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Welcome to the first episode of a new series. Our podcast subscribers have told us that they love the option to listen (and learn of course) during the daily commute, while they’re out for a walk, taking a break with a cuppa and even doing the household chores (apparently we make a particularly good soundtrack for cooking and hanging out the washing). So, with that in mind, we’ve decided to introduce another way for you to catch up with all things Teacher.

My guest today is someone I originally discovered on Twitter. Craig Heeley is an educator living in Newcastle upon Tyne in northeast England, and this year he landed his first ever Head Teacher role at Lemington Riverside Primary School. Over the past few months, he’s been sharing his experiences in the new Head Teacher role on Twitter, and he’s been mustering up lots of engagement and encouragement from educators around the world that are keen to follow his journey. I catch up with Craig in today’s podcast to talk more about the strategies he’s employed to get to know the staff, parents and students in his school community. We also chat about navigating challenges as a school leader, the role of mentoring and what he’s looking forward to most about the coming year. Before we launch into the discussion though, I ask Craig to give listeners a brief overview of his career as an educator and how he came to be Head Teacher at Lemington Riverside Primary School.

Our guest for this episode is Dr Joann Fildes, Head of Research and Evaluation at Mission Australia. The charity describes its Youth Survey as the nation’s “largest online annual ‘temperature check’ of teenagers aged between 15 and 19”. In 2018, 28 000 participants across the country shared their views on a range of topics - including school education, their personal wellbeing and who they turn to for help. As you’ll hear later in the episode, Mission Australia works closely with schools to get students involved, and data can be used to inform future planning. The latest data show stress, school or study problems, and mental health are the top three personal concerns for young people. When asked who they’d turn to for help, more than one third said a teacher or school counsellor. We’ll be discussing the role schools and educators can play in providing support and information for students, and creating an environment where they feel they can access that support. A reminder that for help and information you can

My guest today is Dr Jeff Thomas, a lecturer in the Master of Teaching and Graduate Certificate of Education at the University of Tasmania. Jeff’s research and teaching interests include the relationship between engagement and classroom behaviour, and reengagement approaches for disengaged students. With the start of the school year fast approaching here in Australia, many teachers will be busy preparing for those first, initial weeks in the classroom. And according to Jeff, the beginning of the year is an amazing opportunity to engage students, to build relationships and to establish explicit expectations around student behaviour. But, he says, it’s important to plan for positive behaviour. Our discussion today covers many different areas including how to plan for that positive behaviour in your classroom, which routines are critical to establish in the initial weeks of the year, and practical things to keep in mind when responding to particularly challenging behaviours as they arise in class.

A new study examines the gender differences in the friendships and conflicts of both girls and boys with autism, relative to their neurotypical peers. In today’s podcast two of the researchers, Dr Felicity Sedgewick and Dr Liz Pellicano, join us on the line from the UK.

Welcome to this special end of year edition, where we take a trip down memory lane and select some of our favourite podcast moments from 2018. We’ve actually published 26 episodes this year, including a special to mark our 100th, so it’s been a difficult choice.

Our guest for today’s episode of the Research Files is Dr Carol Newall, a Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood Education at Macquarie University. She joins us today to talk about a study she led which investigates how a child’s gender impacts an adults’ perception of their ability and their enjoyment of Science. The 80 adult participants in this study were all Macquarie University students, 20 of whom were education students and 60 were studying psychology. These adults were given a fictional profile of an eight-year-old child with the task of teaching that child over Skype. Each child’s fictional profile was experimentally manipulated depending on whether they were boy or girl, and the stereotypes associated with that gender. For example, one child liked tea parties and the colour pink and another liked climbing trees and the colour blue. As Dr Newall will explain in today’s episode, the results from this study revealed that participants rated girls as less academically capable than boys in Physics, and the

In this episode of School Improvement, we're joined on the line by Brett Crawford, the Lead Science teacher at Warrigal Road State School in Brisbane. With over 1300 students and 50 staff members in the primary school, a big task was ahead of Brett when he decided he would work towards improving Science education in every classroom. The impact has been clear – students from Warrigal Road are now entering high school more prepared than ever for Science education and teachers have hit the ground running with inquiry-based Science learning. Brett has just been recognised for his outstanding work this year, after receiving the award for the Prime Minister’s Prize for Excellence in Science teaching. Later in this episode, he’ll also be sharing details of a couple of his budget-friendly experiments that students really enjoy, but first, Brett explains a little bit about what Science education was like before he began mentoring teachers.

