At Alawa Primary School in the Northern Territory, a culture has been built where the feedback that is provided in student perception surveys is prioritised by staff, and students know and understand the value of their feedback that is collected twice a year.

Students miss school for a whole range of different reasons, such as illness, suspension, or family holidays. Today, we’ll be speaking with Kirsten Hancock, Honorary Research Associate from Telethon Kids Institute in Western Australia about how different types of absences affect student outcomes, and what families and schools can do to tailor their support to students who are missing school.

‘As the world faced a global pandemic, the spotlight shone on our wonderful Auslan interpreters in the media, and more and more schools began to show interest in including Auslan in their curriculum.’ In today’s reader submission, Auslan educator Kerrie Taylor shares how schools can bring Auslan into the classroom in a way that embraces the richness of the language, and respects and honours the Deaf community.

In the second part of our Q&A, author-educator Vanessa Hamilton discusses what consent education is (and some of the misconceptions), examples of what it looks like for students in primary and secondary, best practice for schools, and some of the challenges faced by teachers and leaders.

In her latest video for Teacher, Mathematics teacher Holly Millican shares two activities she uses in her classroom to help students understand, and build connections between, 2D shapes and 3D shapes.

Age-appropriate consent education will be mandatory in all Australian schools from 2023. Kit and Arlo Find a Way: Teaching consent to 8-12 year olds is a fictional chapter book created for use in primary classrooms. In the first instalment of a two-part Q&A with author-educators Ingrid Laguna and Vanessa Hamilton, we find out more about the resource and research about the impact of consent education in schools.

How have things changed for schools over the last two years of the pandemic, and what are the improvement priorities now for teachers, principals and communities on the ground? Professor Pauline Taylor-Guy joins us for the latest episode in our School Improvement podcast series.

‘The metaverse is upon us. Soon it will be as omnipresent as TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook (now Meta).’ So reads the first line of a new Policy Brief exploring the potential of the metaverse to enhance teaching and learning in the future, and why we need to start planning for it now.

As a teacher, how has work impacted your wellbeing during the pandemic? What wellbeing initiatives are offered at your school, and how can they be improved to better support teachers? In this article, we outline five further readings which explore educator wellbeing in Australia and internationally.

School strategic priorities such as improving literacy and numeracy outcomes involve all staff. In this reader submission, art teacher Kerry Kaskamanidis shares how she responded to a whole-school focus on literacy by building a partnership with a local art museum.