School leaders

Over the last 5 years, staff at St Mary’s School in Geelong, Victoria, have had a focus on lifting student outcomes through evidence-based instruction. What started with Foundation phonics has now spread across the curriculum and year levels.

‘Schools and educators are increasingly finding themselves operating beyond capacity. Like a web browser with way too many tabs open – we are overloaded. Simply adding more “good things” won't fix this.’ Our latest reader submission shares how ‘pruning’ programs and activities can help schools create space for what matters most.

In Teacher’s first reader submission of 2025, Brisbane-based senior educator Jessica J Griffin reflects on her own leadership practice and philosophy, and how this has changed over the course of her career – moving beyond authority to collaboration, empathy and resilience.

It’s a special, bumper episode of School Assembly as Teacher Editor Jo Earp chats to Dan McShea about setting the teaching direction, and also checks in on Ray Boyd and Rachael Lehr, who we followed in Series 1, and Series 2 principal Jo Camozatto to find out what’s been happening at their schools.

In our latest annual reader survey, we asked you what you love about your role. In our final infographic for 2024, we share some of the responses we received from school leaders.

In Series 3 of School Assembly we’ve been following Dan McShea, Foundation Principal of Notre Dame College on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. The P-12 college opens for the new school year in early 2025 – so it’s almost time for the keys to be handed over. In this episode we’re talking about the school building, landscaping and outdoor spaces.

Aspect runs autism-specific education programs in New South Wales and South Australia. In this Leadership Q&A, we speak to Joanne Tisdell – Principal of Aspect South East Sydney School – about supporting students on the autism spectrum, including curriculum content, collaborative partnerships and the design of teaching and learning spaces.

Professor Phil Roberts joins Teacher Editor Jo Earp to talk about the Rural and Regional Education Project, which explores how to lift outcomes for students in these areas. The project included a roundtable event bringing together a range of stakeholders, including the important voices of principals and teachers. We’ll be discussing some of the research findings and feedback from educators.

The latest Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report from UNESCO is out. This year, the focus is leadership in education. In today’s article, we look at some of the report’s key findings exploring the role and responsibilities of a school leader, and how this differs around the world.

The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) includes a principal questionnaire. Today’s infographic looks at the percentages of principals by Australian state and territory (and the OECD average) who reported participating at least once a week in 7 stated educational and instructional leadership behaviours.