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Help your primary students develop a deep appreciation for the natural world with Life in a garden: Activities and projects for the outdoor classroom. In this practical handbook, permaculture expert Dr Ross Mars guides teachers through the basics of garden design and maintenance, while providing opportunities for students to explore and contribute to a thriving ecosystem. The easy-to-implement investigations and hands-on projects included in this book allow students to observe and understand the dynamic processes that take place in the garden environment and encourage them to consider sustainable solutions to keep their plants healthy and productive. Using this resource, readers will find: tips for effective garden design, including establishing basic garden beds and deciding on effective planting strategies advice for seasonal planting and harvesting produce sustainable solutions for managing common pests flexible activities aligned to the Australian Curriculum. You’ll love watching your students learn to love gardening as they make a positive impact on their local environment. Access more resources and templates from the book here.  

People Interacting is an extensive resource of interactive games that can be used to help students develop a breadth of social skills. The 150 activities have been designed for a range of abilities, ages and levels of maturity. Each activity is clearly set out with a focus, time, materials, the procedure and points for discussion. The selection of activities cover warm ups, self development and responsibility, communication and relationships, and problem solving and decision making. Each procedure, variation and discussion topic has been tried and tested and chosen specifically because of the value it provides to students. Combining the activities with conversational prompts to encourage reflection and discussion, People Interacting aims to encourage and aid the development of the student as a total person by exploring mind, body, emotions, values, and attitudes. The activities enable students to make sense of what they experience in terms of their own needs – their ability to solve problems, to develop a positive self-concept and to develop their social and interpersonal skills more broadly.

In Grounded, Katrina Bourke offers a life raft for leaders navigating uncertain and chaotic times. Drawing from her own journey of leadership burnout and what she calls her 'log cabin breakdown,' Bourke presents the Grounded Leadership Framework, a practical guide for staying aligned with your values and leading with authenticity, even when paddling furiously beneath a calm surface. This deeply personal book invites leaders, particularly those in education, to build their own 'sacred ground', a solid foundation that anchors them through challenges and allows them to push the hair off their faces and be truly seen. With journal prompts, evidence-based research, and practical strategies, the Grounded Leadership Framework shows how embracing your full humanity – strengths, imperfections, and vulnerabilities – is not a leadership weakness but the key to creating human-centred environments where both you and those you serve can thrive.

The Bully Blocker: A Play and Other Resources offers teachers a powerful toolkit to address bullying in schools. Based on Evelyn Field's books Bully Blocking: Empowering students to manage bullying and Harry the Bully Blocker, this engaging resource combines a relatable playscript featuring canine characters with evidence-based strategies to combat bullying. The play's unique structure, including a Wise Chorus and opportunities for all students to participate, creates a safe space for exploring this sensitive topic. Through this approach, students are empowered to effectively manage their responses to bullying while raising awareness about its harmful consequences. Designed for easy implementation in the classroom, this book provides educators with discussion prompts, activities, and practical lessons tied to each scene of the play. By exploring bullying through the safety of assuming character roles, students can develop crucial life skills in a fun, inclusive, and reflective learning environment. All strategies presented are grounded in Evelyn Field's expert work, ensuring a solid foundation for addressing bullying in schools.

Keeping Our Kids Hopeful delves into the essence of what drives us to face each new day: hope and confidence in the future. It explores how this sense of hope can be fostered in children, even amid uncertainties and challenges. By questioning the traditional pursuit of happiness as the ultimate goal for children, the book underscores the importance of equipping them with emotional literacy and resilience. It stresses that a rich and fulfilling life naturally encompasses a range of emotional experiences, from joy to discomfort, all of which contribute to personal growth and self-understanding. Drawing from experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, the book highlights the profound impact of social and environmental changes on children's mental health. It sheds light on how the lockdowns intensified the need for mental health awareness and support in early childhood settings and schools. The author, a seasoned psychologist, advocates for a balanced approach that not only addresses mental health issues but also promotes positive mental health. Emphasising authoritative parenting, the book provides practical guidance for parents to help their children feel heard, supported and capable, thereby instilling a lasting sense of hope and confidence in them.

