‘In 2018, no one could anticipate that a pandemic would strike two years later. But the future will always surprise us … and public health is not the only pressing issue on the global stage.’ In his new Teacher column, Andreas Schleicher discusses how schools can better prepare learners for a fast-changing, uncertain and volatile world.

Reducing the disparities in the schooling experiences of students was one of the issues identified by Teacher columnist Professor Geoff Masters AO in his influential series on the ‘big five’ education challenges facing Australian schools. What does the latest evidence say, and where do we go to from here?

Our connections with others have an influence on our own behaviour. Social networks form in lots of different contexts, including at school and in the workplace. Social Network Analysis (SNA) is now offering insights into these important, but often invisible relationships.

A study has followed primary school teachers through an entire school year to document how they taught mathematics to be inclusive of children with Down syndrome. The findings have been published in the Mathematics Education Research Journal, and in today’s podcast we find out more from the report’s co-author, Associate Professor Rhonda Faragher.

What would happen if you listened to your staff and students about what their reality is like, and then wrote a school-wide wellbeing framework and curriculum that responded specifically to their needs? At Indie School Elizabeth in South Australia, a targeted approach to addressing the complex wellbeing needs of students led to a brave reimagining of staff wellbeing strategies and processes.

The Knox School has been working with academics to research what teachers learned from the lockdown experience. In this final article of a three-part series, middle leader Melodie Matheson shares how teacher wellbeing became a transformative influence on her leadership.

How do schools successfully engage and retain students alongside promoting academic achievement? In today’s reader submission Margaret Gurney, Assistant Director-General, State Schools Operations at the Queensland Department of Education, shares research findings on practices common in high performing schools.

In the final installment of our three-part series on small group tutoring, we discuss what effective small group tutoring looks like in practice, the importance of building relationships with students, and why students need to be at the centre of this work.

The Knox School has worked with Monash University to research what teachers would like to take forward (and leave behind) from the remote learning experience. Three key areas of change were identified. This second article in a series focuses on school community collaboration.

How can teachers go about identifying the underlying causes of a student’s behaviour, and then approach responding to this behaviour in a respectful and effective way? To dissect these questions, we’re joined by Dr Erin Leif and Russell Fox from Monash University.