About Education Matters

Education Matters

Overview

Education Matters is an Australian magazine for the primary and secondary school sector, published from Melbourne, Victoria, by Prime Creative Media. It serves the people who run and supply Australian schools — principals, teachers, department heads and education associations — with a mix of news, expert commentary, leadership and curriculum coverage, and a buyer's guide to school products and services. The title is published in separate Primary and Secondary print editions, which are distributed free to schools across Australia three times a year, and it is backed by a daily news website, the e-newsletter The Whiteboard, and, from 2026, a podcast. Its website was publishing new articles dated October 2026 when this profile was prepared, and its print program continued with an edition for March 2026 referenced on the site.

History

The magazine's earlier publisher was Peach Media, a South Australian publishing house. The masthead of the 2012/13 edition lists Peach Media as publisher, with Gary Peach as managing director, Graham Miles as general manager, and the edition printed by Newstyle Printing at Mile End in Adelaide; the edition's coverage was dominated by the Federal Government's response to the Gonski Review of Funding for Schooling, the defining schools-policy story of that year. Prime Creative Media's own About page for the magazine states that the publisher acquired the title in 2013. The masthead of the October 2014 Primary edition shows the transition completed: John Murphy named as publisher for Prime Creative Media, with Kathryn Edwards continuing as editor — the same editor who had led the magazine under Peach Media. Edwards remained the magazine's editorial face for years afterwards, conducting its published interviews with education figures through the 2010s, including its EduTECH coverage in 2016 and interviews with visiting academics Pasi Sahlberg and Eric Mazur. In January 2025 the magazine announced it was increasing its news output, moving The Whiteboard from fortnightly to weekly delivery, telling readers it would deliver "more news, more often in 2025". In 2026 it added the Education Matters Australia Podcast, whose first episodes appeared in August and September of that year. No founding date for the magazine is published in the sources consulted — the documented record begins with the Peach Media editions of the early 2010s — and none is asserted here.

Programming and Content

The magazine's coverage follows the working life of Australian schools. Its website sections span curriculum and teaching and learning — including literacy, numeracy and STEM — school leadership through its Principally Speaking strand, student and staff wellbeing, education technology and artificial intelligence, and policy coverage of bodies such as ACARA and programs such as NAPLAN, together with professional development, events and resources. A substantial part of the offer is practical and commercial: the site describes the magazine as "an informative, valuable resource for decision makers of both primary and secondary schools Australia-wide", providing "a content-rich, comprehensive buyer's guide of the most reliable, trustworthy school suppliers in the market", coupled with the latest news and expert views on the issues affecting the sector. Its products and services section carries school-focused items ranging from classroom technology and hands-on STEM kits to facilities, seating and excursions. The daily website mixes that supplier coverage with education journalism: articles published at the start of October 2026 included a school laundry program credited with lifting student attendance, a new federal guide to fee-free university pathways for secondary students, and the first primary-school kits under a national science and technology program. The print program is organised as separate Primary and Secondary editions appearing three times a year. The Whiteboard, its e-newsletter, has been sent weekly since 2025, going out on Wednesday mornings with news, innovations and events from education leaders and associations. The Education Matters Australia Podcast launched in 2026 extended the brand into audio: episode one, released on 24 August 2026, featured Rosebud Secondary College principal Lisa Holt discussing leadership, literacy, and digital and AI learning, and episode two, on 23 September 2026, featured Andrew Fuller on neurodiversity.

Audience and Reach

Education Matters is written for decision-makers in Australian primary and secondary education, in both public and private schools: principals, teachers, heads of department and the associations that represent them, along with the suppliers who market to schools. Its distribution model is built on free controlled circulation — the Primary and Secondary print editions are distributed free to schools across Australia three times a year — supplemented by promotion at education events and expos. The magazine states, in its own material, that the magazine and The Whiteboard together are delivered to more than 21,000 principals, teachers, department heads and associations across Australia; that figure is the publication's own claim and is presented here as such, not as an independently audited number. A principal's testimonial published by the magazine — from Jenny Walker of Kellyville Public School — describes it as a way of seeing "the big picture in education from around Australia", which captures the national, sector-wide brief the title sets itself.

Digital Presence

The magazine's website, educationmattersmag.com.au, is its largest digital asset: a daily news service whose article archive runs to hundreds of pages — more than six hundred pages of articles at the time of writing — organised into deep category archives for curriculum and teaching, school leadership, wellbeing, and products and services, and carrying news, features and sponsored supplier content dated through October 2026, including coverage of the 2026–27 Federal Budget. Recent print editions are made available digitally — the Education Matters Secondary October 2025 edition, for example, is hosted on the Issuu platform under the publisher's Prime Group account — and the website cross-promotes the print program, the newsletter and the podcast. The site itself carries a 2026 copyright notice naming Prime Creative Media as the owner of its content. The Whiteboard newsletter and the 2026 podcast complete a digital offering that now publishes far more frequently than the three-times-a-year print cycle at its core.

Ownership and Organisation

Education Matters is published by Prime Creative Media, which states on the magazine's About page that it acquired the title in 2013 and which describes itself there as Australia's largest business-to-business publisher. Before the acquisition the magazine was published by Peach Media under managing director Gary Peach. Kathryn Edwards is the editor documented across the title's history: she edited the Peach Media editions of the early 2010s and continued in the role under Prime Creative Media, appearing as editor in the October 2014 Primary edition masthead and as the magazine's interviewer in pieces published later in that decade. The magazine's website does not currently bill a named editor prominently on its public pages, so no present-day editor is asserted here. Within the publisher's education portfolio, Education Matters is paired with WhichSchool, a parent-facing title; the publisher presents the two together as representing the entire K–12 system, one speaking to schools and the other to the parents who choose them.

Contact and Availability

Education Matters is published from Melbourne, Victoria, by Prime Creative Media, whose head office is in Docklands. The Primary and Secondary print editions are distributed free to schools across Australia three times a year, and schools and suppliers can follow the title through its website at educationmattersmag.com.au, which publishes daily and carries details of the current edition, and through The Whiteboard, its weekly e-newsletter, and the Education Matters Australia Podcast. The public business email field for this listing is intentionally left empty, in line with the directory's convention.