source : the age
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the 2026 Sydney Morning Herald Schools Summit today.
A team of reporters is on the ground to bring you all the news, discussion and debate from the state’s school leaders, principals and teachers.
Here are some of the key takeaways from the morning:
- NSW Education Minister Prue Car announced the rollout of gifted education for more than 750,000 students in NSW public schools, a policy she first flagged at the Herald’s summit in 2024. Car said “postcode should never determine a child’s opportunity”.
- Education leaders, principals, and teachers have weighed into how artificial intelligence has played a role in the sector. NSW Education secretary Murat Dizdar said knowledge would “matter even more” in the age of AI, and the chief executive of Catholic Schools NSW Dallas McInerney said schools needed to ‘avoid the mistakes’ universities made with AI. NESA boss Paul Martin said remaining cautious, waiting and watching to take advice was the most reasonable approach.
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The nation’s curriculum authority will review the kindergarten to year 2 maths curriculum after NAPLAN data showed that around one in three Australian students in year 3 are not reaching challenging but achievable numeracy standards, and one in 10 are still requiring additional support.
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An academic has argued education must shift from a competitive ranking model to an assessment approach that prioritises effort and learning processes.
Stay with us as we take you into the afternoon.
As artificial intelligence becomes embedded in NSW school classrooms, teachers are confronting the question: what does increased AI use mean for student wellbeing?
At a panel examining the transformation of teaching and learning in a rapidly evolving world, Deirdre Farrar, eLearning resource teacher at Mount St Benedict College, urged schools to proceed with caution.
“There’s been a lot of conversation in our school around this space,” she said. “At first, I thought perhaps that’s better than anonymous online forums. But we can’t ignore the risks.”
Farrar referenced troubling cases in which vulnerable teenagers formed unhealthy relationships with AI systems, sometimes with devastating consequences. While rare, she said such incidents underscore the responsibility teachers carry as artificial intelligence becomes more accessible.
“We have to educate students about the dangers and remind them of the importance of human relationships,” she said. “AI can’t read body language. It can’t hear tone. It doesn’t truly know our students.”
“Those nuances – understanding context, personality, history – that’s what teachers bring.”
She also warned that increased reliance on private AI interactions could reduce healthy academic risk-taking.
“When one student asks a question publicly, there are usually 10 others thinking the same thing,” she said. “If everything happens privately, students may think everyone else understands perfectly — and that can feed anxiety.”
For Alison Perosin, STEM and library teacher at Our Lady of Perpetual Succour West Pymble, AI can in some cases strengthen confidence. In primary classrooms, she has observed students asking more candid questions of AI tools than they might in front of peers.
“They’re more confident to ask the urgent question because they’re not drawing an audience,” she said.
Tim Lloyd, principal of Plumpton High School, challenged the audience to consider the best-case wellbeing scenario.
“If we think about what wellbeing could look like alongside AI, rather than in opposition to it, there’s opportunity,” he said.
Maria Casbolt, director of EmpowerED Schools which advises on student wellbeing programs, has spoken about the invisible load children are carrying with them and how it can prevent them from fully applying themselves at school.
Casbolt, who previously taught at Doonside High School, highlighted a series of factors which can impact on a student’s concentration including their family situation, social dynamics, and internet influences.
“Quite often what happens is a clash – when that young person has got so much load and so much weight, it’s competing with his cognitive load – you can’t just file that away and not look out the window and worry about what happened last night,” she said. “It’s not being frail, it’s neuroscience”.
Often, the response to struggling students with wellbeing needs is to hold more meetings, try more programs, collect more data, and create more roles – all of which Casbolt said multiplies pressure on the teachers and students.
“Before we add anything, let’s align. Have a look at what you’ve got. Complexity produces cognitive load.”
She highlighted the importance of early, targeted intervention and removing noise in favour of clarity, consistency, and early action which prevents escalation.