In mixed-ability classrooms, it is inevitable that students will have different learning styles, backgrounds, prior knowledge, experience and willingness to learn. While teachers may be unable to change the content prescribed by their school, they have an enormous amount of control in the way they assign this content to their students. Differentiating the Curriculum: Supporting Teachers to Thrive in Mixed-Ability Classrooms adopts the principles of the Pirozzo Model, which offers six approaches teachers can use to effectively implement differentiation in their classroom. The Pirozzo Model consists of the following strategies: Ability Grouping Cooperative Learning Teams Learning Contracts Learning Centres Multi-age Grouping Individual Learning Plans Based on the author’s extensive work with over 20,000 educators, the Pirozzo Model is a dynamic teaching tool that empowers teachers with six different approaches to maximising student learning potential.

Providing effective feedback to teachers is critical in improving teaching standards and student performance – but how can we deliver this feedback in a way that does not lead to misunderstanding, animosity or the undermining of teachers’ professionalism? To assist schools in ensuring that any feedback provided to teachers is both accurate and constructive, Implementing an Effective Teacher Feedback Program presents the Pirozzo Process: a step-by-step method for building a sustainable, low-cost teacher feedback program that can be implemented in any school. Each chapter of the book is dedicated to one of the seven steps of the Pirozzo Process: Find your philosophy of leadership Create a Time Allocation Inventory Build knowledge of unit planning Learn to use a variety of thinking tools Develop conflict-resolution skills Launch an effective teacher feedback program Apply four strategies for providing effective feedback

Writing for Young People offers insight and advice to aspiring writers and educators on how to set up a writing business and the process of crafting projects centred around young readers. Delving into important aspects such as workspace organisation, time and money management, and overcoming procrastination, Writing for Young People equips writers and educators with the tools to shape the literary landscape for young people. This book draws from Hazel's industry experience and offers essential tips and activities for various genres, including non-fiction, young adult, children's picture books and educational materials. It covers a range of topics, from crafting book proposals, conducting research and preparing manuscripts.

“Grammar exists to make communication easier.” Learning how to improve and master grammar and punctuation may seem tedious and challenging, but it will ultimately determine how you learn English. Despite the multitude of AI tools like ChatGPT and Grammarly that can help you with checking grammar, these tools can only help you so far to form the foundation of communication. Your own knowledge, and what you learn about English and writing it, will determine the quality, style and voice of your own creativity. Welcome to this handbook, designed to help you to develop the knowledge and skills to improve your grammar and punctuation. Aimed at high school students, Grammar Skills Handbook delves into the fundamentals of grammar, such as phrases, clauses, groups, punctuation, open-class words and closed-class words. Through getting a good grasp of grammar, you will unravel the different layers of grammar, starting with understanding the patterns of language, the parts of speech, and lastly, the essential element of written language, also known as the sentence. Knowing how written English works is at the mind and heart of writing and reading.

Scripts allow hesitant students to be able to assume the protection of a character and play a role or explore issues which may concern them in real life. Issues contains a collection of scripts, discussion prompts and activities for use in the classroom, as a way of opening up students to understand and process topical and sensitive issues in their world, from a range of perspectives. The art of performing harnesses the students’ engagement in the subject and offers a chance to immerse themselves within the protection of a character or role. This book gives middle school and secondary school students a chance to discuss contemporary topics or problems during the classroom rehearsal and performance of these scripts. There are enough parts for the whole class to participate, and conversation prompts and activities are provided to extend and deepen classroom discussion. Extensively workshopped and already used in classrooms nationally, this large collection of student performance scripts allows students and teachers to improve their ability to understand, navigate and discuss sensitive issues in the classroom.

