‘By focusing on future-orientated education, we can find innovative solutions to the megatrends our planet faces.’ In his first Teacher column for 2025, OECD Director for Education and Skills Andreas Schleicher shares finding from the latest Trends Shaping Education report, and the implications for teachers, school leaders, students and policymakers.

New PISA analysis by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) reveals the core mathematics areas where Australian students performed strongly, and where they are likely to need more help. The report also shares teachers’ views on teaching maths. Find out more in this article.  

In his first Teacher column Professor Martin Westwell, Chief Executive of the South Australian Department for Education, discusses a worrying trend in education and PISA 2022 evidence that ‘our greatest strength in education is the professional judgement of our teachers’.

Previous exposure to similar mathematics tasks that appear in assessments significantly increases student mathematical self-efficacy and confidence, a new Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) report highlights.

The winner of the 2025 Global Teacher Prize has been announced. Mansour Al Mansour from Saudi Arabia has walked away with the US $1 million prize. One Australian teacher was a top 10 finalist this year – Brett Dascombe, a Senior Geography Teacher from Wavell State High School in Brisbane. In this special podcast episode, Brett shares how he exposes his students to real-world, project-based learning by embedding geospatial technologies like GIS, drones and remote sensing data into the geography curriculum.

The winner of the 2025 Global Teacher Prize has just been announced. Mansour Al Mansour from Prince Saud bin Jalawi School in Saudi Arabia has walked away with the US $1 million prize. Mansour was recognised for his strategic vision and unwavering belief in his students' potential, and for building an inclusive and innovative learning environment.

‘Educational provision includes what students learn … how they will be taught … and the culture in which they will be taught ... Gifted students benefit from the opportunity to interact with differentiated versions of each of these.’ Professor John Munro explains 3 areas of differentiation, and shares examples of what this could look like in the classroom.

‘What we've done is aimed to answer the questions about how to enact global citizenship and what does it look like when you do it well?’ In this episode of our Global Education podcast, Dominique Russell is joined by ACER Senior Research Fellow, Rachel Parker, to unpack the new Global Education Monitoring Toolkit. 

It’s the opening day of Research Conference 2025! The Teacher team are busy meeting with classroom teachers and school leaders; and attending international keynote presentations, panel sessions and more, all addressing the overarching theme of transforming learning systems. 

The book featured in this edition of Teacher’s Bookshelf is a practical guide that explores the mechanisms behind masterly Mathematics teaching in China. In this extract for Teacher readers, the authors share how 3 teachers are using modelling to clearly define the goals and standards for students’ independent and group work.