Posts by Margo Metcalf
Managing Anxiety Through Grounding Strategies

1 in 5 males and 1 in 3 females will experience an anxiety condition in their lifetime, according to Beyond Blue 2021. As educators, we don’t need yearly statistics to show us the increase of mental health and wellbeing issues amongst our young people.

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Competitive School Libraries: Making the Library the Student Destination of Choice

Comparing the ideal list with the student responses will highlight which aspects of your brand persona are already…

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The Benefits of Student-Centred Contextualised Learning

Connecting with students and getting them to genuinely understand curriculum material is one of the biggest challenges that teachers face. Making a positive impact on your students….

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CREATIVITY MATTERS - throughout the curriculum

There are many different aspects to creativity and there is no one definition with which everyone is happy…

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Spawn Point: School libraries as safe zones of student well-being and inclusive practices

“What I like most about our library is that it is like a ‘safe zone’ for all students. Like in a video game when you spawn at your base, or on a certain ship no one can…

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Ensuring Extraordinary Outcomes for Young People with Language Disorder

For many decades there has been a lack of agreement regarding how to best describe children presenting with language difficulties (Bishop et al., 2016). This has subsequently led to….

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Teacher productivity, does it need to be "hacked"?

As teachers and educators, we know all too well the immense pressure placed upon our time. With the language of school term being a chance to ‘come up for air’ and to push aside the overwhelm, if only for a…

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Practical Ideas for Integrating STEM

Children learn through play and discovery. Providing curious and interesting activities across the curriculum gives students opportunities to share their understanding and build…

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Clever and Quirky: Seeing Through the Mask Part 2

In Part 1, the challenges relating to the identification of our twice-exceptional children were discussed, in addition to many strategies which may be effective in supporting the development of the ‘whole child.’…

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Clever and Quirky: Seeing Through the Mask Part 1

It’s just a regular day in your classroom. All your Year 5 students arrive on the bell, greet each other, unpack their schoolbags, sit at their tables, and read their novel…

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Gaming for good: using cooperative video games as tools for supporting neurodiverse children and young adults

Over the past decade there has been a significant shift in how we understand conditions such as autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

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Disciplinary Literacy – The Beginnings

Literacy is a vital skill for the 21st century and it is imperative for student mastery of practice that it is embedded across the curriculum. An important aspect of teacher librarianship is to support the development of literacy across the curriculum.

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It takes a village to raise a teacher librarian - Mentoring at its best

Life is a journey. Some might say, being a teacher librarian is a life and journey of itself - a lifelong journey. My journey commenced in 2018 and is one I couldn’t have done, let alone start, without my mentors…

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Resilience. Is it a “thing”?

In the world of education, we are passionate about our capacity to help our youngest, most vulnerable, most potential-filled humans to thrive…

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Planning and Assessing a Meaningful STEM Program

How do you create an engaging, meaningful STEM program? A big question that isn’t so easily answered.

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Stop blaming teachers: Students are responsible for their learning

William Glasser acknowledges that “there [are] no doubt….some teachers who are more skilful at motivating than [others; however,] there is no teacher, no matter how skilled, who can teach a student who does not want to learn”…

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All things to all people…hints and tips for the up and coming TL

I am so excited to be coming back to the National Education Summit in 2022! In person conferences – hooray! The Summit is also a most excellent opportunity to mentor my friend and colleague, Kathy Talbot…

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LibrariesMargo Metcalf
The Messy World of School Assessment

Learning about and presenting on school assessment is as mad as a bag of hammers, to mix a metaphor. The purpose of assessment in schools is very muddy.

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Lessons learned from a life online

Over the last two years, boardrooms have become dining tables and classrooms have become bedrooms, as the world shifted to an unprecedented life online…

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What happened to you? Trauma-informed behaviour support in schools

Schools today are grappling with many complex social issues which can impact negatively on student wellbeing and achievement.

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