School leaders

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.

While COVID-19 is grinding much of society to a halt, schooling has entered uncharted territory. During this time, it is important that teachers look after themselves. Our latest reader submission shares several evidence-backed strategies that can help support teachers’ wellbeing.

‘In this home-supported learning environment parents are being called upon to play a broader role in their children’s education. The role of the parent is not to replace the teacher in learning from home …’ Dr Tanya Vaughan and Susannah Schoeffel share evidence on how teachers can work with parents to support students in a rapidly changing education landscape.

The latest cycle of the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS 2018) asked principals in Australia about the time they allocated to various tasks throughout the year, including curriculum-and teaching-related tasks and meetings, administrative tasks and meetings, and student interactions. This infographic takes a look at the results.

This month has been has been one characterised by a lot of fear and uncertainty as the world grapples with the challenge of containing the spread of the coronavirus. In this episode of Teacher Staffroom, we do a round-up of what we’ve published so far related to Covid-19, as well as other more general content that we thought would be of interest.

‘As the COVID-19 situation unfolds, schools are closing to protect their students and the broader public – but this doesn’t mean a stop to learning for students or teachers.’ Dr Anne-Marie Chase and Professor Pauline Taylor-Guy share three phases of research-based decisions education systems and schools should be making now in relation to technology-enabled learning.

‘While schools will be gradually re-opening in China by mid-April, they’re closing around much of the rest of the world. How well are we prepared? OECD’s TALIS survey offers some insights,’ Andreas Schleicher, the organisation’s Director for Education and Skills, writes in his latest Teacher column.

St Helena Secondary College in Victoria embarked on a journey to improve the quality and accuracy of teacher judgements on their student reports, in order to better reflect student achievement. We’re joined by Kate Williams to hear about the process and where they’re at on their journey.

Teachers and school leaders spend considerable effort and time writing and checking student reports, but how effective are they in communicating student learning? We speak to principal Anthony Hockey about what he found when considering this question in his school context.

In this episode of Teacher Staffroom, we take a look at how schools have been kicking off the 2020 school year, and some new resources that have become available to assist with giving students the best start to school and processing the recent bushfire crisis.