School leader. PhD in Instructional Design. Writer. I can speak amusingly about education. Adjunct Senior Research Fellow. Views entirely my own.
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Articles by Greg Ashman
Have you noticed yet?
For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts. With the enemies of the science of learning still in hot pursuit of a McGuffin that will bring them little validation or resolution, they may have failed to notice a more seismic shift taking place under Australian education.
Curios of the week #191
If last week was about our oldest students, this week, I have reflected more on some of the younger ones. On Wednesday I visited morning homeroom on our Mair Street Campus and was treated to ‘Good morning, Mr Ashman’ from a class of Prep students. That never gets old. My eldest has now started her examinations and so we are all supporting her as best we can. It is a nervous time but I am confident she has been well prepared.
The argument against Sold a Story that proves why we need it
Two weeks prior to the current season of Emily Hanford’s Sold a Story, I predicted the arguments that would be made in its wake. Now, Michael Pershan has worked one of these up into a blog post and perhaps inadvertently demonstrated why the podcast is needed. There is an interesting double standard at play here. Without any particularly solid evidence, Pershan asserts that a form of direct instruction is the norm for teaching mathematics in American schools.
Curios of the week #190
With my eldest daughter finishing school, it has been an emotional and draining week. Thankfully, the weather has been beautiful and we can again sit out in our backyard and reflect. I am proud of my daughter, who she has become and the school she has attended for fourteen years. The last day for Year 12 was Wednesday. They dressed as their childhood heroes and shot at each other with water pistols—something again facilitated by the weather.
Oracy for the masses, Latin for the elite?
For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts. This weekend saw the kind of argument on Twitter/X that reminded me of 2015. The subject was ‘oracy’ and the UK government’s plans to make this a centrepiece of education reform in England.
Curios of the week #189
This week has been the penultimate week with Year 12. On Wednesday, there was a tremendous exhibition in our Morrow Gallery of the work of our Art Making and Visual Communications students. It is always stunning to see the creative talent that is fostered by the explicit teaching of a rigorous art curriculum. Last week, I ran a survey for full subscribers asking whether you would prefer more, shorter stories, fewer, longer stories, or whether I should just go with the flow.
What even is cognitive activation?
Weird PISA 2025 stuff For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts. The OECD is a bit of a joke outfit when it comes to research, but it is one of the few datasets we have that is capable of comparing different education systems over time.
Curios of the week #188
Everything you need to know about education right now This week, the students have returned to campus and the Year 12s began their final two and a half weeks. That includes my eldest daughter who has been at Clarendon since Kindergarten. There will be a lot to reflect upon. On one of our professional learning days, I was congratulated on 15 years of service to the school. By the time the Year 12s leave, it will be sixteen. I began at Clarendon in valedictory week, October 2010. How time flies.
England’s schools are winning. Why are the experts so grumpy?
England resisted the education establishment. Scotland and Wales listened. Policymakers should pay attention to what happened next. For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts. You might think it a cause for muted celebration.
Curios of the week #187
Everything you need to know about education right now Spring has well and truly sprung here in Ballarat. The grass is growing, trees are bearing a new flush of leaves and vegetable gardens are starting to flourish once again. Lake Wendouree is coming to life and the rowers are back in business. This week began with two senior staff days that led into three professional learning days.
Bringing back stupid
For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts. Lucy Powell is the United Kingdom’s education minister and, as such, is responsible for education in England. She has given a speech to the Labour Party conference, defending her planned reforms to English education.
Curios of the week #186
This week, I have been on term break. I have spent the time either writing, researching or stressing about not writing or researching. I have a book deadline, you see. My eldest has been completing her final preparations for her Year 12 examinations. She says that when she compares herself to friends at other schools she knows from running, she is less stressed. I am happy about that. She is also doing well to balance everything—I have been taking her to the track to run.
Beware the Sirens
For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts. In Ancient Greek mythology, the sirens were creatures with a song so beautiful they lured sailors to their doom. In education, we have our own sirens luring policymakers onto the rocks.
Curios of the week #185
This week has been the first week of our term break and so I have been writing while following the ongoing fallout from the 2025 PISA results. There has been plenty of cope around that I have been documenting on this Substack. Nevertheless, I found time to visit The Grampians with family and stay in a holiday park in Hall’s Gap. The Grampians, a set of mountains on the western tip of Victoria’s Great Dividing Range, are a breathtakingly beautiful part of the world. You should all come and visit.
For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts. We are all biased. It’s nothing we should beat ourselves up about because it is better than the alternative: being dead. Because bias is a fact of life. It is human nature, another aspect of which is our ingenuity.
The Prophet Motive
For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts. I have just read Andy Hargreaves’s foreword to Pasi Sahlberg’s 2011 book, Finnish Lessons: What can the world learn from educational change in Finland for the first time. I have still not read the book itself.
