Teacher Magazine (ACER)

At Teacher we love to recognise the work of teachers and school leaders who are improving practice and student outcomes and bring you the latest on research from experts in the field. We’ve highlighted the work and expertise of many in the past few weeks at the magazine, so in this episode, I’m going to bring you up to speed on these stories.

Like all episodes of Teacher Staffroom, we’ll 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

We know that schools partnering with families, other education institutions, businesses and the wider school community can have a positive impact on student outcomes.

In this episode, we’re taking you to Yipirinya School in Alice Springs. Year 3 and 4 students at the school were recently participants in a trial of Charles Darwin University’s Children’s University – a program which offers students the opportunity to undertake learning experiences by visiting local businesses and organisations. We’re going to hear from Gavin Morris, Principal at Yipirinya School, about the impact participating in this program has had, and from Mariann Reu, project officer at Charles Darwin University, about the program’s design.

The Children’s University is a concept that began in the UK over 30 years ago and outside of recognising learning that is completed outside of school, it helps younger students to understand the post-school pathways available to them, and has also been shown to improve student attendance and achievement at school.

Host: Dominique Russell

Guests: Gavin Morris, Mariann Reu

School Assembly is the podcast that explores what it takes to build a new school from the ground up. In Series 1 we’re following Principal Dr Ray Boyd and Associate Principal Rachael Lehr as they navigate the exciting and challenging journey. Each month, we touch base for updates and reflections on their progress in the newly developing suburb of Dayton, located in the eastern metropolitan city of Swan in Perth, Western Australia.

We’re well into Term 1 and the staff at Dayton Primary School have been getting to know their students and helping them settle into the new surroundings. Last time out I spoke to Ray and Rachael about recruitment. In this episode we’ll be discussing how they’re developing school policies. One head’s up on terminology, we mention the DFES – that’s the WA Government Department of Fire and Emergency Services – and the ‘Good Standing Policy’ in WA is around student behaviour.

Host: Jo Earp

Guests: Ray Boyd, Rachael Lehr

Sponsor: Teacher Jobs

Why is everyone talking about ChatGPT? In today’s podcast special, we speak with several education experts to hear their thoughts on the potential impact of ChatGPT on teaching and learning – from assessment, to equity in education, and policy decisions. ChatGPT will also be joining us as a guest.

Hosts: Rebecca Vukovic, Dominique Russell

Guests: Catherine McClellan, Pasi Sahlberg, George Siemons

According to new data from the annual Mission Australia Youth Survey, the environment is now the number one concern for young people. In fact, of the 18,800 young people aged 15 to 19 who took part in the latest survey, 51% identified the environment as one of the most important issues in Australia compared to 38% in 2021 and 30% in 2020. The results show that 26% of young people were ‘extremely’ or ‘very concerned’ about climate change. In today’s episode of Teacher Staffroom, we're going to run through some of the ways that schools are tackling issues of sustainability in their communities, both here in Australia and internationally. We’ll also highlight some contributions we featured on Teacher this month and bring you up to speed on what we’ve been working on here at the magazine.

Host: Rebecca Vukovic

If you’re a long time-listener of our podcast, you’ll know that each year, 2 winners are announced for the annual Prime Minister’s Prizes for Excellence in Science Teaching – one winner working in primary schools and one winner working in secondary schools.

The most recent winners were announced in late 2022 and they are George Pantazis from Marble Bar Primary School in remote Western Australia and Veena Nair, from Viewbank College in Melbourne.

In January this year just before the school year started, we caught up with George and Veena to hear more about the work they’ve been recognised for nationally, and the impact they’re having on student outcomes in their own school settings.

Host: Dominique Russell

Guests: George Pantazis, Veena Nair

Sponsor: QT Academy

Deakin University’s Economics + Maths = Financial Capability project set out to research what can be done differently to support secondary school teachers to prepare financially capable young people. In today’s episode, we're joined by Dr Carly Sawatzki, a teacher educator and educational researcher in Deakin University’s School of Education, and a lead researcher on this project. She shares insights into what the key aims of the project are, some of the key findings to be published in their research report (which was released late last year), and discusses the state of financial education in schools across Australia. Perhaps most importantly for teachers and school leaders though, Carly also shares how opportunities for teaching and learning about finance are framed within the current and new versions of the Australian Curriculum, and provides examples of other educators teaching financial education exceptionally well.

Host: Rebecca Vukovic

Guest: Carly Sawatzki

The most recent instalment of Mission Australia’s Youth Survey – which surveys tens of thousands of Australians aged 15 to 19 – shows that young people are becoming increasingly concerned about the environment. In your school, what initiatives do you have in place to engage students in learning about sustainability, and how their actions can have a positive impact on the environment?

At one school in Victoria, sustainability is embedded across the school, and in this episode, their Sustainability Coordinator, Venkata Kalva, joins Dominique Russell to discuss their journey to prioritising sustainability in the school community, the function of the school’s Green Team, and advice for other schools across the country looking to prioritise sustainability in their school settings.

Host: Dominique Russell

Guest: Venkata Kalva

School Assembly is the podcast that explores what it takes to build a new school from the ground up. In Series 1 we’re following Principal Dr Ray Boyd and Associate Principal Rachael Lehr as they navigate the exciting and challenging journey in Western Australia. It’s the start of the school year and Dayton Primary School is about to open its doors to the first students. Episode 6 is all about building the foundation staff.

Host: Jo Earp

Guests: Ray Boyd, Rachael Lehr

Sponsor: Teacher Jobs

As many of you prepare to settle into another school year, we’ve been looking at the topic of leadership for our first week back of brand-new content. In this first podcast episode for 2023, we get you up to speed on these leadership stories, and also some highlights from content we’ve recently published.

Host: Dominique Russell