Long reads

‘For some, this transition will be filled with as much anxiety as the first day of school or the school year.’ In this reader submission, Dr Carl Leonard and Dr Gail Brown provide tips and suggestions for teachers and leaders to help manage the transition for all students, and particularly those with additional needs.

Staff at Ringwood Secondary College in Victoria have learned a lot since students began learning from home. Here, we speak to principal Michael Phillips about the aspects of remote learning that have resulted in positive outcomes for staff collaboration and student engagement.

Young people are growing up in a world where they are required to be financially literate in order to perform common tasks in their day-to-day lives. A new report from the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 focuses on financial literacy. Here, we take a closer look at the results.

Teachers are more likely to experience vocal fatigue than many other professions. As teachers find themselves delivering lessons online in a new and unfamiliar way, some may find they are experiencing more vocal fatigue than ever before. Voice coach Amy Hume offers her insights into how educators can care for their voices during this time.

In 2019, Glenaeon Rudolf Steiner School won a New South Wales Outdoor Education Award. In today’s Q&A, we speak to Scott Williams, the school’s Outdoor Education Coordinator, about the extensive program offered to students.

All Australian schools and school leaders are currently managing change in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Even under ‘normal’ circumstances, change is a difficult process to lead. How can schools implement effectively and efficiently, to support student learning in such unprecedented times?

In his first Teacher article on mathematics from an Indigenous perspective, Professor Chris Matthews introduced the concept of two-ways learning. In this follow-up, he discusses Yolŋu mathematics and the interconnected relationships of Gurruṯu, and shares an activity for teachers and students to explore the connections and patterns in family trees.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented some unique challenges for early years educators as they move to a remote learning approach. In today’s article, Dr Deborah Price discusses some practical ways for embracing the teaching and learning opportunities this new environment provides.

Dr Sue Thomson explores how the COVID-19 crisis has propelled schools to an online learning environment, and draws on data from the OECD’s 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and 2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) to shed light on students’, teachers’ and schools’ preparedness for the ‘new normal’.

Melanie Macmillan, Principal of Warwick Farm Public School, shares how her experience in The Principals’ Centre in Australia: Leadership for School Excellence program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education strengthened her professionally as a school leader, but it also helped her to understand how she could better support the needs of families at her school.