School culture

New data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) show Australian students report having high levels of self-efficacy and competence, particularly in the face of adversity. In today’s article we take a close look at the new report that explores students’ experiences at school and how they relate to student performance.

In his latest Teacher column, Andreas Schleicher explores PISA data on teacher support and enthusiasm, school climate, student satisfaction with life and parent participation. ‘[The] most interesting lesson from PISA is that a higher sense of student wellbeing does not need to come at the expense of lower academic outcomes.’

The OECD’s Teaching and Learning International Survey shows almost six in 10 Australian teachers say they feel quite a bit or a lot of stress in their jobs, significantly higher than the average across participating OECD countries. In her latest column, Dr Sue Thomson explores the factors that contribute to teachers’ stress at work.

Most Australian teachers believe the advantages of being a teacher outweigh any disadvantages, but fewer than half feel that they are valued by society for the job they do, according to new data from the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2018.

In Principled, Dr Paul Browning draws on his own research and more than 20 years of school leadership experience to offer advice on ‘the 10 key practices that can help executives build and develop skills to become more trustworthy leaders’. This extract for Teacher readers is taken from the chapter titled ‘Offering trust’.

Fostering a sense of school pride and meeting the individual needs of every student are just two priorities for Melanie Macmillan, Principal of Warwick Farm Public School. In today’s article she shares how she focuses on community partnerships, visible leadership and student engagement to achieve those goals.

Does adversity lead to resilience or does resilience lead to less adversity? Professor Andrew Martin from the University of New South Wales and Professor Herb Marsh from Australian Catholic University explore this question in their latest study, share the findings and discuss the implications for teachers.

Nine out of 10 teachers from OECD countries and economies are satisfied with their job, but only 26 per cent of them think the work they do is valued by society, according to the latest figures to come from the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) report released overnight.

Warilla High School in the Illawarra region of New South Wales is on its way to becoming entirely self-sufficient with electricity, thanks to fundraising efforts by students. We find out more about the initiatives students have led and introduced and how much they’re saving the school annually.

Professor Paul Caldarella joins Teacher to discuss his three-year project that looked at the relationship between the praise-to-reprimand ratios and the extent to which students focused on class activities.