Leah Myers Consulting - LMC

Leah Myers Consulting - LMC Evidence-based education consultant

Jumping on this kinda chic trend, I love it! I couldn’t decide how many to choose or make 😅What would you add?? What mak...
10/08/2026

Jumping on this kinda chic trend, I love it! I couldn’t decide how many to choose or make 😅

What would you add??

What makes you kinda chic?? 🧐

Let me know below ⬇️ ✨💕

It’s NAPLAN data reveal day, and we need to talk about it…
05/08/2026

It’s NAPLAN data reveal day, and we need to talk about it…

It’s the start of a new term so let’s talk about caring for ourselves. So many of my followers (that’s you guys!) are mi...
21/07/2026

It’s the start of a new term so let’s talk about caring for ourselves. So many of my followers (that’s you guys!) are middle and instructional leaders. You are carrying implementation, coaching, planning, difficult conversations, staff support and the constant pressure to keep improving outcomes for students.

Advocating for evidence based education matters. Staying anchored to the research matters. But none of it should come at the expense of your own health and wellbeing.

Please look after yourselves. We need thoughtful, knowledgeable and committed educators like you for the long game.

Feel free to pop your best wellbeing tip in the comments below so we can create a shared list of ideas for getting through the term.

A little introduction to the research that will be occupying a significant part of my brain for the next few years 📚My d...
14/07/2026

A little introduction to the research that will be occupying a significant part of my brain for the next few years 📚

My doctoral research focuses on high performing Australian primary schools serving low socioeconomic communities. I want to understand the instructional and organisational practices these schools use to support strong academic outcomes.

Educational disadvantage is complex, and schools cannot eliminate every social or economic barrier children experience. However, what happens inside schools still matters enormously.

I am particularly interested in the intersection between equity, instruction and implementation: not simply which practices are supported by research, but how schools have successfully embedded and sustained them.

There is still plenty to refine as my work develops, but the central question is clear: what can we learn from schools that are achieving strong outcomes for students who have historically been labelled at risk?

Feel free to ask any questions! It’s my favourite topic to talk about 🙈🤓

High-quality, evidence-based instruction is absolutely an equity issue. Why should some students be given this and other...
08/07/2026

High-quality, evidence-based instruction is absolutely an equity issue. Why should some students be given this and others not?

This is why I care so much about evidence in edu. Not because I think teaching should be robotic, or because research answers every question, but because some students can learn in spite of poor instruction but many can’t.

For too many students, school is the main place they will be explicitly taught the skills and knowledge they need.

No child’s learning should depend on luck.

Very keen to hear what you think!

This quote is from Dr Reid Lyon, whose recent guest post on Pam Snow’s blog, Beyond Straw Men and False Choices, really ...
05/07/2026

This quote is from Dr Reid Lyon, whose recent guest post on Pam Snow’s blog, Beyond Straw Men and False Choices, really hit a nerve for many of us in the science of learning world.

At the moment, it feels hard to ignore the push back against explicit instruction. More teachers are being asked to implement it, but from what I can see, many are being asked to do this with very little understanding of why and we know a huge part of the problem is poor implementation.

We cannot just tell teachers to “use slide decks or else” and call that explicit instruction. Teachers need to understand the why before they can meaningfully implement the how.

But here’s the key point: this is not only about teachers.

It is about the students.

As someone who has taught 18 year olds, I can tell you this: they remember everything.

They remember being in the “low” group. They remember feeling dumb, even when they weren’t.

They remember wondering why everyone else seemed to be able to read, spell, write or do maths when they couldn’t. It affects them for life.

We can argue in comment sections until we are blue in the face about what works and what doesn’t, but the reality is this:

For all students, and especially our most disadvantaged students, well implemented explicit instruction is not the enemy.

For many students, it is the difference between feeling confused, left behind and ashamed, and becoming confident, capable readers and writers.

After more than a decade working in public education, I have often wondered why allied health services aren’t more close...
24/06/2026

After more than a decade working in public education, I have often wondered why allied health services aren’t more closely connected to our schools.

Throughout my career, I have taught students with hearing difficulties, language disorders, developmental delays, vision impairments, mental health challenges and learning difficulties. In many cases, teachers can see that a student needs additional support long before that support can be accessed.

The reality is that assessments and ongoing intervention can cost families thousands of dollars. For many, those costs are simply out of reach. Others face lengthy waitlists or the challenge of navigating multiple systems while juggling work, family and financial pressures. Sometimes diagnoses are only for the privileged. 

I will often talk about the importance of high quality instruction, and with good reason, instruction is one of the most powerful equity levers we have. But students must first be able to access that instruction. They need to be able to hear it, see it, process it and engage with it.

I sometimes wonder what would happen if public schools had access to on-site allied support. How many students would be identified earlier? How many families would be able to access support they currently cannot? How many barriers to learning could be addressed before they become entrenched? 

I’ve worked in two schools that were attempting this model, and being able to chat to another professional about ways to support my learners in the classroom was so powerful. With their specialised knowledge and specific skills, they were able to provide such evidence-based, new insights about how to help my little ones.

Teachers cannot be expected to have all these skills and knowledge. Our teaching degrees woefully underprepared for our roles as it is, let alone allowing us glimpses of how this sort of specialised knowledge could change learning outcomes for the better.

Obviously, this isn’t a fully formed policy proposal. It’s simply an idea I’ve found myself returning to over the years. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts. Let me know in the comments.

There are so many instructional tweaks we can make that improve student learning outcomes, and many of them don’t cost a...
20/06/2026

There are so many instructional tweaks we can make that improve student learning outcomes, and many of them don’t cost a dollar.

The five in this post have had a significant impact on my own teaching and coaching work over the years. None are flashy or require a new program, but all of them can make a real difference when implemented consistently.

What low cost instructional practice has had the biggest impact on student learning in your classroom?

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25/05/2026

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When I was at University, I was taught to put students into groups depending on what they needed. This meant some studen...
20/05/2026

When I was at University, I was taught to put students into groups depending on what they needed. This meant some students were learning about nouns, while others coloured in pictures of nouns, and others wrote sentences. This is actually pretty normal in many schools, but I now know there are better ways to lift the learning of all students.

The problem with differentiation is that it often sees well meaning teachers placing ceilings or “caps” on student learning, which immediately reduces equity in a classroom and a student’s ability to progress through the curriculum. It feels like somewhere along the way, we replaced the word differentiation with “completely different activities altogether”.

Responsive teaching, in contrast to this, sees teachers delivering strong Tier 1 instruction where everyone is working towards the same learning goal. For example, learning to use the because, but, so writing strategy from The Writing Revolution. We teach everyone the same content, then when it comes to the activity, students enter at the point of their learning need.

Chillis are just one example of how we can achieve this in classrooms, but a key aspect of them is that students choose which chilli they are doing. I’ve been using this approach in classrooms for the last 5 years and students rarely choose a chilli that isn’t aligned with where they are at. I also don’t make students “keep going” once they finish. Done your chilli activity? Great. Go and have some quiet drawing/reading/insert your activity here time.

This was a huge shift for me. I was definitely part of the “whole language, five rotations” literacy era, but now that I have used both approaches, I can see how powerful responsive teaching is, especially for students who need extending and/or support.

We can absolutely reduce teacher workload and improve student outcomes at the same time, and I really wish someone had told me that earlier in my career.

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