Teacher professional standards provide clarity and focus for what teachers need to know and be able to do in order to deliver high quality teaching and learning. World-class education systems have considered teacher professional standards as a policy mechanism to raise the status of the teaching profession by guiding teacher preparation, developing and retaining exemplary practitioners, and providing a framework for professional growth and development. Although schools and educational organisations in Australia have been using teacher standards as a framework for a variety of initiatives such as teacher performance and development, registration and certification, these standards have differed across jurisdictions. A recent report provides a picture of how national teacher standards are now being used in Australia, and suggests that they are starting to influence teaching practices and student learning.

When learning is highly engaging it is connected, co-created, integrated and personalised. In December last year, approximately 250 teachers, school leaders and community members met in workshops across the country to consider how these four principles for engaging learning might apply in practice. They considered mini case studies of innovative, engaging learning environments, and discussed which design principles were evident within these learning contexts, and what professional practices exemplified these principles. Design hubs involving schools and other partners will now use this knowledge created by the profession as a basis for professional practices that increase deep cognitive and emotional engagement in students. The mini case studies have been identified through a horizon scan undertaken by the Innovation Unit, a not-for-profit social enterprise based in England, which has been collaborating with Learning Frontiers. This article describes some of these learning environments, which offer inspiring ideas for teaching and learning.

While the notion of Asia literacy has been on the political and education agenda for several decades, it has recently received unprecedented attention in education policy documents, including the Australian Curriculum with its cross-curriculum priority of Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia. Schools are at the forefront of promoting Asia literacy, facing the challenge of offering young Australians a chance to acquire the knowledge, skills and understandings to engage with Asia. This article reviews the Becoming Asia Literate: Grants to Schools (BALGS) project. BALGS has enabled schools to develop Asia literacy practice, by building teacher capacity, achieving a whole-school committment to Asia literacy, building partnerships between schools, and investing in new pedagogies and curriculum design for Asia literacy.

AEF's Leading 21st Century Schools: Engage with Asia (L21CS) Program helps school leaders build Asia capabilities and drive the change to support Asia literacy across the school community, as well as fostering a collegiate support network with school leaders and educators. L21CS has been designed as a blended model of professional learning with self-paced online modules, a webinar series and face-to-face professional learning through the AEF Annual Conferences 2013 and 2014. Since its inception in 2008, the L21CS program has involved over 900 school leaders, from a diverse range of schools representing every jurisdiction across Australia. School-based improvement projects have focused on areas such as Asian languages, studies of Asia, developing strategic alliances and partnerships, or building staff knowledge, skills and capacities. The article offers three examples of the work being done.