Curios of the week #184
Sunday was Fathers’ Day in Australia so I was treated to breakfast in bed and we drove out to Clunes for a mooch around. I found a shop selling records and bought a second hand copy of Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys, a record I’ve never owned on vinyl. So, a pleasing day all round. As well as being the PISA 2025 results release week, this week was our final week before the term break. We finish a week earlier than most schools and I am looking forward to a mix of rest and writing.
PISA 2025 offers telling tale about what really constitutes a good education system
They tell a tale of educational decline across the world’s great economies. PISA 2025 records the lowest ever average scores for OECD members in reading, science and mathematics. Results that shocked us in 2022 in the wake of COVID have been compounded. Any expectation that the world wound bounce back in 2025 has been comprehensively thwarted. Digging in, there are some fascinating details. It is now time to stop lauding Finland as the land of educational miracles.
A first look at PISA 2025
For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts. I have been poring over the results of the 2025 round of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) which were released at 5.30 pm and they make for an interesting read. You can download the first report here.
What did we MESHA?
Over the last year, I have been working with edtech company, Edrolo, on The MESHA Project. In time, we will build this out to English and history, but for now, we have run a comprehensive set of two assessments in mathematics across Years 7-10 and we have run a pilot Year 8 science assessment, with further science assessments planned for next term. The idea is a simple one. For most subjects in Australia, there are few ways to compare achievement with other schools. MESHA enables this.
Curios of the week #183
Unfortunately, it has taken a while to shift the flu or whatever it was I contracted a couple of weeks ago. I am still speaking croakily and have something of a cough. As you read this, I will be enjoying a quiet weekend—something I need after the last few weeks. At researchED Canberra—more below—I managed to deliver my keynote address despite suffering from a touch of the Barry Whites and I think people were able to bear with me.
Christian Bokhove’s Cognitive Load Theory schtick
For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts. Back at the start of July, TES published a piece by Christian Bokhove in which he rehearses his usual schtick about cognitive load theory.
Curios of the week #182
After returning from Sydney last week, I have had a nasty dose of something. I want to say it’s the flu. It has certainly knocked me down harder than anything I have experienced in recent times, but I had my flu and covid vaccines earlier in the winter. So, maybe it was a strain absent from the vaccine or just a nasty cold.
Who is behind the Australian Centre for the Public Understanding of Education?
For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts. At time of writing, it has been four days since I emailed the address given on the About page of the Australian Centre for the Public Understanding of Science (ACPUE), asking who they were. So far, I’ve had no response.
Attacking AERO the pedantic way
For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts. It may surprise you that I am usually a live-and-let-live kind of guy. People make mistakes. If those mistakes are unimportant, then who cares?
Curios of the week #181
Sunday saw me visit the University of Melbourne with my two daughters and their friends. I drove down to Melbourne because the local train line was out of service and replaced with a bus. As someone who uses the train to Melbourne infrequently, it is surprising how often it is replaced with a bus when I do want to use it. On Wednesday and Thursday, I attended the Learning First conference in Sydney about curriculum and how we might improve it in Australia.
For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts. I have been thinking about careers education recently. My youngest daughter is 16 and just starting to think about what her future may hold. I have sat with her in a career interview and we have discussed her options.
Curios of the week #180
Last Saturday, I attended researchED Melbourne as a regular punter. Held at Haileybury independent school’s City Campus, it was somewhat unique. If you missed my rundown of the day, you can catch it here. It has been cold and wet in Ballarat. This is good for the farmers and contrasts with the dry weather I am hearing about in Europe. Sadly, one of the lettuces I planted has died, but the rest are doing well. Why not take out a free trial of a full subscription so that you can read all of this post?
Bureaucrat SLAMS the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO)
For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts. The Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) recently released an extremely brief document, At a Glance: Explicit Instruction.
researchED Melbourne returns
The inimitable Cait Wade at researchED Melbourne 2026 For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts. The first researchED Melbourne took place in 2016 at Brighton Grammar and so it was fitting that it returned to the city on Saturday.
Curios of the week #179
This week was a short one. We closed on Thursday for a boarders’ weekend, enabling our boarding students to go home and visit their families. As a result, I had five days of meetings and packed into four and was glad when Thursday afternoon came. I taught my Year 7 science class about the Earth’s magnetic field. This is highly confusing because the Magnetic North Pole is a magnetic south pole and so on. We also discussed auroras, which are a cool topic.
Education’s dark matter
For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts. I have often wondered whether the outlook of Richard Dawkins would be different if he had studied physics rather than biology.
Curios of the week #178
It is the middle of winter and the lemon tree in my backyard is laden with lemons. do you know anyone who wants some? I was enticed by these lemons into the garden and decided it was a good time to plant a few vegetables, too. We’ll see how they go. I am not a great gardener, but the potatoes I grew last year were a great success. I have also started teaching my youngest to drive and have been looking for chances to practice.
