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Professor Alex Bowers from New York joins Dominique Beech to discuss his research into school leadership types and teacher professional development needs. The conversation covers the alignment of perceptions between teachers and principals regarding school leadership, his innovative idea for re-organising how we target professional development, and more. Host: Dominique Russell Guest: Professor Alex Bowers

We’re going to be talking all about improving induction – for both early career teachers and school leaders. Our guest today is Tim Bullard, CEO of AITSL – the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. We’re talking all about their latest Spotlight evidence summaries. Part 1 – Improving Induction for Early Career Teachers explores evidence-based approaches to strengthening teacher induction. It outlines the Guidelines for the Induction of Early Career Teachers in Australia and examines how well-designed induction programs improve teacher wellbeing, retention, and professional growth. Part 2 – Improving Induction for School Leaders explores the benefits of good induction for school leaders, shares how leaders arrive in a leadership role via 3 different pathways, and provides evidence-informed practices to structure induction programs for new school leaders. , We dive into some of the findings from those Spotlights. There are plenty of practical tips – around mentoring, support and adapting the i

Our guest on today’s podcast is Kayla Borg from St Mary’s Primary School in Whittlesea, Victoria. She shares how she went about co designing a podcast lesson for her year 5 and 6 students in partnership with the eSmart team at the Alannah & Madeline Foundation, what her students learned from this experience, and why real world, student led digital learning can have such a powerful ripple effect across the entire school community. Host: Rebecca Vukovic

In our latest reader survey – which we run annually to give our audience the opportunity to let us know about their experiences in the education sector and how we can better support your professional practice through our content – you let us know that you’d like more content on the topic of curriculum implementation. We’ve been hard at work having a look at this on Teacher in the first few months of 2026, and in today’s episode of Teacher Staffroom we're going to take you through some of my highlights from recent weeks. Don’t forget, like all of our other episodes of Teacher Staffroom, we’ll be posing some questions for you throughout this podcast, so you can 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

Today, we're delighted to welcome Mandy Nayton, Educational and Developmental Psychologist and Chief Executive Officer of the Dyslexia-SPELD Foundation. Our conversation is going to delve into all things phonics, word study, vocabulary skills, and more. Along the way, Mandy will share a range of practical examples, discuss how this work might look across K-12, and you might even learn a new word along the way, just like I did. Host: Dominique Beech Guest: Mandy Nayton

In this episode, we’re talking about a whole school approach to wellbeing. Our guest is Dr Alexandra Hennessey, from the Manchester Institute of Education at the University of Manchester in the UK. Dr Hennessey and colleagues have explored how different schools in the UK have adopted the Well Schools framework – now, that’s a project started by the Youth Sport Trust in 2020. The findings of the study have been published in the journal Frontiers in Education (Hennessey et al., 2025). The team has also published 2 short reads – some school case studies on how the 10 schools are supporting wellbeing in their community, which runs through things like intent, implementation and impact; and then there’s a Well Schools Final Report Executive Summary as well (Hennessey et al., 2023). You can find links to all those documents in the transcript of this podcast over at Teacher magazine. Our chat with Dr Hennessey includes how wellbeing and learning go hand-in-hand, and we’re going to focus on 2 aspects of the study in p

We're joined by St Columba Anglican School Principal Allan Guihot and Director of Professional Learning Chris Delaney. They’re in Port Macquarie, on the New South Wales North Coast, and the school is a member of the award-winning Teaching School Hubs program from Independent Schools New South Wales (ISNSW). The program brings together schools and partner universities to provide teacher trainees with regular, mentored experience while they complete their qualification. The aim is to increase their skills and their confidence in the classrooms, so they’re better prepared once they enter the workforce. It’s a paid placement – trainees get paid for one day per week for a year, which is co-funded by ISNSW and the school. And then, depending on the arrangement, the trainee could also be working additional days as a Teacher Aide (that might be a Teaching Assistant or Classroom Support Assistant where you are), and that additional work is funded by the school, so that is something that St Columba has chosen to do. In

We’re well and truly into the new school year here in Australia. In today’s episode, we run you through the highlights from this month, including our round up of some key events happening throughout the school year to help you with lesson planning, and an article that shares 4 design principles to help turn classrooms into spaces that support and celebrate student learning. Host: Rebecca Vukovic

The winner of the 2026 Global Teacher Prize has just been announced. Rouble Nagi from India has been named winner and has taken home the US $1 million in prize money. Rouble was recognised for her work in transforming neglected walls in her community into hundreds of vibrant, open-air learning centres. The GEMS Education Global Teacher Prize is the largest of its kind and is a Varkey Foundation initiative organised in collaboration with UNESCO. It’s now in its 10th year and aims to shine a spotlight on the positive impact teachers make on society and recognise the exceptional educators who have made an outstanding contribution to the profession. One Australian teacher was a top 10 finalist this year – Colleen O’Rourke, Digital Technologies Educator from the Hills Christian Community School in Adelaide, South Australia. She’s been recognised for developing the Nature-Nurture-Network curriculum and for her work in supporting neurodivergent learners. Dominique Russell sat down with Colleen ahead of the announc

Late last year, the winners of the 2025 Prime Minister’s Prizes for Excellence in Science Teaching were announced. Each year, the 2 prizes – one for a primary school educator and one for a secondary school educator – recognise achievements in STEM teaching. For 2025, the winner for primary school teaching is Paula Taylor, Executive Teacher in STEM at the Academy of Future Skills within the ACT Education Directorate. The secondary school educator recognised is Matt Dodds, Biology and Physics Teacher at Glen Innes High School in New South Wales. We sat down with both of them at the beginning of the 2026 school year to hear all about the work they were recognised for. It was such a delight to hear about the teachers that had an impact on them when they were younger, the lesson activities that are a hit in their science classrooms, and how they’re sharing their knowledge with other educators. Host: Dominique Russell Guests: Paula Taylor, Matt Dodds

Happy New Year from the Teacher team! We hope you’re having a restful break these school holidays and that you can take some time to recharge for the new year. We’re dropping into your podcast feed to share a quick update for 2026.

