Sentence combining is an instructional technique used to improve sentence quality, complexity and variety. Students are taught how to combine two or more basic sentences to create more interesting, sophisticated and varied sentences. When sentence combining is taught explicitly and in a sustained way, it becomes one component of successful writing instruction.

This practice guide will support you in setting behaviour expectations for your students when completing learning tasks, to create a safe learning environment and minimise disruption. Students undertake learning tasks individually, in pairs, in small groups and as a whole class. It’s important to set clear behaviour expectations for learning in each of these ways so all students know what is required of them and are better able to take responsibility for their behaviour.

Strategic planning is an iterative process that requires a purposeful investment of time. These guides are designed for flexible use alongside system supports, providing a starting point rather than a complete outline of everything schools must do. They are designed to help school leaders with strategic planning directly related to learning. School leaders may also choose to include aspects of school improvement that enable learning (for example, student wellbeing) using a similar approach. Some guidance may not apply in all contexts and may look different in schools of different sizes. Reasonable adjustments should be made to fit school context where necessary. This guide is the first in a series of 4 and focuses on setting goals and targets for student learning. In the context of this guide, a 'goal’ represents an aim for improvement in a learning area. A ‘target’ enables you to monitor progress towards this goal by measuring changes in the learning area over a specified time period (for example, by the end of the school term or year). This guide recommends practical steps for setting goals and targets for student learning. After reading this guide, we recommend you read Prioritising Approaches to Achieve Each Goal.

This guide is intended to provide a starting point for you to approach the teaching of writing in your classroom. Good writing will generally feature a mix of sentence types, all of which are structured and punctuated correctly. It is important to note that the choice and mix of sentences in a text should be informed by an understanding of
the purpose and audience for the writing. The choice of sentence types may also be influenced by the genre of the writing, which will be informed by the curriculum area for which it is being produced. This is why writing needs to be taught explicitly and systematically, across all year levels and subjects, beginning with the essential
foundation of sentences.

Social and emotional learning involves skills such as children distinguishing their own needs from those of others, learning to effectively identify and manage emotions, and building and maintaining positive relationships with others.

You can use this early childhood learning trajectory to observe children’s progress in social and emotional learning, and to plan the next steps in their learning and development.

Spacing and retrieval practice can improve students’ long-term retention of their learning. This guide outlines key practices for using spacing and retrieval in the classroom:

Make sure learning retention is maximised by spacing learning across lessons.
Prompt your students to recall information in different ways to enhance long-term retention.
Plan your lessons around routines.

Implementation checklists are a list of practical steps you can take to support the implementation of an evidence-based practice in your setting.

This checklist focuses on spacing and retrieval practice.

Have I...

* looked at my curriculum documents to see what information my students will need to remember in the future?
* written clear learning objectives to establish what students will need to know and produce by the end of the unit?
* looked at my lesson sequences to see how the knowledge builds from one lesson to another?
planned deliberate opportunities throughout my unit for students to show me that they remember this information?
* developed lesson activities that allow students to show their knowledge in different ways?
* given students multiple opportunities to recall information before I assess them on it?

This practice guide will support you in establishing methods for students to gain your attention to request assistance, ask a question or share information. This is important for creating a safe and supportive learning environment and minimising disruptions.

The number of students in a classroom means that a signal is needed to gain the teacher’s attention rather than students calling out and moving around the room. Teaching, rehearsing, and reinforcing the signal students use to gain your attention will help to meet students’ needs, manage interruptions to teaching and learning, and create a positive and supportive learning environment for all students.

This practice guide will support you in refining an effective routine for students moving through the school. This is important for maintaining a safe and orderly school environment in which learning time is maximised.

Establishing a clear routine before students move between their classroom and other areas of the school ensures they’re aware of what is expected of them. Using clear communication, teachers explain, model, monitor and reinforce expectations for behaviour to support safe and organised movement to other areas of the school, such as to assembly or a specialist lesson.

This practice guide will help teachers teach and model self-regulated learning strategies students can apply to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of their learning.
This practice guide will help you develop your practice with a greater understanding of:

*self-regulated learning strategies students can apply to their learning
*how you can model and explicitly teach self-regulated learning techniques to help students overcome learning challenges and work towards mastery.

This practice guide will help teachers explain, demonstrate and model learning content explicitly in ways that manage cognitive load to support students with building foundational knowledge before they practise independently.

This practice guide will help you understand ways to:

*explain, demonstrate and model the content of learning so students can practise and acquire new knowledge and skills
*minimise the risk of cognitive overload that could interfere with students’ retention of new knowledge and skills
*support students in drawing on their foundation of knowledge and skills to build a deeper understanding, before undertaking more complex tasks with less guidance.

Teaching practices that are aligned with how students learn are the most effective in improving education outcomes for all. There is strong evidence about the processes that occur during learning. These processes explain why some teaching practices are more effective than others. AERO has developed a model that identifies the most effective and efficient teaching practices aligned with how students learn.

Transitioning to school and between educational settings is a significant milestone for children and families. Successful transitions lead to better outcomes for children and enhance continuity of learning and development. A successful transition occurs when a child and their family feel a sense of belonging in their new environment. Educators, teachers and school and service leaders are uniquely placed to support children and families in establishing and maintaining a sense of belonging at critical transition points. The evidence-based practices presented in this guide can be used to support children’s transitions:

from before-school care to school
from school to after-school care.
It is designed to help services and schools work together to achieve more successful transitions. We recommend school and OSHC leaders set up a meeting once each term to discuss the strategies presented in this guide and make a plan for the following term.

This evidence summary supports AERO’s practice guide for transitions between school and outside school hours care (OSHC). It describes the evidence base behind the guides, synthesising insights from available research to connect to policy and practice.

This summary is derived from a systematic review conducted with our partners at Monash University and with support from the National Outside School Hours Service Alliance (NOSHSA), in May 2022, using the Preferred Reporting Items of Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines (Moher et al., 2009).

Transitioning to school and between educational settings is a significant milestone for children and families. Successful transitions lead to better outcomes for children and enhance continuity of learning and development. A successful transition occurs when a child and their family feel a sense of belonging in their new environment. Educators, teachers and school and service leaders are uniquely placed to support children and families in establishing and maintaining a sense of belonging at critical transition points. You can use the evidence-based practices presented in this guide to support children with disability or developmental delay as they transition to their first year of school. It is designed to help services and schools work together to achieve more successful transitions.

This evidence summary supports AERO’s practice guide for transitions to school for children with disability or developmental delay. It describes the evidence base behind the guides, synthesising insights from available research to connect to policy and practice. This evidence summary is derived from a systematic review conducted with our partners at Monash University in May 2022 using the Preferred Reporting Items of Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines (Moher et al., 2009).

This example of practice on evidence use in early childhood education and care (ECEC) comes from Manuka Childcare Centre (MOCCA) in Griffith, ACT. MOCCA's mission is to nurture, educate and advocate for children, families, the early childhood profession and their community.

In this case study, the centre director and a teacher working at MOCCA describe their use of evidence to improve outcomes for children. The case study also includes reflection questions to help teachers, educators and leaders consider how they can adapt aspects of MOCCA’s approach to their own ECEC setting.

This resource outlines some strategies to embed early literacy in your early childhood education
and care setting.

This resource outlines some strategies to embed early numeracy in your early childhood education and care setting.

This resource outlines some strategies to embed the development of executive function and selfregulation in your early childhood education and care setting.