Moral panic at the academy
For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts. The Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) has published a blog post by Alison Bedford and Emily Ross highlighting a review that is currently taking place of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.
Curios of the week #177
There has been plenty of deliciously golden winter sun around this week and so I have been adding to my photograph collection. I have a particular fondness for winter sun because it feels like such a gift, especially after a few days of rain and gloom. Apart from the sun, I have picked up a Year 7 science class for just a single period per week. My first lesson on Wednesday was a practical and still, after all these years, I had the teacher dream about the students ignoring me.
Mathematical Association of Victoria promotes Building Thinking Classrooms
For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts. In its guidance to schools, the Australian state of Victoria’s government . What could be clearer than that? Teachers must explain key concepts and demonstrate key procedures before asking students to apply those concepts or procedures.
Curios of the week #176
As full subscribers will be well aware, I am a keen, if not well accomplished, photographer. I have recently discovered a service that allows me to upload photographs that are then printed, framed and sent to me by post. So I am currently doing an audit of wall space. On a recent trip to Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne, I was taken with the sight of high rise buildings rising over the stalls and so that is the first photograph to get the treatment.
Australia's natural education experiment
For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts. It has been fascinating to watch a natural experiment play out over the last couple of decades in the United Kingdom.
Curios of the week #175
This week I spent some time with Edrolo in Melbourne. I’m working on a project with them, developing maths, English, science and history assessments—‘MESHA’—and so they invited me and a group of other teachers to their hackathon. It was cool to see startup culture at firsthand and it left me wondering if and how it could be applied to schools. This coincided with The Great Telstra Outage.
Low floor high ceiling maths tasks are not the solution
For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts. I am a long-term sceptic of ‘differentiation’ or ‘differentiated instruction’.
Curios of the week #174
On Saturday, we were treated to dream winter lighting and so I rushed to Lake Wendouree to take photographs. I am no great photographer, but I may frame one or two of the shots I took. I was particularly taken with a Great Egret, relaxing in a pond. On Sunday, we headed to the Queen Victoria markets in Melbourne where we stocked up on tea, cheese, chorizo and the ingredients needed for a chicken cacciatore. Despite the Saturday sunshine, it is the time of year for cacciatore.
The bogeyhole generation
For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts.
Curios of the week #173
On Wednesday, I rose early to watch England take on Ghana in Boston. As the saying goes, Ghana parked the bus in front of their goals and the result was a frustrating nil-nil, with England dominating possession. I wished I had stayed in bed a little longer. On Friday, we put the Socceroos up on the big screen on the oval, but the result was the same. For Australia, though, this meant they were through to the next round on goal difference. This week was the last of a ten-week Term 2.
Can Rosenshine’s Principles mean anything to anyone?
For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts. Rosenshine’s Principles have been gaining a great deal of attention recently. Some think they are obvious and don’t even need to be stated. Others mock people like me for supposedly revering them as a holy text.
Curios of the week #172
The World Cup is underway in North America. On Sunday, Australia played a brilliant defence to squeeze out Türkiye and on Thursday, it was England’s turn to take to the pitch. There followed a festival of goals and I have concluded that early mornings with coffee and football are not good for my blood pressure. On the home front, a few records have been arriving that I ordered from Discogs.
I already do that
When we interview teaching candidates at Clarendon, in addition to understanding who they are and what they have to offer, we want to communicate three connected messages: we are different, we mean what we say and experienced teachers will find the first few months tough. Perhaps we are not as different as we once were, but we are still different. We teach explicitly from shared resources—usually PowerPoint slides—that we have developed collectively over time.
Curios of the week #171
Last weekend we celebrated the King’s birthday in Victoria. It was not the actual birthday of Charles III, King of Australia. That is in November. Instead, this marks his official birthday, timed to take advantage of the summer weather in London. This means that the official Trooping the Colour parade in the city is less likely to be a rainy and cold affair. Even though there is no public holiday in London, we celebrate one here.
Honouring student ideas
For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts. When I trained to be a teacher, I had to complete a number of projects. One of these involved interviewing some 16-year-olds about their views on satellites.
Curios of the week #170
The weather took a turn this week. With the onset of winter came the cold and the rain. Last weekend, we lit our first fire of the season and watched a movie. The cold weather is not all bad and can even bring the family together. I taught some senior mathematics and started thinking about cognitive load theory’s split attention effect and how it operates in the wild. The split attention effect is when we are required to look up information in one place, such as a key, and then use it elsewhere.
When inquiry learning is malpractice
For the reasonable price of just $5 AUD per month or $50 per year, you can be a full subscriber to Filling the Pail with complete access to my extensive archive on a range of topics, as well as access to the unabridged version of my weekly Curios posts. There is an ongoing debate about the relative merits of explicit teaching and inquiry learning.
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