Student welfare

What challenges do teachers face when delivering inclusive education? How could we begin to address this? In the first of two articles on the topic, Dr Erin Leif, Dr Laura Alfrey and Dr Christine Grove from Monash University explore these questions.

‘Schools are increasingly being asked to support the mental health and wellbeing of our children and this has created an opportunity to reframe the teaching the learning environment.’ Ben Sacco discusses three elements – safety, relational trust, and shared language – that can directly support schools to improve teaching, learning and wellbeing.

In Creating Trauma-Informed, Strengths-Based Classrooms, Dr Tom Brunzell and Dr Jacolyn Norrish share what they’ve learned about working with students who present unmet learning needs in the classroom, including research, theory and lots of practical tools and strategies for educators to use and adapt to their own context.

Dr Gary Stager joins Teacher to discuss his 30-year study into laptop use in schools. We discuss the challenges they faced in the early 1990s in the implementation of the program, how students engaged with the technology in the early days, but also what he’s learned about the way computers are used in schools today.

Australian schools and teachers will be better equipped to help young people navigate the online world safely with the launch of a new national online safety education framework from eSafety.

‘In a digital society threatened by various disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic, lifelong learning attitudes have become even more crucial in fostering the resilience and adaptation of youngsters.’ In his latest Teacher column, Andreas Schleicher discusses how teachers, schools, education systems and parents can influence the development of lifelong learning attitudes.

A new whole-school program targeting positive body image development for students in primary school aims to work towards preventing body dissatisfaction and disordered eating in young Australians.

A series of consultations undertaken by the Commissioner for Children and Young People in Tasmania has identified that young people in Tasmania believe a more responsive education system would improve their overall wellbeing, and further, what they think specifically needs to be improved.

Is school a safe place for gender and sexuality diverse students to be themselves? In today’s Q&A, Western Sydney University researcher Dr Jacqueline Ullman shares findings from her report Free2Be…Yet?, a follow-up to 2015’s Free2Be?. It details the findings from a second nationwide survey of gender and sexuality diverse Australian secondary school students.

The 12 finalists for the annual WISE Awards have been announced, with organisations across the world being recognised for tackling a pressing education need in their communities in innovative ways. Here, we share some of the finalists working to meet the needs of students in K-12.