Simple Tools explores the use of technology in the classroom and offers a considered, student-centric and foundational approach. In this book, teachers will be introduced to the selection of simple digital resources that have a clear purpose and do one thing well. They will be able to identify suitable technology that is quick and easy to set up for classroom use, as well as a host of strategies that will help make learning clear for both teachers and students. Along with recommendations and advice, Simple Tools includes activities for teachers to develop the confidence to select and embed digital resources that have a purposeful fit within an existing practice. Find out how using the Simple Tools approach can be beneficial in your classroom. Finally a book about technology and the classroom that is insightful about both topics. Simple Tools offers teachers practical strategies that they can use to maximise their impact in the classroom immediately.Glen Pearsall, author and education consultant

This practical resource provides early years professionals and foundation teachers with games, activities and strategies to incorporate language into movement. The premise is that learning language concepts through movement will help all children, particularly especially those who might have language delays or coming from non-English-speaking backgrounds. Section one provides whole class and individual movement activities to enable children to learn single-word concepts and simple phrases. Section two contains concept games and development motor movements activities and ideas that will help develop the physical process needed in learning language. Educators, teachers and learning assistants can easily implement these ideas to their programs and be equipped with the knowledge and confidence to help children develop language through movement and active play.   Authors: Garry Powell was a teacher and administrator in both country and city government schools for 32 years. He was a classroom teacher, specialist physical education teacher and principal at inner city schools. He lectured in tertiary education for 15 years, and has spoken on teacher education at conferences and workshops. Garry has written numerous teacher reference books. Debra Armstrong has taught in government primary schools for 28 years. She has been a classroom teacher, a specialist teacher in art and physical education, and a lecturer at Monash University. Debra has undertaken research in Australia and overseas, and won awards for her contribution to teaching. Debra has co-authored a number of teacher reference books.     Download the Flashcards here

Connecting Whole-School Literacy tackles the reality that many secondary students arrive with literacy skills years below grade level, yet every subject demands specific reading, writing, speaking and listening abilities. Author Hayley Harrison, drawing from twenty years of classroom experience, promotes the understanding that literacy development cannot fall solely to English teachers – it must become every educator's responsibility. This practical guide not only explains the research around how students learn to read and write, but also demonstrates how teachers across all subjects can effectively support struggling readers and writers while extending advanced learners. Harrison bridges research -into practice with immediately usable strategies, activities and frameworks designed for busy secondary teachers. The book provides explicit explanation of current understanding in the process of literacy acquisition alongside concrete tools for vocabulary instruction, reading comprehension, writing development and oral communication that respect subject expertise while building teacher confidence. Whether you're seeking to better understanding and support individual students in your class or lead and implement whole-school literacy reform, this resource offers the roadmap for transforming student outcomes through collective, cross-curricular literacy instruction that recognises every teacher as a teacher of literacy.

