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September 20: School Governance Weekly Wrap

19/09/18
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AUSTRALIA

Australia facing an "epidemic of child abuse and neglect", according to experts

According to ABC News, South Australia's Department for Child Protection has opened its doors to the University of South Australia's child protection experts, allowing them access to abuse notifications for the first time. What seasoned researchers like Fiona Arney found as they dug down into the records shocked them. They showed the state was "facing an absolute crisis". Rather than being only a South Australian problem, Professor Arney issued a warning to governments and experts interstate that the crisis was being replicated in all Australian jurisdictions. By looking at the South Australian child protection reports, she found one in four children under the age of 10 are being reported to child protection authorities, and of these children, 90 per cent have multiple reports being made about "incredibly concerning" abuse and neglect. She said there was an assumption that children were being over reported to authorities by hyper-vigilant professionals and people in the community, but the data uncovered by her team showed the vast majority of reports needed to be followed up.

"Justice feels sweet": Abuse victim celebrates settlement with Jewish school

According to The New Daily, sexual abuse survivor and victim advocate Manny Waks has reached a confidential agreement in his six-year civil case against Melbourne’s Yeshivah Centre, with him saying that “justice feels sweet”. Mr Waks told AAP on Friday that he will be able to provide for his family and continue his advocacy for abuse victims with the compensation paid to him by the orthodox Jewish organisation that operated Yeshivah College, where he was sexually abused as a boy. Mr Waks said lawyers on behalf of Yeshivah wanted to meet with him to apologise and update him on the work they are doing at Yeshivah to address the issue of child sexual abuse. He told Yeshivah he would only meet with them if two of the centre’s rabbis implicated in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse were stood down.

Ombudsman says Bendigo high school principal who gave jobs to wife and son ran college like "personal fiefdom"

ABC News has reported that the Victorian Ombudsman has found a former Bendigo high school principal abused his position by employing his wife and son, and channelling benefits to another of his children. Ernie Fleming resigned from his position at Bendigo South East Secondary College in May after an Education Department investigation into financial mismanagement. The Department's investigation came at the request of the Ombudsman, who tabled her own report into Mr Fleming's actions. The Ombudsman's report found Mr Fleming's wife, Karen, was employed as an executive assistant to the principal despite there being no record that she applied for the job. The principal's son, Adam Fleming, was hired to head up the school's elite sports academy, the Athletes Development Program, beating a more qualified candidate for the position. The Ombudsman also found another school employee, regional bus coordinator Michael Bulmer, channelled school business to a bus company that was partly owned by another of Mr Fleming's sons, Brandt. The conduct was authorised and facilitated by Ernie Fleming, the report found. The report also criticised the regional office of the Education Department for failing to properly investigate complaints by other employees about Mr Fleming's behaviour. As many as 20 reports were made to the regional director between 2014 and 2016.

Sydney primary school teacher charged with indecently assaulting pupil

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, a Catholic Primary School teacher has been charged with indecently assaulting one of his Year 6 pupils in Sydney's south west. James Hayes, 28, has been charged with two counts of indecently assaulting a child under 16 after the girl, who cannot be named, reported the incident to the State Crime Command's Child Abuse Squad. According to News.com.au, police allege he indecently assaulted a 13-year-old girl — by rubbing himself against her — in a classroom at St Justin’s Catholic Primary School, a primary school in Oran Park, in 2017. He was her Year 6 teacher at the time. The girl finished at the school last year, and reported the incident in May 2018. He is now suspended from teaching and pleaded not guilty to the charges. Catholic Education Diocese of Wollongong Director of Schools Peter Turner issued a statement today asking parents to talk to their children about any concerns they may have.

