Teachers face an array of challenges throughout the school year, whether it be overcoming disruptive classroom behaviour, tackling burnout during busy periods or managing expectations when it comes to student outcomes. Naturally, it’s overwhelming!
In this blog post, we’ve put together the top six challenges teachers are facing and we provide some helpful tips and resources to manage them a little better.
First up, closing learning gaps and improving student growth rates
Reaching the end of Year 6 is an important milestone. It represents seven years of learning, all leading to the big step from primary to high school.
In theory, it should also be the point at which students have mastered all of the mathematics curriculum they have covered as primary students. But that would be a pretty outstanding accomplishment and one that very few students achieve.
The reality is that when students finish Year 6 they do so with gaps in their mathematical understanding. Data shows that a typical Year 7 classroom has an eight-year spread of ability.
As a result, teachers are under increasing pressure to improve student outcomes, close learning gaps, and meet parent expectations—all while managing limited classroom support. Budget constraints further compound the issue, leading to a shortage of both teaching aids and Edtech resources.
Report writingÂ
As we enter Term 4, teachers have plenty on their minds—report writing, parent-teacher interviews, and wrapping up the school year. With so many tasks piling up, the pressure can feel overwhelming. Managing assessments and ensuring accurate reporting is no small feat, especially when you’re juggling classroom responsibilities, extracurricular activities, and end-of-year events.
To help lighten the load, Justin, Co-founder of Maths Pathway, has created two helpful videos that simplify report writing and grading. These videos offer practical and time-saving techniques using Excel to streamline your reporting and make grading a breeze.
Personalised learning
Personalised learning is a valuable strategy to have in your teacher toolkit but implementation is not always easy.
The extra time, resources, and professional development required to incorporate differentiation can be cause for concern.
Despite this, personalised learning is becoming one of the most popular approaches to teaching and learning. Differentiation empowers teachers to address different learning needs while still teaching to the curriculum and achieving impressive student outcomes.
So how are teachers across Australia successfully implementing personalised learning and overcoming the well-known challenges?
Read the blog to find out!
Teacher burnout
Teaching is one of the most rewarding yet challenging professions, often filled with a deep sense of passion and commitment. However, in recent times, many teachers are feeling the weight of their responsibilities more intensely, with a growing number experiencing not just stress, but full-on burnout. This condition goes beyond the typical pressures of the job, leaving educators emotionally drained, detached, and struggling to maintain their usual energy levels in the classroom.
In our latest blog, we take an in-depth look at the issue of teacher burnout. We explore its root causes—such as increasing workloads, lack of support, and the emotional toll of student care—and help you recognise the early signs before it’s too late. More importantly, we offer practical strategies for managing burnout and preventing it from taking over your professional and personal life.
Access tips to overcome teacher burnout
Student-teacher relationships
Every teacher wants to give their students the best possible chance to succeed in every class they attend and at every stage of their learning. But this can be difficult when time and resources are holding both students and teachers back.
The relationship between student and teacher is such an important one and has only become more crucial since school shutdowns and as behaviour gets worse within classrooms. It’s not just central to learning, it can also have long-lasting effects on academic and social development, wellbeing and students’ academic confidence.
Curriculum-aligned schoolsÂ
The curriculum change is a hot topic in states required to make the switch and with the change looming over many schools now’s the time to start gathering the right information to make things easier. We know that school teachers are as busy as ever and adding a curriculum change to your already overcrowded schedules without the right support doesn’t seem practical.
There are limited resources available that truly support teachers and school leaders and that’s why we’ve created an abundance of resources, activities and tips.
Read the blog for 5 easy ways to manage a curriculum change
Read the interview with former Head of Maths, Mati Papasimeon
Download the resources for your stateÂ
Prepare to teach Networks and Measurement
