‘We need to make sure through that data that we’re finetuning our programs so we’re actually meeting the demands and the needs of the students.’ In today’s article, Careers Advisor at Arthur Phillip High School Stephanie Malnar joins Teacher to share how she supports students with their career development. 

The Song Room’s Social and Emotional Learning through the Arts program is a place-based, trauma-informed, and strengths-based program that uses the arts to explicitly teach social and emotional skills. At Wantirna Primary School in Melbourne’s east, this arts-based social and emotional learning has become a key part of the school’s wellbeing strategy.

Research shows that higher wellbeing in young people is linked to strong connections with others and well-developed social-emotional skills. The Social-Emotional Wellbeing (SEW) survey is a valuable resource for schools aiming to understand and support the wellbeing of students. Find out more in this article.

Schools play a critical role in supporting student mental health and promoting wellbeing initiatives. The Australian Council for Educational Research has produced the Wellbeing Program Guide – a comprehensive catalogue of 233 wellbeing programs designed to help teachers and schools find suitable programs that are evidence-based, locally relevant, and practical for educators to implement.

Adolescence is a period of rapid development. To support students through various challenges during this time, educators need effective tools to help them understand how they’re coping – and how they can do so more effectively. Find out more about the Adolescent Coping Scale for Schools (ACS-S) in this article. 

‘Teachers and parents can help to foster social-emotional functioning among students, which is important for their healthy development more broadly.’ In this reader submission, Rebecca J. Collie and Richard M. Ryan share findings from their recent study that examined the role teachers and parents play in relation to students’ social-emotional competence. 

The rapid adoption of digital technologies in schools has dramatically changed the way schools and classrooms look, teachers work and students learn. In part 1 of this 3-part series on technology in education, Dr Ralph Saubern discusses whether these digital innovations have led to improvements in student learning, and explores how a professional learning community aligned teaching practice with available technology to improve students’ text analysis skills.

Research shows that when children thrive in their early years, they have a strong foundation for lifelong learning, health, development and wellbeing. New data from the 2024 Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) show there has been an overall increase in the percentage of children developmentally on track on 5 AEDC domains since the baseline was established in 2009. 

In Episode 101 of The Research Files Teacher editor Jo Earp is joined by ACER Senior Research Fellow Dr Rebecca Taylor to explore survey data from 2 reports into music teaching and music education in primary schools, all about the ‘what’, ‘when’, and ‘how’ music learning is delivered.

‘We just want to make sure that the students are gaining their confidence … and really opening their eyes to what opportunities are out there at our doorstep’. We speak with Dripstone Middle School Principal Nektaria Pikoulos and Angela Sheedy from Charles Darwin University about a partnership that’s not only supporting student career pathways, but their health and wellbeing too.