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.

Our annual reader survey just concluded for another year. This year, many of you let us know you’d like more content on the topic of AI and teacher workload. In this episode, we highlight a range of stories we’ve published recently that you might find useful.

The Future-focused Mentoring initiative has been working with teachers in 2 Australian states. In this project update, the research team share findings from analysis of conversations between teacher mentor and early career teachers, implications for practice, and what schools can do to support genuine and authentic learning partnerships.

While some schools are shying away from using artificial intelligence (AI) altogether, Wesley College in Melbourne is embracing it in a significant way. This year, they introduced an AI learning coach called Wesmigo, powered by ChatGPT, that focuses on brainstorming and provocation, rather than content creation.

School Assembly is the podcast that explores what it takes to build a new school from the ground up. With Bemin Secondary College due to open its doors for the first day of the 2024 school year, things are getting to the pointy end. In this episode, we talk to Principal Jo Camozzato about putting together the school mission, vision and values.

Parents and families are integral members of a school community, and working with them to improve student outcomes is a key part of an educator’s role. In our latest expert Q&A we speak to ACER Research Officer Simone Griggs and colleagues Greta Rollo, who leads the Primary, Early Childhood and Inclusive Research team, and Research Fellow Dr Kellie Picker, about a resource they’re developing to help practitioners build strong partnerships with families, including how to navigate difficult conversations.

Highly effective schools apply their resources in a targeted manner to maximise outcomes for students. In Sydney, the Narrabeen Elanora Student and Teacher collaboration is comprised of 4 local schools and enables the sharing of facilities and resources. In this episode, we speak to 2 staff members about the collaboration.

Over the past 7 weeks, we have been sharing the stories of each of the winners of the Teacher Awards 2023. In the final article we speak to Debbie Watts and Bronwyn Cole from Broadwater Public School, whose entire school community was named winner of the Special Contribution Award for 2023.

In this series, we take a look at some further readings available on a particular topic, including open access research papers from various online databases, and Teacher archive content you might not have come across yet. This month, we’re looking at learning progressions for literacy and numeracy.