SMH Schools Summit 2025 as it happened: Prue Car speaks after funding deal, selective schools in the spotlight

That’s all from the 2025 Sydney Morning Herald Schools Summit. Some of the highlights of today’s key moments include:

• Education and Early Learning Minister Prue Car celebrated this week’s public school funding deal as a “historic moment for education”.
• NSW Department of Education secretary Murat Dizdar said that skills shortages in the Australian job market may be representative of a “push” towards university education as the only tertiary option.
• Former secretary of the federal Department of Education and Training Michele Bruniges spoke about the impact of a “cycle of negative perceptions” caused by the concentration of disadvantage in public schools.
• A panel on generative AI heard mixed responses on how new technologies can affect students.

We hope you enjoyed today’s coverage.

Tutoring colleges are “playing on parents’ vulnerabilities and their concerns” by targeting the parents of schoolchildren, says Meriden School principal Lisa Brown.

During a conversation on gifted education, Brown said that comprehensive schools could offer a more holistic education than selective schools, which she said offered a “highly pressurised and competitive” learning environment.

Meriden School principal, Lisa Brown, speaking at the SMH Schools Summit. Credit: Edwina Pickles

“I worry that to maintain that standard, that academic standard, at a selective school, there’s heavy tutoring and heavy pressure, and that means compromises in other areas. So then I worry that students aren’t receiving a well-rounded and balanced development during their adolescent years.”

Martin Graham, Deputy Secretary Learning and Student Wellbeing at the NSW Department of Education, said that many families with gifted students felt a push to leave their community to access specific types of schooling, and this could be alleviated through the inclusion of gifted learning programs in every school.

Professor Jae Jung, from the School of Education at UNSW reiterated this, saying “gifted students don’t only exist in selected schools. We have gifted students in all schools in the state.” With this concept, Jung said “we should never take away” options for gifted students, across the schooling spectrum.

Professor Jenny Gore, Laureate Professor at the School of Education at The University of Newcastle, has critiqued the politically motivated “dogma” of explicit education being reinforced by the state government at the Education Department, saying that the push “actually doesn’t capture the professionalism of teachers.

“I think we talk a lot about trust and respect for colleagues, we really need to acknowledge what our colleagues know...explicit instruction. Not to say they don’t need more support and capacity building, perhaps in that area, they know what to do, and we really need to respect that,” said Gore, during a panel on professional development at today’s Schools Summit.

Professor Jenny Gore (centre) and Sarah Warby (second from right) at the SMH Schools Summit. Credit: Edwina Pickles

Gore said that, after thousands of hours of teaching observation, she had never seen a class that was undertaken exclusively with an inquiry style of teaching.

“Think the biggest problem we have at the moment is this oppositional notion that we have either explicit or inquiry [teaching methods], and that’s a misrepresentation of the complexity of teachers’ work.”

Sarah Warby, director of professional practice and research at Loreto Kirribilli, said that teachers needed to be responsive to their students and have a “toolkit” that would allow them to have an “authentic impact.”

“If I went into a particular community, or community where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community, that is in my heritage and family background, if I went in and said, ‘This is the way you’ve got to teach,’ or went in as a new teacher and said, ‘This is the way I’m going to teach you,’ isn’t that a new form of colonisation?” she said.

Former NSW minister for education Adrian Piccoli has questioned the value of complicated applications for school principals in the public education system, saying that it is simpler to apply to be the secretary of the department.

During a panel discussion on solving teacher workforce issues at The Sydney Morning Herald Schools Summit, Piccoli highlighted the “10-page” application process necessary for candidates in the public system, directing the question at Education Department Chief People Officer Shaun Ruming.

Adrian Piccoli, Henry Rajendra, Rebecca Birch and Shaun Ruming speaking on a workforce issue panel. Credit: Edwina Pickles

“You’re right to point out that we’ve got more simplification to do in our recruitment function in the department,” said Ruming, who pointed to pay rises for teachers as easing pressure on the issue.

