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School leaders play a crucial role in improving outcomes for students and the success of a school community. But, what happens when they leave? In today’s episode of School Improvement we’re talking about succession planning.

In this episode we visit Western Port Secondary College – one of 21 government schools involved in the Australian initiative The Paradigm Shifters: Entrepreneurial learning in schools – to talk to assistant principal Hannah Lewis and student Harry Hainsworth.

Early career teacher attrition is seen as an issue of concern around the world. Here, scholarly articles and media reports regularly state that between 30 and 50 per cent of Australian teachers leave the profession within the first five years. But, where do those figures come from and how accurate are they? A study published in the Australian Journal of Education, suggests there is no robust Australian evidence and data. Author Dr Paul Weldon joins The Research Files to discuss his findings.

Associate Professor Linda Hobbs joins The Research Files to talk about a new Australian study exploring girls’ participation and engagement in STEM subjects.

It’s been a big year for Teacher magazine podcasts – we recently broke through the 100 000 listens milestone! To mark the end of another great 12 months, we have put together some clips from our favourite podcasts for 2017.

Results from the latest cycle of the PIRLS assessment (that’s the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) show the literacy achievement of Year 4 students in Australia has improved. However, there are significant achievement gaps by gender, Indigenous status, socioeconomic status and school location. The Australian Council for Educational Research has just published the details in PIRLS 2016: Reporting Australia’s results and lead author of that report, ACER Deputy CEO (Research) Dr Sue Thomson, joins us now.

In today’s podcast special we’re speaking with Neil Bramsen and Brett McKay – two educators who are changing the lives of the students in their schools by instilling a love of Science in them. Both teachers were named winners of the Prime Minister’s Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching – one for primary and one for secondary. Here, they share more about how they’ve formed innovative partnerships with scientists, the community and other schools.

In today’s Behaviour Management podcast we talk to Dr Anna Sullivan from the University of South Australia. She’s been working on the Behaviour at School study which explores the existing state of student behaviour and its management in South Australian schools. Here, she shares her insights into what it means to enact respectful, school-wide behaviour policies and the role of school leaders in doing so.

In this instalment of The Research Files we’ll be discussing student fitness and wellbeing, specifically, two simple exercise programs – the first is a new project aimed at improving adolescent health and wellbeing, and the second is being used by thousands of early years and primary students across the world. We’ll talk to the founder of The Daily Mile, retired Scottish head teacher Elaine Wyllie, later in this episode but our first guest is Dr Jordan Smith from the University of Newcastle, here in Australia. He’s one of the research team working on Burn2Learn, a four year project working with Year 11 students to improve their physical, cognitive and mental health.

For the last three years school leaders and staff at Jordan River Learning Federation Senior School have been focusing on evidence-based teaching and reflection. It’s included the development of a professional learning approach called CCRP – that’s Connect, Collect, Reflect and Progress. Assistant Principal Murray Cronin joined Teacher magazine on the line from Tasmania to talk about the evidence base for the model and what each of the four stages involves.

Are male teachers headed for extinction in Australia? Researchers who carried out the first ever study tracking the trajectory of male participation in the teaching profession say the short answer is ‘yes’. Dr Kevin McGrath joins Teacher to explain more.

Professor Simone Reinhold joins Teacher to discuss inquiry based learning in primary mathematics, including the benefits of students working on a common task with differentiated outcomes, and the role of the educator in finding a balance between explorative and informative learning.

Student participation rates in advanced maths and science subjects is declining. In today's podcast, Michael Jennings, an Associate Lecturer at the University of Queensland joins Teacher to discuss his research which explores factors influencing student selection of senior secondary maths subjects.

When we ask readers and listeners about the professional learning topics that interest them and what they’d like more support on, teacher wellbeing is always right up there. We're here today at the University of Queensland in Brisbane to find out about a teacher wellbeing study, looking at the impact of two stress interventions.

Our guest for the second episode in our Behaviour Management podcast series is Phil Beadle – a teacher, education consultant, public speaker, author and broadsheet columnist. Phil was once named Secondary Teacher of the Year in the UK and is considered an expert in the areas of literacy and behaviour management. In today’s podcast he joins us on the line from the UK to discuss behaviour management, but in particular the different de-escalation techniques that educators can use to manage challenging behaviours in their classrooms.

Three Deakin University academics – Dr Linda Hobbs, Associate Professor Coral Campbell and Associate Professor Colleen Vale – recently visited ACER to share their research on out-of-field teaching. In today’s School Improvement podcast, we share some highlights from their presentation.

Professor Jenny Gore joins The Research Files to discuss the findings of a new Australian study by academics from the University of Newcastle and Western Sydney University investigating the occupational and career aspirations of Indigenous school students.

Our guest on The Research Files today is Amanda Datnow, a Professor in the Department of Education Studies and Associate Dean of the Division of Social Sciences at the University of California, San Diego. Her current research explores best practice in relation to data-informed teaching and learning, including how to build educator capacity. In August, Professor Datnow will be in Melbourne for Research Conference 2017, hosted by the Australian Council for Educational Research, where she’ll deliver a keynote titled ‘Opening or closing doors for students? Equity and data-driven decision-making’.

Professor Nan Bahr delivered the closing keynote address at last month’s Excellence in Professional Practice Conference on the Gold Coast. Her keynote, titled ‘Personal attributes: Developing the hidden qualities in quality teaching’ examined the concept of quality in teaching and the personal attributes of teachers that are central to the teacher-learner relationship. In this special episode, we’ll be sharing the highlights from Nan’s keynote address at EPPC.

The practicum component of pre-service teacher education courses is an important part of preparing students for the profession. A recent Australian study shines a spotlight on the highs and lows of the practicum experience from the perspective of pre-service drama teachers. The findings have been published in the Australian Journal of Teacher Education and lead author Dr Christina Gray, from Edith Cowan University, is our guest in this episode of The Research Files.