It has been an exciting year of Teacher podcasts! In this annual wrap-up of highlights from 2025, the team at Teacher select their favourite episodes and discuss why the episodes resonated with them and Teacher listeners. They also chat about how they put the podcast together, how they select guests for each episode, and give a sneak peek of what’s to come in 2026. Hosts: Jo Earp, Rebecca Vukovic, Dominique Russell

In a Teacher exclusive, Minister of Education and Research for Estonia Dr Kristina Kallas joins editor Jo Earp for this special podcast to talk about setting teachers and students up for success, the early years foundations for its impressive PISA performance, and the next big challenge – AI in education. Host: Jo Earp Guest: Dr Kristina Kallas

As we head into the last month of 2025, many of you might be starting to turn your mind towards the beginning of the next school year. A big part of getting ready for a new year is, of course, setting up your learning spaces. Whether it be how you’ll set up your own classroom, the school library space, or even outdoor areas, there’s plenty to consider. We’ve published a range of new content on the topic of learning spaces recently at Teacher. In this episode, we'll bring you up to speed on it all. Don’t forget, like all of our other episodes of Teacher Staffroom, we’ll be posing some questions for you throughout this podcast, so you can 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

It's Episode 64 of our series on School Improvement and the topic is something that we're really passionate about at Teacher – school libraries and encouraging students to read for pleasure. So, it could be the main library, classroom book collections and displays. It could be something like small reading corners and nooks around the school. How do you go about creating a fresh and welcoming space for all students? What kind of things inform your decision when it comes to new stock or just re-promoting existing titles that you’ve got? We've got 3 great guests for you – Mali Jorm, Madison Dearnaley and Tracy Kelly, who will be sharing their tips. We'll be chatting about what the latest research says about strategies to encourage reading for pleasure and of course the importance of student voice. And we'll be sharing personal and student book recommendations. Host: Jo Earp Guests: Mali Jorm, Madison Dearnaley, Tracy Kelly

It is important that teachers feel confident to respectfully and effectively address religion and beliefs in diverse classrooms. But it can be difficult, particularly for early career or beginner teachers, to know where to start. Recently, Informit – in partnership with RMIT University and the Australian Council for Educational Research – held a free professional development webinar on this very topic. In that webinar, ACER's very own Pru Mitchell, Manager of Information Services, interviewed Professor Peter Sherlock, Executive Director of the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture at Charles Sturt University. In today's podcast, we sit down with Peter to follow up on some of the key themes to come from that webinar. In particular, we discuss why it's important for schools to engage with religion and belief systems, how teachers can engage students in meaningful conversations about religion in a respectful way, and the resources available to help teachers to build their confidence in this space. Host:

Earlier this month, Australia’s results from the Teaching and Learning International Survey were released. The OECD’s TALIS is the largest international survey of teachers and leaders, delving into teachers’ professional practices, school learning environments and working lives. Here at Teacher, we covered the results in several different formats. In this episode we’ll run you through the highlights, including an overview article of key findings on staff wellbeing, collegiality and mentoring support; and an infographic that shares some teacher views on the use of AI. We’ll also share an audio grab from our podcast episode with lead author of the Australian report, Dr Tim Friedman, who shares insights on the theme of wellbeing. Of course, we’ll also run through all the other highlights from this month on Teacher that we wouldn’t want you to miss. We’ll be posing questions throughout the episode so we’d encourage you to take a few moments to pause the audio, gather some colleagues, and consider how you could us

In this episode of our Research Files podcast series, editor Jo Earp talks to ACER’s Dr Tim Friedman about the latest Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS). We’ll be focusing on the theme of staff wellbeing and looking at some of the protective factors when it comes to levels of teacher job satisfaction and stress.

Teacher editor Jo Earp finds out how the Aspect Learning Improvement Collaborative is using a mainstream learning framework developed by Dr Lyn Sharratt, adapted to suit an autism-specific education setting. We’ll hear from Lyn, Aspect Education's Deputy National Director Karilyn Gumley and principals Kaye Perry, Joanne Tidsdell, and Michelle Zikmundovsky.

It’s well known from the research that high quality teaching and leadership teams learn from each other's practices. Recently on Teacher, the leadership team from Warriapendi Primary School in Perth, Western Australia, wrote 3 articles for us all about the journey they’ve been on to build instructional capacity in literacy to improve student outcomes in the area. Today’s episode of Teacher Staffroom will bring you up to date with the insights they shared in those articles, and we’ll also share some of my other recent highlights from our content – which, by the way, is freely accessible at any time over at our website, teachermagazine.com. Don’t forget, like all of our other episodes of Teacher Staffroom, we’ll be posing some questions for you throughout this 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: Monash University's Let's Talk Teaching podcast