Ruming cited a 47 per cent reduction in teacher vacancies in regional and remote schools, and a 40 per cent reduction overall, as signs of positive movement in the profession.

“We’ve still got a lot of work to do, but we’re coming from a much stronger foundation,” he said.

Rebecca Birch, academic in residence at Queenwood (an independent non-denominational Christian girls’ school), said that comparatively “there’s very few barriers to getting a job in the independent sector”.

“Within the independent sector there is a little more flexibility to make accommodations for people who might need, say, part-time work, or might need a small amount of work from home.”

Birch said that independent schools were more aggressive in their hiring and recruitment, and that staff feel “heard and seen” by their employers.

Henry Rajendra, president of the NSW Teachers Federation said more support was needed for teachers and principals to meet “the learning needs of students” and close the “student achievement gap” that affected Indigenous and disadvantaged students, as well as students living with disability.

“They’re not just throwaway lines. This is the daily reality and the challenges for our teachers in all our schools, particularly when you do have students with disabilities in the mainstream.”

The recent establishment of a quality assurance oversight board has provided the NSW Education Standard Authority (NESA) with “a little bit more teeth” to manage the initial teacher education programs provided by universities, chief executive Paul Martin said at today’s summit.

The comments came after a question regarding the criticism of initial teacher education programs in relation to explicit teaching.

Paul Martin, CEO of NESA, speaking at the 2025 SMH Schools Summit. Credit: Edwina Pickles

Martin said that criticism of the teacher education system had “occurred for pretty much every year of the last 50 years”, but that that didn’t mean “there aren’t legitimate critiques” of divergent pedagogical approaches taught in universities.

He said there were 109 separate education courses in the state and, while NESA requires those programs to meet syllabus requirements and to undergo assessment, Martin acknowledged that his team were “not sitting in every lecture”.

“There is a balance between the individual university having its own views academically expressed, and the expectations of the teachers of the schools and the children and the systems that they are going to be employed [in].”

Following remarks from Jenny Donovan, chief executive of the Australian Education Research Organisation, a panel is discussing how best to embrace explicit teaching methods in NSW schools.

David Stitt, principal of The Entrance Public School advocated for the methodology, saying that he had observed the change within his own school. Stitt said his school was “underperforming five years ago” but the school was now “significantly” overperforming.

David Stitt, principal of The Entrance Public School.Credit: Edwina Pickles

In 2018, year 3 students at The Entrance Public School were receiving average or below-average results in NAPLAN testing. Last year, year 3 students at the school were receiving “well above” average results across all testing criteria.

“That just shows that, through this instruction, you can actually meet the needs of the diverse population within your classroom.”

Anthony Smith, teaching and learning co-ordinator at Narromine Christian School, said that “walking into a classroom that is showcasing a high quality, explicit instruction lesson it just has a buzz about it, and I get excited just talking about it”.

The chief executive of the Australian Education Research Organisation, Jenny Donovan, has advocated for explicit teaching at the Sydney Morning Herald’s Schools Summit, as the government and department continue to reinforce the technique.

Donovan said that students learn best from teacher-led education that ensures they have understood a concept before taking on the next step, and that learning in this manner triggers “reward structures” that encourage future growth.

Australian Education Research Organisation boss Dr Jenny Donovan, speaking at the 2025 Schools Summit. Credit: Edwina Pickles

“We talk so much about student engagement in their learning, we try all sorts of extracurricular activities and try and trick them into liking school, but evolution has given our brains a truly wondrous feature when we learn something and can show what we’ve learnt; our reward structure is activated in the brain,” she said.

“Teaching sets students up to experience successful learning, and successful learning fosters a sense of self-efficacy and a further willingness to engage in learning. This is the reason why things like our concerns about wellbeing, our anxiety around attendance, so many things can be addressed when our focus is on the teaching.”