In this episode of Global Education, we're joined on the line by Dr Louise van Rhyn from Cape Town, South Africa. She’s the founder of a program named Partners for Possibility, which pairs business leaders with principals for a 12-month structured leadership development program. The program was recognised internationally after winning a WISE Award for innovative solutions to education challenges and their positive social impact.

What are some practical strategies teachers could use in the classroom to assist students with ADHD? That’s just one of the questions we ask Dr Emma Sciberras in this episode of The Research Files. Dr Sciberras is a Senior Lecturer and Clinical Psychologist from the School of Psychology at Deakin University. Since 2009, she’s been working on the Children’s Attention Project, a research study conducted by the Murdoch Children's Research Institute at The Royal Children's Hospital. The project explores the long-term effects that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (or ADHD) has on children's behaviour, learning and day-to-day living, and also on their parents' wellbeing.

In this episode I’m joined by Alvian Sulungbudi, a senior student from Saint Angela High School in Bandung, Indonesia which is about two hours from Jakarta. Alvian, along with his Mathematics teacher and fellow students, visited Melbourne to attend an awards ceremony recognising their success in the 2018 International Mathematical Modeling Challenge.

In this episode of The Research Files, we're joined on the line by Professor Helen Christensen, The Director and Chief Scientist at Black Dog Institute. Black Dog Institute is an Australian organisation focussed on identifying, preventing and treating mental illness. They’re also pioneers in mental health research, and one research area is concerned with suicide prevention. This area is named CRESP, which stands for the Centre of Research Excellence in Suicide Prevention and brings together key researchers to focus on projects and trials with the aim of lowering suicide rates. Professor Christensen is currently leading a phase of CRESP research – which she labels CRESP 2 – that aims to deliver suicide prevention strategies across the country, taking a technology-based approach. Their work will include intervening at both primary and secondary school levels, with strategies centring on the use of different smartphone apps.

Moving to a new school is an important time in any child’s life. For students from a migrant or refugee background it often means learning a new language or joining outside of the normal transition period, at different points throughout the school year. In this podcast we're at Noble Park Primary School to speak to Principal David Rothstadt about how staff support new students and their families, and create a safe and secure learning environment.

The team’s on the road this week at the ACER Research Conference in Sydney, where the theme for 2018 is ‘Teaching practices that make a difference: Insights from research’. In this special episode, we share highlights from the ‘In Conversation’ session on evidence-based teaching practices between Laureate Professor John Hattie and ACER CEO Professor Geoff Masters AO. The facilitator was Tony Mackay AM, of the Centre for Strategic Education in Melbourne.

Can therapy dogs decrease anxiety and stress in students, and improve school attendance? These are just some of the questions Monash University academics are trying to answer as they push for more research in this area. In today’s podcast we're joined by Dr Linda Henderson and Dr Christine Grove from the Faculty of Education at Monash University. Both researchers have trained their own therapy dogs – Daymon the black Labrador and Bronson the Labradoodle, who you might hear moving around in the background of this episode. Dr Henderson is a Senior Lecturer and a former teacher, and she raised Daymon from a puppy. He initially worked as a guide dog before retiring and retraining as a therapy dog. Dr Grove is a Lecturer at Monash and also an educational and developmental psychologist. She has been using Bronson in both educational and clinical settings to help children to overcome their fears.

Teacher magazine celebrates its 100th podcast by taking a closer look at some of our audio highlights over the last four years. Stay tuned for more from John Fleming, Dr Bill Rogers, and more.

Our guests on this episode of School Improvement are Cobram Primary School Principal Matt Knight and teacher Cassie Ryan. Cassie is a PE teacher at the rural school, but it’s the role of Attendance Officer that has seen her develop and lead an initiative that has dramatically reduced the number of unexplained and chronic student absences.

In this episode of The Research Files we're joined by Helen Egeberg, the Master of Teaching coordinator at Edith Cowan University in Western Australia. Her recent report, 'What do students believe about effective classroom management? A mixed-methods investigation in Western Australian high schools' has produced some clear views students have about their favourite teachers.

Participants in a school-based mentoring program, along with the program coordinator, join Teacher for this podcast to explain why partnering students with an adult mentor can encourage a higher level of engagement in school.

Headteacher of Brimsdown Primary School in the UK, Dani Lang joins Teacher for this School Improvement podcast to talk about her school’s focus on staff wellbeing. Establishing the staff wellbeing team has been one of the factors in helping the school achieve a vast improvement in its Ofsted grade, and it has created a new harmony in the staffroom.