Articles

Jenny Donovan discusses AERO's analysis of NAPLAN writing data and the importance of writing instruction. Originally published in The Mandarin.

Nobody knows more about students’ learning needs than their teachers and educators. So how should teachers and educators respond to research evidence about effective practice that is broad and does not appear to take account of contextual factors?

The Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) is looking for educators, teachers and leaders from Australian schools and early childhood education and care (ECEC) services to prioritise and shape its research and resources.

AERO has partnered with the National Outside School Hours Services Alliance (NOSHSA) to support continuity of learning and development for school-aged children as they move between out of school hours care (OSHC) services and school.

Building on family engagement practice guides for early childhood, primary and secondary school levels, AERO has released a new suite of promising approaches audit tools, family engagement implementation checklists and case studies.

We’re yet to fully understand the critical features that make professional learning effective.

There is broad consensus in the research community that certain practices such as formative assessment and explicit instruction improve student outcomes. But these practices are often complex and hard to implement, involving many different elements.

A new analysis of NAPLAN data reconfirms that while students’ backgrounds influence their literacy and numeracy achievement, their results are not wholly determined by socio-economic background.

We might associate ‘top schools’ with having the lion's share of academic high-achievers. However, when we look at the distribution of achievement across all students within schools and compare it to average differences between schools, the story is not so straightforward.

How do we close equity gaps in learning and development, and best support children from disadvantaged backgrounds to catch up to their more advantaged peers?

How does a national agency support the effective implementation of evidence, particularly at scale? Learn how the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) plans to address the implementation challenge.

Schools and services often have cultures of sharing and discussing evidence, but less support exists for practitioners to actively change their practice based on evidence.