Casbolt said this could come in the form of clear expectations, predictable routines, explicit teaching, consistent behaviour responses, and timely feedback.
The head of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, Tim Bullard, has urged a rethink of teacher training.
Asked whether it was time to turn teacher training into an apprenticeship model, Bullard said he could see how it had worked.
“We’re actually starting to see some innovative models come through [such as the] train and learn model, where individuals have some time at university and some time on the ground, actually experiencing what it’s like in a classroom,” he said.
“I think it is showing some really early fruit.”
“What we saw in Tasmania with our intern program was that those teachers who came out of university and started working in a school were more likely to stay, and their quality was high.”
AITSL provides national leadership for Australian state and territories in promoting excellence in the profession of teaching.
The president of the NSW Teachers’ Federation Henry Rajendra has said the union’s current policy included urging the government to look at class sizes.
“The time and the number of students are major factors that determine the pressures on our profession.”
“[The] more … students we have, it is an incredible amount of workload, and that does add to it,” he told the conference.
“[But] if we were able to address the preparation time – that’s our policy at the moment – look at class sizes, what you will open up is the important relationship between each and every teacher.”
He said he believed principals had welcomed the changes pushed by the union – such as limiting meeting times to an hour after class finishes – to assist in reducing teacher workload.
The head of the state’s public school teacher union has said teachers need more relief time off class to ease workload pressure.
“Teachers are working from home … they’re spending an inordinate amount of time on weekends preparing lessons,” NSW Teachers’ Federation president Henry Rajendra said.
NSW Teachers Federation speaks during the panel discussion.Flavio Brancaleone
“Fatigue, burnout, pressures on family time and personal time is something real [in the] profession, right across the board.
“I think we can all agree that the classroom is vastly different to what it was decades ago. The expectations on teachers, the expectations of society, parents and carers, on our schools, is at an all-time high.
“Teaching is a rocket science. It does require that significant intellect, but what we’re lacking is the necessary support in terms of making sure that teachers are giving the time, the space in a most practical nature.”
School leaders say the impacts of COVID-19 continue to shape student wellbeing, with anxiety and body image pressures rising among both girls and boys.
Speaking with Herald education editor Christopher Harris, principals from single-sex schools said while academic recovery was under way, the deeper impact has been social and emotional.
Dr Kate Hadwen, principal of Pymble Ladies’ College, said students who began school just before or during lockdowns experienced significant disruption at critical developmental stages.
“That kindergarten group, or the year 7 group that came in for a short period and then went out again for a long time – that really disrupted social systems.”
Beyond general wellbeing concerns, Hadwen said she was particularly troubled by a noticeable rise in eating disorders among girls.
“Eating disorders have always been there [but] we are certainly seeing a rise and that deeply worries me,” she said.
She linked the trend in part to the growing influence of social media, particularly in shaping how girls perceive themselves, adding that constant exposure to curated images could distort self-image.
“There are absolute concerns around volume and the way that girls view themselves,” she said, adding that signs of disordered eating behaviours were emerging in students as young as year 5.
The college had already encouraged families to reconsider smartphone and social media use before the government introduced regulations restricting access for children under 16 years old.
At Ashfield Boys High School, principal Dwayne Hopwood said the school has observed a marked increase in body image concerns among male students, alongside growing interest in gym memberships, protein supplements and muscle-building regimes.
“I really think it’s because [students] are seeing more human beings on screens than they’re seeing in reality,” he said. “The bodies they’re seeing on screens – whether it’s games or social media – are not necessarily real.”
Senior school leaders say solving the state’s teacher shortage requires more than short-term fixes and urge governments to improve support for early career teachers including addressing the workload pressures driving staff away.
In a wide-ranging discussion with Herald education editor Christopher Harris, Denise Lofts, president of the NSW Secondary Principals’ Council, said the focus must shift to retaining the teachers already in classrooms.
“I think we need to start thinking about how we actually look after our teachers who are here,” she said.
