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Looking at the New Directions for school leadership and the teaching profession discussion paper, the only evidence presented to support the assertion that Victoria's education outcomes are not improving is the report "Challenges in Australian Education: results from PISA 2009: the PISA 2009 assessment of students' reading, mathematical and scientific literacy" Specifically the New Directions paper focuses on reading literacy, where in 2009, 14,251 students were given a two-hour pen and paper comprehension test. To get an idea of what types of competencies the reading test is assessing we can look at the sample test , with questions range from comprehension about a letter in a newspaper, the ability to interpret a receipt, comprehension around a short story, an informational text, and interpreting a table. While it doesn't seem unreasonable to want our students to be able to accurately perform these kind of tasks, these tests are not a true or accurate representation of the skills and competencies our students need in today's technology driven world.

Great Australian animals information for junior students

A fantastic read, if not for the fascinating history of reading education in the US. However it totally applies to the Australian context too.

Every Australian student will study the arts from their first year of school under the new national arts curriculum, which was released today for public consultation.

It disturbs me to read this and how familiar it is to what the LNP have been spruiking. Is this the future of Australian Ed?

Critical thinking explained in six kid-friendly animations If you've been looking for a crash course in basic logic - or just want to explain to a friend exactly what a logical fallacy is - turn your attention to these simple, easy-to-understand videos, which lay out the basics of critical thinking. Creative solutions agency Bridge 8 created these animations to offer a basic overview of critical thinking. The videos were designed for an audience of kids (Edit: Australian grades, not ages) 8-10, but they're handy for anyone who wants to brush up on their logic. The first video (up top), provides an introduction to critical thinking and how we form judgments and opinions.

Brilliant Australian author/illustrator Shaun Tan talks about all facts of his art

For years, almost no-one wanted to talk about education policy. Suddenly everyone is. Of course, just because you can invoke the name of "Gonski" doesn't mean you've read the Sydney businessman's talismanic report on schools funding reform, much less understood it. Schools funding is a complex topic. There's an alphabet soup of abstract acronyms (SES, AGSRC) and a spaghetti diagram of administrative structures. Funding for a particular school could include money from parents, from a major church, from a state or territory, and from Canberra. The formula is set with a bewildering array of equations, fed by the demographic chance of Census data.

Useful website, contains lesson plans with enlargable examples for projection.  

ha ha they have made billions anyway

Amazing Resource of teacher and student interactive maths activities. Free to join 

Great activities site for teachers. Has some amazing paintingsto show the students.