In his second article on data-driven school improvement, Patrick Sanders from Brighton Grammar School shares examples of how staff have used data to influence decision-making and improve the teaching, learning and wellbeing of the school community.

In the first of two articles on data-driven school improvement, Patrick Sanders (Associate Head of the Crowther Centre, Curriculum and Assessment at Brighton Grammar School) shares the steps that have been taken to capture better quality, and more actionable, data to inform decision-making.

In her final Teacher column of the year, Dr Sue Thomson explores data from a new large-scale survey of young people’s social and emotional skills that reveals significant differences between students from advantaged and disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds.

How does walking benefit our physical and mental health? How many steps do we need to do to see benefits to our overall wellbeing? In this article, Postdoctoral Research Fellow Matthew Ahmadi shares the origin of the 10 000 steps per day goal, and how we can still see substantial benefits from fewer steps.

‘Every student should be on the same (inclusive) path of learning, [and] every student should make excellent ongoing progress and eventually achieve the same high standards,’ Professor Geoff Masters AO writes in his latest Teacher column, adding that the challenge is in creating the conditions to enable this to happen.

‘Rather than dwelling on the daily COVID case numbers, I was consumed with producing the perfect loaf.’ Victorian teacher Sylvia Wood from Scoresby Secondary College shares her journey to perfecting sourdough bread, and explains why it proved to be a great stress reliever during a difficult period of lockdowns.

‘The change over the last 20 years in what and how students read has emphasised the importance not only of assessing students’ capacity to read, but also what they have learned about the credibility of what they read.’ In her latest Teacher column, Dr Sue Thomson delves into international PISA 2018 data on reading literacy and digital literacy skills.

In education research, an ‘effect size’ has traditionally been used to sell the promise of improved outcomes, for both teachers and students, in the lucrative professional development market. However, critiquing the quality of research is more important than relying on a single measure, writes Dr Drew Miller.

Findings from an action research project in three West Australian schools suggest the use of quality mentor texts when explicitly teaching how to write narratives can improve students’ storytelling ability. Ron Gorman and Dr Sandy Heldsinger share more details about the teaching and assessment strategies used, and samples of student writing.

Professor Dianne Siemon will be delivering a Keynote address at this year’s ACER Research Conference. In this Q&A, she expands on her Keynote, ‘Excellent progress for all – a function of a year level curriculum or evidence-based learning progressions?’