Lofts said the “grassroots” aspects of the job — managing behaviour, building relationships and navigating school systems — remain among the most challenging for new teachers.
Dwayne Hopwood, principal of Ashfield Boys High School, said the issue was “a bigger problem than pulling levers.”
He said school location, desirability and access to transport can influence teacher retention. The cost of living in Sydney, particularly closer to the city, has forced many teachers to commute long distances.
Lisa-Maree Browning, principal of Cerdon College, said staffing gaps are particularly acute in key subject areas including technology and science. Browning added that the growing complexity of teachers’ workloads is compounding the problem.
Dr Kate Hadwen, principal of Pymble Ladies’ College, said teacher registration requirements in NSW also contribute to workforce pressures, noting that the state’s accreditation process is more difficult than elsewhere in Australia.
“We bring staff from all over the world, and that’s very difficult in NSW because our registration process is more difficult than any other state in the country,” she said.
As a result, some teachers opt to work in Victoria or Western Australia, where registration is less onerous. “I think that’s a challenge we can address as a state, for sure,” she said.
Chief executive of NESA Paul Martin has acknowledged the difficulty of HSC mathematics, and said the subject had an “image problem”, but reiterated its importance for society to properly function.
Martin pointed to criticisms raised about the difficulty of HSC mathematics, and said: “Maths has a bit of an image problem – so making sure kids feel they’re rewarded is absolutely important.
“Some of the maths content is absolutely essential if we want to have bridges that we can drive over and buildings that are not going to fall down, and physicists, chemists, doctors and oncologists who we all rely on.
“But by the same token, we should also have maths examinations that suit a range of students who are doing the test,” he said.
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the 2026 Sydney Morning Herald Schools Summit today.
A team of reporters is on the ground to bring you all the news, discussion and debate from the state’s school leaders, principals and teachers.
Here are some of the key takeaways from the morning:
- NSW Education Minister Prue Car announced the rollout of gifted education for more than 750,000 students in NSW public schools, a policy she first flagged at the Herald’s summit in 2024. Car said “postcode should never determine a child’s opportunity”.
- Education leaders, principals, and teachers have weighed into how artificial intelligence has played a role in the sector. NSW Education secretary Murat Dizdar said knowledge would “matter even more” in the age of AI, and the chief executive of Catholic Schools NSW Dallas McInerney said schools needed to ‘avoid the mistakes’ universities made with AI. NESA boss Paul Martin said remaining cautious, waiting and watching to take advice was the most reasonable approach.
-
The nation’s curriculum authority will review the kindergarten to year 2 maths curriculum after NAPLAN data showed that around one in three Australian students in year 3 are not reaching challenging but achievable numeracy standards, and one in 10 are still requiring additional support.
-
An academic has argued education must shift from a competitive ranking model to an assessment approach that prioritises effort and learning processes.
Stay with us as we take you into the afternoon.
The nation’s curriculum authority will review the kindergarten to year 2 maths curriculum after NAPLAN data showed that around one in three Australian students in year 3 are not reaching challenging but achievable numeracy standards, and one in 10 are still requiring additional support.
Speaking at the Herald’s School Summit, ACARA chief executive Stephen Gniel said: “These are not statistics to gloss over when we think about the individual child that that relates to and the families that they’re growing up in.”
“It’s why it’s right for us to have a national focus on numeracy. In this context, we’ve proposed to education ministers that we undertake a targeted review of the maths foundation year 2 curriculum, and that’s now under way,” he said.
For the first time, the review will also target financial literacy.
“We must prepare our children for their responsibilities and also the tricks of the trade around financial and consumer and financial literacy,” said Gniel.
The iterative review will focus on four key areas including prioritising mathematical content, giving teachers clarity about what students will learn at each year level, providing content sequencing, and including explicit content on foundational mathematics for consumer and financial literacy.
The review will hand down recommendations to education ministers later this year.