Donovan said that public perceptions of explicit teaching as a “back-to-basics” approach in which a teacher stood at the front of a classroom and talked at students failed to grasp how engaging and effective the technique could be.

Throughout today’s summit a number of speakers, including the Minister for Education and Early Learning Prue Car, and NSW Department of Education Secretary Murat Dizdar, have advocated for the application of research based explicit teaching methods.

Generative AI deployed in the classroom and at home has the ability to “erode effort” and work against student learning, says Anthony England, director of innovative learning technologies at Pymble Ladies College.

Speaking on an AI panel at the Schools Summit, England said “learning is not a fast track thing. You struggle, you fail, you try again and you don’t get a quick answer. AI is so shiny, bright at giving a quick answer, that we might, through the pursuit of efficiency, short-change our students’ growth.”

The AI panel at the SMH Schools Summit. Credit: Edwina Pickles

The technology, however, also has “many different opportunities” in teaching, said Miriam Scott, from the Association of Independent Schools of NSW, who also noted that schools, like all workplaces, were “really overwhelmed” with their application of the technology.

“We have schools who are early adopters … and these are the schools who are actually leading the way for all of us, because they’re actually making the mistakes … AI literacy is digital literacy, and digital literacy is everybody’s responsibility.”

Alongside Scott, Paul Wood of the NSW Department of Education said that strong communication between staff, students and parents on the way AI can be used in assessments was integral to managing its use in schooling.

Lee Barrett, from CEnet, said that “teachers, admin staff, students: they need a seat at the table to ensure that AI tools aren’t just gimmicks, but that we are using [them] in the most fundamental, profound ways to benefit student growth.”

Following Michele Bruniges’ presentation on disadvantage in public schools, a panel is discussing how best to support students. Doug Taylor, chief executive of The Smith Family, said his charity worked extensively with students facing disadvantage, including Indigenous students and children from single-parent households, and a holistic approach needed to be taken to tackle the issue.

“We can’t teach our way out of poverty, teaching is necessary, but it’s not sufficient for the sort of challenges [disadvantaged students are facing],” he said. “What we really focus on is how incredibly important partnerships are to enable our schools to do the work that they need to do, to get the sort of outcomes that are necessary.”

Doug Taylor, chief executive of The Smith Family speaks at the NSW Schools Summit.Credit: Edwina Pickles

Taylor said the cost-of-living crisis was exacerbating disadvantage, and more attention needed to be paid to the way students accessed technology.

Jeanette Holland, the principal of St Agnes Catholic High School in Rooty Hill, said teaching staff were “swamped with [student] data”, and it was important to humanise that data by connecting to families and fostering a sense of belonging among students who feel distant from the school environment.

“Building relationships with families is really important,” said Holland, who has staff at her school specialised to liaise with families from diverse backgrounds.

“They work closely with our families, reach out and connect them. Sometimes there is a language barrier, so we try to break down those barriers. Any way that we can engage and support our students and our families is really important.”

In her keynote address to the Schools Summit, former secretary of the federal Department of Education and Training Michele Bruniges, has spoken about the impact of a “cycle of negative perceptions” caused by the concentration of disadvantage in public schools.

“The reality is our education system does not deliver the same educational opportunities and support for every child. Sadly, today more children are experiencing socio-educational disadvantage than ever before … children who need the most support are being clustered in the same schools.”

Michele Bruniges speaking at the Schools Summit on disadvantage in public schools.Credit: Rhett Wyman

Bruniges said that there was no single solution to the issue, but suggested changes including providing access to meals for students, involving families in the schooling process, and offering more resources to teaching staff. She also called for a “default setting” of registering all new schools as comprehensive, rather than specialist or selective.

“This is a challenging conversation because it lays bare the disparities, but until we find ways to connect different school communities, we will condemn our children and young people to far less,” she said.

“The good news is that there are many opportunities for us to turn this around, for the benefit of our children and our communities.”