Teacher Magazine (ACER)

We know from the research that highly effective schools apply their resources – such as staff and school time, expertise, and facilities – in a targeted manner to maximise outcomes for students. For instance, resources are prioritised towards evidence-informed strategies aimed at improving student outcomes; leaders are making the best possible use of available expertise to meet student needs; and a flexible approach is taken with resource deployment.

In this episode of School Improvement I’m joined by Belinda Norrie and Jacqueline Hampson. Belinda is the relieving Deputy Principal at Narrabeen North Public School, a primary school in north Narrabeen, which is a beachside suburb in northern Sydney. Jacqueline is Head Teacher Secondary Studies over at Narrabeen Sports High School. Both schools are members of the NEST collaboration, where NEST stands for Narrabeen Elanora Student and Teacher. NEST also includes two other local schools – Narrabeen Lakes Public School and Elanora Heights Public School.

For the past few years, staff and students in the 3 primary and one secondary school have been sharing facilities to enhance learning opportunities and fostering relationships between staff. In this episode, Belinda and Jacqueline share how the collaboration began, why it extends across K-12, and their advice for other school communities looking to collaborate in a similar way in the future.

Host: Dominique Russell

Guests: Belinda Norrie, Jacqueline Hampson

Sponsor: MacKillop Seasons

Thanks for listening to this episode of Teacher Staffroom, where we catch you up on the latest evidence, insight, and action. How many scientists are mentioned in high school science curricula here in Australia? How many of those do you think are women? These 2 questions kicked off a brilliant podcast we published this month that explored the way that female scientists were overlooked in high school science. We also published an article that explores how one school is improving student outcomes by celebrating female figures in STEM, and share how 2 female science educators were named the latest winners of the Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science.

Host: Rebecca Vukovic

Sponsor: MacKillop Seasons

Welcome to the School Assembly podcast. In this second series we’re following Jo Camozzato and the team at Bemin Secondary College, which is in Melbourne. If you’re new to School Assembly, it’s the podcast that explores what it’s like to build a school from the ground up. So, Bemin Secondary is a dual-campus college in Truganina, which is just to the north of Melbourne – that will open to students from the first day of the 2024 school year.

And, as we head into October then, Jo has been busy building her team of teachers, of leaders and support staff as well. We know that things are tricky on the teacher recruitment front at the moment. We’ll be chatting about how things are going, maybe some of the strategies she’s been using to spread the word and promote the positions that’s she got available to those potential candidates.

Host: Jo Earp

Guest: Jo Camozzato

Sponsor: Monash University

This particular episode is part of our series on Global Education, and we are venturing to New Zealand’s South Island, to Central Otago, to find out about a Year 11 program that’s keeping students in high school while setting them up for job success. So, when the Central Otago Youth Employment Program (or COYEP for short) first launched as an education ministry pilot there were 54 NEET students – that stands for Not in Education, Employment or Training – in the region. Today, that figure is zero.

So, there’s obviously a lot that’s going right with this program, and on Episode 23 of the Global Education podcast we’ll find out more. We're joined by Sarah Hill, Deputy Principal at Cromwell College, to find out about COYEP and the impact it’s having on students, families, teachers and the local community.

Host: Jo Earp

Guest: Sarah Hill

Sponsor: MacKillop Seasons

Have a guess at these 2 questions first of all: How many scientists are mentioned in high school science curricula here in Australia? How many of those do you think are women? After discovering that Marie Curie wasn’t even mentioned in the radioactivity section of one state Physics syllabus, astrophysicist Dr Kathryn Ross set out to explore if the contributions of other women were being overlooked. The fact that the research team found a gender bias probably won’t surprise you, but the extent of it will. Kat, who is an Associate Lecturer and Science Communicator at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) at Curtin University, joins us to share the shocking findings and implications, and what can be done to improve the situation.

Host: Jo Earp

Guest: Dr Kathryn Ross

Sponsor: MacKillop Seasons

This month, we had the pleasure of announcing the winners of the inaugural Teacher Awards. We’ve begun sharing their stories with you in articles on our website and we’ll bring you up to speed on these in this episode.

Reading through your award submissions, it’s clear that many educators are engaging in leadership practice as part of their day-to-day work. In this episode, we’re going to bring you a range of stories we’ve published recently on the topic of leadership.

And, like all episodes of Teacher Staffroom, we’ll be sharing some other highlights from content we’ve published during the month, and we’ll also be posing some questions throughout the podcast, so feel free to pause the audio as you go, gather some colleagues, and discuss together how these stories might be relevant to your school context.

Host: Dominique Russell

Sponsor: QT Academy

Welcome to Series 2, Episode 2 of the School Assembly podcast. Now, if you’re not familiar with this one, it’s the podcast that explores what it takes to build a school from the ground up, and in this series, we’re following Jo Camozzato and the lovely team out there at Bemin Secondary College, which is a dual-campus college (that’s 7-12) out in Truganina, which is just north of Melbourne. So, the focus for today’s episode is planning – we’ll be talking about short- and long-term planning, and also how Jo breaks down those difficult planning tasks in what’s an incredibly complex period, the startup of the new school. And, as I say, it’s a dual campus, so she’s actually got 2 schools really to think about.

Host: Jo Earp

Guest: Jo Camozzato

Sponsor: Monash University

In 2022 and 2023, Children and Young People with Disability Australia – the national representative organisation for children and young people with disability – conducted 3 surveys of children and young people with disability, and their families and carers, about their experiences in early childhood education and school settings.

The survey responses show that 29% of children in early childhood education and care settings and 70% of young people in school settings report being excluded from events and activities at school. As well as this, 28% in early childhood education and care settings and 65% in school settings reported experiencing bullying.

To unpack this research in more detail, we’re joined by Dr Catherine Smith from the University of Melbourne, who worked in partnership with Children and Young People with Disability Australia (or CYDA – that’s C-Y-D-A, as you’ll hear Catherine say during our discussion).

Host: Dominique Russell

Guest: Dr Catherine Smith

Sponsor: MacKillop Seasons

Our guest for today’s School Improvement episode is Ruth Rogers, Principal of Karonga School in New South Wales. Ruth joins us today to talk about her school’s immersive classroom, and how it allows students – all of whom have an intellectual disability – to access a world beyond the classroom and practice skills that they can take with them when they are out in the community.

Guest: Ruth Rogers

Host: Rebecca Vukovic

Sponsor: MacKillop Seasons

Thanks for listening to this episode of Teacher Staffroom, where we catch you up on the latest evidence, insight, and action. In today’s podcast we’re going to be talking about teacher planning, drawing on 3 articles written by educational leader Michael Rosenbrock. In the first article, he looked at how teachers can pro-actively plan to tackle student misconceptions in STEM. In the second instalment, he discusses evidence on the importance of deliberately planning to support students to build and use their vocabulary, and what this could look like in practice. And in the third piece, published just yesterday, he explores how teachers can best plan to make effective use of manipulatives and representations to help students build understanding. We’ll be taking a closer look at each of these articles in the episode, as well as some of the other highlights from Teacher this month.

Host: Rebecca Vukovic

Sponsor: MacKillop Seasons