I have had the privilege of playing with complex sets of educational data for well over a decade now; I love it. It’s my happy place indeed. Throughout this time, I have worked with teachers and school leaders to interrogate and understand many different forms of education related data. My clear view is that educational assessment should have utility and stanine fail this test.

Teacher Passion (or Dynamism) is about the passion and enthusiasm teachers bring to the classroom and content combined with their ability to communicate this enthusiasm to their students.

Educational data has a story to tell. But to hear student and school stories, we must support educators, through adaptive change, to work together, collaboratively, in engaging with different sources of data and evidence. This support can minimize the anxiety of teachers and school leaders, and maximise insights and subsequent actions.

In education, data is EVERYWHERE. And where there is data, there is the lurking expectation that it will be used. Regularly. And in a manner that provides demonstrable impact. A key challenge is though that teachers are often being asked, without effective preparation, to navigate The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of educational data.

The true potential of data is to create change, generate improvements in practice and, ultimately, enhance student learning outcomes. But data’s potential exists in its role as catalyst for critical questioning and collaborative, reflective practice.

Teacher competence is about much more than knowing your stuff – it is not simple about being a subject matter expert. Rather it is about having deep levels of pedagogical content knowledge.

Improving students' relationships with teachers can have important, positive and long-lasting implications for students' success.

Teacher Credibility is about students' beliefs that they can learn from a given teacher. Key to this is if they perceive a teacher to be "believable, convincing, and capable of persuading students that they can be successful" (Fisher & Frey, 2018). This is about whether students perceive a teacher as being someone who will enhance their learning and it is of critical importance.

After months of challenges as students learn from home, we are now looking at teachers with newfound respect. Why did it take a pandemic for us to realise we need to provide better support to our teachers?

To maximize the likelihood of school improvement, it is necessary to nurture empowered, motivated teachers with a sense of agency, autonomy, and belonging.

Teachers are crying out for actionable feedback related to strengths and weakness in their practice that help them improve, especially during the time of the coronavirus. What many need to understand is that student perceptions of teaching have been shown to be one of the most reliable forms of feedback a teacher can get.

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are moving beyond the hype they generated in 2012. MOOCs are now reaching a point where they may soon find their niche in the educational ecosystem. One possibility being discussed is that MOOCs could be used as formal credit for high school.

While 97% of Australian teachers participate in professional development activities, they have an average of nine days of professional development activities each year. That is just over half of the number reported by teachers in other countries (15 days).