In today’s Leadership Q&A, River Nile School Principal Charles Hertzog shares what makes his school community unique, how the context shapes his leadership priorities, and how he brings teachers, wellbeing staff, and external agencies into a shared vision.

What do ‘friend’, ‘cost’ and ‘privacy’ have in common? They’re all past winners of Oxford’s Australian Children’s Word of the Year. Now we can add ‘vitamin’ to the list, with the latest research highlighting an increase in students writing about self-care. Find out what else made the shortlist, and about some of the changes in the rankings of the 100 highest-frequency words, in today’s article.

‘Teaching is filled with social and emotional interactions. Supporting teachers to feel more confident in managing these situations appears to be vital for their wellbeing.’ In today’s article Rebecca J. Collie shares her new research that examines teachers’ social-emotional confidence, the role of school leader support in fostering it, and how this confidence is associated with wellbeing later on in the school term.

Age restrictions preventing under-16s in Australia from creating or keeping accounts on major social media platforms come into force today. The responsibility rests with platforms like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube to take ‘reasonable steps’ to comply. We look at how teachers can help students and families navigate the change, what the legislation means for schools, and resources out there to support educators.

As the implementation of social media legislation for under-16s draws closer, many young people are feeling confused, anxious and unsettled. Here, Danni Rowlands from the Butterfly Foundation discusses what to expect from the incoming changes, the concerns already voiced by young people, how it all connects to body image, and why educators are uniquely positioned to support students through the changes.

Teacher editor Jo Earp sits down with Mali Jorm, Madison Dearnaley and Tracy Kelly to talk about managing school library and reading spaces, including building a student-driven collection, creating fresh and welcoming spaces, and strategies to encourage reading for pleasure. They also share their personal and student book recommendations. 

‘Too often, civics and citizenship education is framed about students rather than with them.’ In his latest Teacher column Professor Martin Westwell – Chief Executive of the South Australian Department for Education – shares details of the first Active Citizenship Convention, which gave prominence to student voice.

The Australian Council for Educational Research’s (ACER’s) Pru Mitchell was named winner of the inaugural Victorian Library and Information Award (VLIA). Teacher editor Jo Earp sat down with her to talk about teaching and teacher librarianship, sharing knowledge and expertise, and the role of AI, technology and digital literacy in the classroom.

Our latest edition of Teacher’s Bookshelf features the open-access resource Teaching Reading Comprehension in a Digital World: Evidence-Based Contributions Using PIRLS and Digital Texts – a collaboration between the IEA and researchers from the Dutch Centre for Language Education. This extract is from the chapter on good practices for teaching and shares an example from Talbot Senior National School, Ireland.

R U OK? Day is a national day of action that reminds Australians to check in with others and ask ‘are you OK?’ In this special episode, Teacher editor Jo Earp is joined by Dr Hannah Brown to talk about some of the signs that it might be time to have the conversation, how to prepare and the 4 simple steps of ask, listen, encourage action and check in. They also discuss some of the support services and resources available.