Kit goes to school with her friends Harley and Vanya, and always tries her best at everything she does. Arlo is too loud, too close, just too... much. But when a moving van pulls up next to Kit’s house one weekend, Kit and Arlo find out they have a lot more in common than they thought. Join Kit, Arlo and their friends as they navigate school, home life and friendships, and learn more than a few things about how to get along. Kit and Arlo Find a Way: Stories about consent for 8–12 year olds is a much-needed consent teaching resource for Grades 3 to 6. An action-packed and relatable fictional chapter book, Kit and Arlo is a page-turning journey of upper primary school kids – Kit, Arlo, Harley and Vanya – developing and exploring friendships with plenty of ups and downs. Entertaining and compelling as a standalone narrative, Kit and Arlo’s secret weapon is that it contains all of the complex components of consent and includes respectful relationships education in an age-appropriate format. Teachers and parents can read the story, chapter by chapter, and then use the discussion points and ‘read and respond’ notes to facilitate conversations around consent in child-friendly ways. For schools and families needing a more in-depth consent and respectful relationships curriculum, a dedicated Kit and Arlo resources platform houses evidence-based teaching activities, videos, webinars, podcasts, resource links and lesson plans designed to tie in with the story. Kit and Arlo Find a Way is a vital resource for schools and families doing the essential work of empowering kids with decision-making skills that will carry through to their interactions and relationships later on in life. The Educational Publishing Awards Australia (EPAA) also recognised the importance and quality of this resource, awarding Kit and Arlo Find a Way wins for both the Educational Chapter Book and Outstanding Primary Resource categories.  NSW government schools should navigate to the NSW Department of Education’s Student Wellbeing external programs catalogue here to learn more about accessing this resource.  Key topics include: body boundaries and safety verbal and non-verbal cues developing a sense of self, personal strength and self-determination understanding that the responsibly of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ should be shared understanding that shared activities should have enthusiastic, affirmative and ongoing consent having the courage to withdraw consent understanding gendered stereotypes, coercion and power imbalances learning to have empathy for others managing disappointment when someone changes their mind how to be an upstander when someone is being harmed the keys to respectful relationships and better friendships. Teaching consent to children For schools and families needing a more in-depth consent and respectful relationships curriculum, a dedicated Kit and Arlo resources platform houses evidence-based teaching activities, videos, webinars, podcasts, resource links and lesson plans designed to tie in with the story. Consent is integral to human relationships throughout our whole lives. It is complex and also surprisingly simple. The basic principles of consent must always apply to all of our connections, including with family, friends, work and play.  However, people are complex. In different situations, we can experience a range of different feelings, thoughts and emotions. In order to be sure that someone wants to share an experience with us equally, and that they are giving affirmative permission. We need to make important choices and decisions to ensure we always have and give consent.  Download the resources here.

Dive into the depths of literary exploration with the Literary Analysis Handbook. Designed for high school students, this guide offers a roadmap to dissecting literary works and crafting compelling responses. From learning to understand narrative complexities to decoding symbolic imagery, students will gain insightful tips and engaging examples to enhance their understanding of their English and literature texts. Whether exploring a timeless classic novel or critiquing a modern masterpiece, this handbook equips students with the skills to navigate the written word with clarity and finesse, transforming every reading experience into an opportunity for profound insight.

Unlock the secrets of cinematic storytelling with the Film Analysis Handbook. Tailored for high school students studying English and literature, this guide is your ticket to confidently dissecting films and crafting compelling analyses. From unravelling narrative threads to decoding visual symbolism, this book is full of insightful tips and engaging examples to elevate a student’s understanding of film. Learn how to dissect a classic or critique a contemporary masterpiece. Navigate the world of cinema with insight and finesse, making every viewing experience an opportunity for understanding.

Grammar is not just a set of rules; it's the roadmap to clarity and expression. In a world where AI tools like ChatGPT and Grammarly offer assistance, mastering grammar lays the foundation for effective communication and personal style. This advanced Grammar Skills Handbook is tailored for high school students, and it dives deep into the essentials: style, vocabulary and more. Master the mysteries of grammar, and unlock the secrets of language, writing and reading. This book will elevate any student’s English skills and their creative voice.

This book has been designed specifically to engage and motivate primary and secondary school students to think ‘outside’ the box, to create new ideas and to have fun whilst learning. These activities have been based on the following underlying principles: Children need to be involved in activities that are engaging, relevant and exciting. Children should have the opportunity to choose various thinking tools to complete and to present the required tasks. These activities can be incorporated into the 48-grid matrix which integrates Bloom’s Taxonomy and Multiple Intelligences.In this way, we will provide for the thinking skills and learning styles of our students.It is anticipated that the children will be encouraged to work in groups and to present their ideas through their ‘preferred’ multiple intelligences.

Workplays provides school to work transition play scripts and activities for secondary school students. This approach provides students with a realistic understanding of a variety of professions, trades and careers, fosters collaboration between subjects and develops essential skills for the workplace world. This second edition of Hazel Edwards’ well-loved and used teacher resource, highlights the practicality of integrating plays and simulated workplace experiences in schools in addition, or in lieu of work placements. Multiple play scripts, activities and discussion points provide for all level of reading skills. The book advocates for the value of incorporating simulated workplace experiences, offering a practical and inclusive skills approach to preparing students for future work.

