Welcome to Episode 11 of Series 3 of School Assembly – yes, we’ve actually reached the final episode today! So, School Assembly – if you don’t know – that’s the podcast where we find out what it takes to build a school from the ground up. And, for the last 12 months we’ve been following Dan McShea, Foundation Principal of Notre Dame P-12 College in Bells Creek, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. It’s the final episode and that’s where we get a chance to reflect on the journey but also the podcast experience. We’ll be finding out about Dan’s expectations going into the role compared to the reality; there’ll be the usual key learning, challenge and achievement, what’s planned for the next 12 months, and there’s also an invitation to visit! 
Host: Jo Earp
Guest: Dan McShea

School Assembly S3E11: Series 3 Final

Associate Professor Brendon Hyndman is our guest today. If that name sounds familiar to you – Brendon was actually the guest in our first episode of The Research Files all the way back in 2014. After recently taking a pause from academics and spending time working back in the classroom, Brendon is now Associate Dean Academic in the Faculty of Arts and Education at Charles Sturt University, where his main research interest is on the more informal learning and behavioural experiences of students at school. An obvious example of this is school playground experiences – and so our conversation today is all about setting up for healthy play spaces and behaviours in a school setting. 

As you’ll hear Brendon share in this episode, the impact of healthy play spaces can be profound on students’ feeling of belonging, physical activity opportunities, ability to take risks and intellectual stimulation, just to name a few examples there. He also shares plenty of practical considerations for teachers and school leaders this space. 
Host: Dominique Russell
Guest: Brendon Hyndman


Setting up for healthy play behaviours at school

Today we're joined by Pauline Martinot, a medical doctor who specialises in child health and prevention. Dr Martinot pursued a research career in cognitive neurosciences on the developing child and did her PhD at NeuroSpin CEA Paris Saclay. Today, she works as an AI medical and scientific Director at Doctolib in France. 

Dr Martinot is also the lead author of the groundbreaking study that points to the first year of school as the time and place where a maths gender gap emerges in favour of boys. The results of this study were published in the paper titled Rapid emergence of a maths gender gap in first grade, published in Nature last month. The paper reports the results of a 4-year longitudinal assessment of language and mathematical performance of all French first and second graders, representing over 2.6 million children. The researchers found that boys and girls exhibited very similar maths scores upon school entry, but a maths gender gap in favour of boys became highly significant after just 4 months of schooling and reached an effect size of about 0.20 after one year. In this episode, Dr Martinot joins us on the line from France to share how her colleagues went about conducting the study, some more key findings, and the impact of this research on schools and teachers around the world. 
Host: Rebecca Vukovic
Guest: Dr Pauline Martinot

Addressing the maths gender gap in the early years

Thinking about your own school, how are you helping students understand the many opportunities and pathways open to them, and the training or further education requirements they’ll need to reach their career goals? We know schools play a crucial role in supporting post-school pathways, and recently at Teacher we’ve been exploring many facets of careers education. Today’s episode of Teacher Staffroom will bring you up to date with this coverage, 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

Teacher Staffroom Episode 68: Supporting post-school pathways

As a teacher listening to this episode, I’m sure you remember your first few years in the profession – the unique challenges you faced and the support that made a difference to you. But what does the evidence say about how schools can best support early career teachers? New research from academics at Monash University has uncovered specific factors that support early career teachers’ sense of belonging at school. Four main themes emerged: teacher collaboration, relationships with colleagues, supporting early career teachers through their early-career journey, and getting early career teachers involved in school decision making. The lead author of the report, Ebony Melzak, joins me for this episode of The Research Files. Ebony is a psychologist and PhD candidate. Together, we’ll go through each theme in detail, what the research says, and how it might look in different school settings. 
Host: Dominique Russell
Guest: Ebony Melzak

Fostering a sense of belonging for early career teachers

What are the persistent teaching dilemmas you find yourself thinking about in your spare time and circling back to time and again? Professor Brianna Kennedy from the University of Glasgow joins the podcast to talk about a 2-stage process for cracking persistent challenges in the classroom, how teachers can use it in practice, and the impact it has on student learning and engagement. 
Host: Rebecca Vukovic
Guest: Professor Brianna Kennedy
Find out more about Brianna’s work on Instagram and Facebook: @solveteachingdilemmas and her websites: briannalkennedy.com & www.gla.ac.uk/schools/education/staff/briannalkennedy/

Cracking persistent classroom dilemmas with Professor Brianna Kennedy

For students, a sizeable chunk of their school day is spent at lunch and recess, in the playground and recreation spaces, and outdoor learning areas. So, on this episode we're joined by Dr Fatemeh Aminpour, who is a Research Fellow at the City Futures Research Centre at the University of New South Wales (that’s UNSW Sydney). We’ll be looking at this from the students’ perspective – talking about what works well for children in different situations and how schools can look at those small incremental changes to make better use of what they’ve got. 
Host: Jo Earp
Guest: Dr Fatemeh Aminpour

Play spaces with Dr Fatemeh Aminpour

Did you know that here at Teacher magazine we publish content in different formats? From short to long articles, reader submissions, columns from distinguished authors, podcasts, videos or infographics – we publish fresh content on our website 4 days a week. In today’s episode, we're going to share some of the podcast highlights from this month on Teacher, including snippets from those recordings. We’ll also tell you a little more about the different formats, and point you to some of the other highlights from the month that you won’t want to miss. 
Host: Rebecca Vukovic

Teacher Staffroom Episode 69: Our range of different formats

The past few years have been a challenging time for schools in Australia and around the world. Schools have adapted to the impacts of COVID-19; some have also dealt with natural disasters like floods and bushfires. For school principals – no matter their level of experience – new research shows leading during crises like these has taught them many lessons and led to a transformation of perspectives. 

In this episode of The Research Files we're joined by Michelle Striepe from Edith Cowan University. She’s the lead author of a new paper titled ‘Lessons from Australasian principals’ experiences with crises: adapting, learning and transforming’. Her research was carried out with colleagues Christine Cunningham, Mohini Devi, David Gurr, Fiona Longmuir, Sylvia Robertson, Adam Taylor and Pauline Thompson, and in our conversation today, Michelle takes us through their findings and, of course, some important implications for school leaders. 
Host: Dominique Russell
Guest: Michalle Striepe


Principals leading through crises – what did they learn?

R U OK? Day is a national day of action that reminds Australians to check in with others and ask ‘are you OK?’ 

In this special episode, Teacher editor Jo Earp is joined by Dr Hannah Brown to talk about some of the signs that it might be time to have the conversation, how to prepare and the 4 simple steps of ask, listen, encourage action and check in. They also discuss some of the support services and resources available.

Principals leading through crises – what did they learn?

Teacher Magazine (ACER)