SMH Schools Summit 2026 as it happened: Prue Car, Sydney university academics, principals speak at annual conference

Thank you for reading our live coverage of the 2026 Sydney Morning Herald Schools Summit today.

This is where we will leave our coverage, here are some of the key takeaways from today:

• 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.

• Teachers and school leaders have spoken of the growing challenges in mathematics education, pointing to rising student anxiety and declining confidence as a pressing concern in classrooms.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• A university professor has raised the alarm on a decline in students’ civics knowledge, and called for the subject to be established in schools’ curriculum, so students can be educated on democratic knowledge, skills and values.

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 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.

“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.”