The Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) has been working closely with Australian schools and systems to learn about promising approaches for implementing evidence-based teaching practices in different school contexts. This discussion paper provides detailed insights from the second year of the Learning Partner work.

Teachers’ salaries consistently represent the largest spending item in public primary and secondary educational institutions across OECD countries and are often the subject of debate. This policy brief outlines spending patterns across OECD countries, highlighting the complexity of implementing broad salary reforms. It finds that even modest salary increases for teachers can have a significant...

The commentaries highlight Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 NAPLAN results for 2025, nationally and by selected subgroups. Girls continue to outperform boys in literacy and boys continue to outperform girls in numeracy at all year levels. Higher levels of parental education and occupation continue to be associated with higher NAPLAN performance in all domains.

This report outlines sex differences in mathematics outcomes in primary and secondary school education. It looks into spatial competency, non-cognitive contributors and in-class attentive behaviour on these sex differences. The implications and interventions are examined, including Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) policies for the future.

The paper underlines the importance of developing early number sense in children, with advice and exercises for both parents and teachers. Children's trajectories in mathematics are shaped early and the development of early number sense will reap benefits in later schooling and adult life.