Drawing on knowledge about international best practice and insights from the Evidence for Learning pilot, SVA has been advocating for a nationally funded independent evidence provider. This would help ensure all teachers across Australia have access to the information they need when making decisions about their teaching practice; as well as direct the growing education spend towards high-impact teaching practices.

We have been running an intensive campaign involving direct government engagement, coalition building and leading public debate – in order to build support for a new Australian education evidence broker.

In FY17 and FY18 the campaign passed significant milestones:

• More than 12,300 educators accessed the Teaching & Learning Toolkit four or more times in a year
• The Productivity Commission Inquiry into the Education Evidence Base adopted many of the recommendations from SVA’s submissions
• The announcement of the Gonski 2.0 review explicitly recommended a national research and evidence institute.

This means we are edging ever closer to seeing a small but ambitious pilot program become a significant national reform that will help ensure all children in Australia, regardless of background, receive a great education.

These milestone developments have only been possible because of the generous and visionary philanthropic support of the Commonwealth Bank, who are funding the Evidence for Learning pilot, and the Berg Family Foundation who are funding teacher engagement.