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.

In this episode of the School Assembly podcast, we celebrate the opening of Bemin Secondary College in Truganina, Melbourne with Principal Jo Camozzato, and catch up with Dr Ray Boyd and Rachael Lehr at Dayton Primary School in Western Australia to find out what it’s like one year on from the big launch.

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 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.

We’re right at the beginning of a new school year here in Australia. That means most of you are busy setting up your classrooms, meeting new students and establishing relationships with them and their families. In today’s podcast special, we’ve spoken with several winners from last year’s Teacher Awards to ask them their most valuable tips, strategies and priorities for starting the school year off right.

Did the COVID-19 pandemic affect public perceptions of teachers and the teaching profession, and how were their views and beliefs influenced by media coverage? Researchers in the UK have been exploring these questions, and their findings offer some interesting insights into how society values the profession, and the impact this has on teacher mental health and wellbeing.

Artificial Intelligence is now a hot topic in teaching and learning. For the last 3 years, Digital Technologies teacher Jo Rea has been developing an AI ethical inquiry unit for year 5 students to help them build their ethical understanding of different AI tools and technologies. Here she shares the phases, classroom activities and student responses.

In this expert Q&A, Lisa De Bortoli – ACER Senior Research Fellow and National Project Manager for Australia for PISA – explains what the latest test results tell us about students’ skills and knowledge, and how schools can use the data to inform teaching and learning. She also shares early findings from PISA’s student and principal questionnaires.

The PISA 2022 international results have just been announced. In this special episode we’re joined by Professor Geoff Masters, CEO of the Australian Council for Educational Research, to talk about Australia’s performance, what we could learn from top performer Singapore, and some of the education reforms taking place in other parts of the world.