Great writers aren’t born, they’re taught! Unfortunately, the rules of written English can be difficult enough to remember, let alone teach. If you struggle to separate pronouns from prepositions, or are often left wondering whether to use “who” or “whom”, Australian author Dianne Bates comes to your aid with Writing Essentials, a welcome reference for teachers and aspiring authors. This handy guide offers concise explanations on the basics of grammar, punctuation and word usage, while also introducing fundamental techniques to help broaden your vocabulary and bring your writing to life. Packed with plenty of exercises to test yourself and your students, Writing Essentials provides all the support you’ll need to hone your own writing skills and pass on your knowledge to budding writers!

Would you like maths with that? Improving numeracy in the primary years guides educators and school leaders through numeracy improvement with a focus on deeply understanding the difference between mathematics and numeracy, their relationship and the implication on teaching and pedagogy. Author and expert Thelma Perso takes a holistic approach to mathematics teaching, supporting readers to transform low-level learning into higher-order thinking in their classrooms to ensure all students can tackle mathematics with confidence. With a thorough and knowledgeable approach, Thelma lays the foundations for teachers, school leaders and school communities to enhance their numeracy pedagogies and, in turn, improve the numeracy capabilities of their students. Starting with numeracy definitions and how to teach mathematics for numeracy attainment through to intervention, extension and assessment, the chapters support readers through the whole numeracy improvement journey. Would you like maths with that?, along with the online resources developed for individual educators and schools to assess their current numeracy positions, show how it is not only possible but necessary to improve student numeracy achievement regardless of educator, subject area and student capability. Would you like maths with that? will empower educators to teach mathematics in engaging and effective ways that teach students to use mathematics confidently to meet the needs of their everyday lives.   Download the resources and templates from the book here.

Billy Kool was an ordinary boy until he was thrust into the life of an extreme sports TV celebrity. In this book, Billy and his friends, Sally and Nathan are onto their second adventure; whitewater rafting! Billy can’t see the point of learning French at school until he meets Pierre, a world champion white-water rafter who happens to be French. We follow Billy and his friends as they battle nerves and prepare for the most extreme sport yet. When Billy falls into the water, it’s his new friend Pierre who saves him. At the end of the book, there is an extreme information section, a glossary and a description of the equipment used when whitewater rafting. Part of an 8-book series, the Billy Kool books are informative, empathetic and exciting; targeted to readers and reluctant readers alike ages 8-11 years.   Teacher Notes here. 

Welcome to the Clancy of the Outback series. Eleven-year-old Clancy has been thrust into life out woop-woop. These are the stories of his outback adventures at his uncle’s sheep station, Overflow Station. In this book, the school bus runs over a mother kangaroo outside the gate to Overflow Station and Clancy and Little Bill find a joey in the pouch. Eventually the whole family become involved in looking after the joey. The story becomes more complicated when Big Bill announces a kangaroo cull. Clancy and Little Bill decide to mount a campaign to save the local wildlife which coincides with Little Bill declaring herself vegan. Nevertheless, the campaign goes on and is a huge success. At the conclusion of this book the Outback facts provides information about native wildlife. There is the DH Lawrence poem Kangaroo and the all-important, Outback Jokes section.     Download the teacher notes here

Billy Kool was an ordinary boy until he was thrust into the life of an extreme sports TV celebrity. Billy feels down that the final episode of the Xtreme World of Billy Kool is coming up. But he is also excited because the final episode will feature the most extreme sport yet: rock climbing! Will Billy be able to climb the full rock face, or will he fall? At the end of the book, there is an extreme information section detailing the origins of rock climbing, a glossary and a description of the equipment used when rock climbing.  Part of an 8-book series, the Billy Kool books are informative, empathetic and exciting; targeted to readers and reluctant readers alike ages 8-11 years.   Teacher Notes here.