Around Australia, about 320,000 children are starting school for the first time. As an early childhood researcher, former kindergarten teacher, and parent of a child beginning school on Monday, this transition fascinates me. Culturally we place so much importance on this time. Everyone from the lovely cashier at the supermarket, to family, friends and neighbours have been […] … learn more→

Today new technologies flood our lives. If we look around us, it is very difficult to find someone who does not use a mobile phone to search for information, read the news or communicate with others through written messages in chats or applications. Although Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have meant a great advance in society, […] … learn more→

Do you struggle to visualise how to rotate your shoes so that they nest together in a shoe box? How are you with flat-packed furniture? Are you good at giving directions? These everyday activities require spatial thinking. Spatial thinking is important for mathematics, and it is what we use to understand the properties of objects, […] … learn more→

In France, MPs have recently considered whether to reintroduce compulsory school uniform, with first lady Brigitte Macron adding her support to the idea. “It erases differences, it saves time,” she said. These perceptions of the benefits of uniform are widely held – but do they hold up? French MPs voted against the idea, but uniform is the […] … learn more→

Every January, the day arrives that South Africans know can decide their fates: the “matric” exam results are announced. In 2022, 753,964 full-time and 167,915 part-time candidates registered to write the secondary school exit exam – the largest cohort ever. They’ll receive the results on 20 January 2023. Many probably feel ambivalent about this massive moment in […] … learn more→

It is a cliché of cinema that is still based on reality: many of us can remember traumatic situations, either as victims or as witnesses, during Physical Education class at school or high school. Unfortunately, many students experience this subject as one of the least safe and comfortable situations of their childhood and adolescence because […] … learn more→

One highlight of my Grade 3 life was dying from dysentery at the hands of a video game. I was ahead on schoolwork, and allowed to use the classroom computer to pioneer a family across America in the game The Oregon Trail. It was odd that I played this in a Canadian school — rather than […] … learn more→

“With that handwriting it is impossible to understand what he writes”; Three out of every two words are misspellings. Concerns like these are shared by teachers when we talk about learning difficulties in writing. However, writing is not just having legible handwriting and respecting spelling rules. Writing involves basic calligraphy and spelling processes, but also complex planning and […] … learn more→

If, from the end of the 19th century, any form of commercial communication was excluded from the perimeter of French schools, certain school marketing practices multiplied over the 20th century , until being legalized at the beginning of the 21st century . . The Official Bulletin of National Education of April 5, 2001 established a Code of good conduct for business intervention in schools , […] … learn more→

The word motivation appears in an unavoidable way in any interview between a teacher and the family of an adolescent student: “It is that he is not motivated.” It is the moment in which the teacher begins to notice some concern and to assume that the interview may not achieve the objectives that are proposed in […] … learn more→