Series 3 of School Assembly we’ve been following Dan McShea, Foundation Principal of Notre Dame College on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. The P-12 college opens for the new school year in early 2025 – so it’s almost time for the keys to be handed over. In this episode we’re talking about the school building, landscaping and outdoor spaces.

With the advent of ChatGPT and the emergence of similar generative AI tools, the teaching and learning landscape is facing a major challenge as it considers how schools might respond to generative AI. To guide schools with their investigation and implementation of generative AI, the Australian Government released the ‘Australian Framework for Generative Artificial Intelligence in Schools’ to guide the responsible and ethical use of generative AI tools.

In this Teacher Awards 2024 winners’ profile, we chat with the executive team at Cessnock High School in NSW. Winners of our Leadership Award for Driving School Improvement, we hear about how they’ve transformed school culture and improved academic achievement.