Armed police to work in Northern Territory schools

According to a NT Media Release, the Territory Labor Government has returned and reinvigorated school-based policing. The new school-based policing model was designed in collaboration with the Department of Education and Council of Government School Organisations, as well as the Northern Territory Police Force, and will launch in 10 government schools at the start of Term 4, 2018. The new model aims to address issues raised during the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory with a greater focus on safety, youth engagement and youth diversion in keeping with best practice models developed in similar jurisdictions. The School Based Police will operate in collaboration with Youth and Community Engagement Constables model during and after school hours and beyond the school environment to target youth at risk of disengaging. News.com.au has reported that the president of the Northern Territory Council of Government School Organisations Tabby Fudge said the program was an example of a proactive approach to policing in the community.

Teacher faces deregistration after "sending 1650 messages to student"

The Age has reported that a Melbourne teacher accused of sending 1650 Facebook messages to a student, including an article about chronic masturbation and an image of elves making sex toys, is facing deregistration. The man developed an “unhealthy attachment” to a 16-year-old boy while working at a state high school in 2015 and 2016, a teachers' watchdog hearing was told on Thursday. He  failed to appear at the disciplinary hearing at the Victorian Institute of Teaching headquarters. The panel at the hearing said Mr S. had “seriously deviated” from the standards expected of teachers, failed to maintain a professional relationship with the student and engaged in serious misconduct. Counsel assisting the disciplinary panel is recommending that the Institute of Teaching cancel Mr S.'s teaching registration for five years. His registration is currently suspended. The name of the school Mr S. worked at has been suppressed.

11 prep and year 1 students suspended from Queensland schools every day

According to The Age, almost 11 unruly children aged six or younger were suspended from state schools in Queensland each day of the school calendar in 2017, according to data from the Queensland Department of Education. Across the state, there were 1027 suspensions from prep classrooms and 1956 suspensions from year 1 classrooms. About 7 per cent of all state school students were subject to a school disciplinary absence. Sam Pidgeon, vice-president of the Queensland Teachers’ Union, said disruptive behaviour should not be tolerated in schools as it had a negative impact on children’s learning and put huge pressure on teachers.

Are smartphones the key to improving school results?

The Sydney Morning Herald has reported that there is no doubt that smartphones can be distracting. Research shows that on average we pick up our phones every 15 mins. For the most part these are "zombie checks"; the main reasoning behind them is boredom. The more tedious the work the more easily distracted we are, and the more we look to our phone or any other technology for stimulation. Many of us spend our working lives shifting between our device and our real work. Taking smartphones away from classrooms will cease smartphone distraction, but there is no guarantee it will lead to Australian kids achieving better results. Results will only improve if kids are engaged in learning and this happens when they see the relevance in school learning. This relates to what is taught as well as how it is taught. Rather than a ban on smartphones the focus should be shifted to making learning relevant, and interesting to this generation of young people. Key to this is teachers and students having the opportunity to select from the best resources available to support learning. Some days this may mean no technology use at all, and smartphones stay in schoolbags. Other days it may mean using smartphones to create and record music, to develop e-books, to create apps, organise group work, to identify and critique a series of art images or to use Instagram to identify how young artists today apply Picasso’s techniques.

INTERNATIONAL

Pope Francis summons bishops to Rome amid accusations of covering up child sexual abuse

According to the Australian Financial Review, Pope Francis has summoned bishops from around the world to Rome for an unprecedented meeting focused on protecting minors, the Vatican has announced. The order comes as the Pope wrestles with a global clerical sexual abuse crisis and explosive accusations of a cover-up that have shaken his papacy and the entire Roman Catholic Church. The extraordinary meeting marks the first time that presidents of bishops conferences worldwide have been summoned for a meeting on a specific topic - more than 100 will be there - and the choice of topic was telling. After three decades of denial, the Vatican is being forced to treat the child sexual abuse problem as a global crisis, and not the failing of a particular country or culture. The Pope has called on the bishop conference presidents to gather from February 21 to February 24, 2019, according to the Vatican.

Germany's Catholic Church "ashamed" by child sex abuse

According to Yahoo7, Germany's Catholic Church said on Wednesday that it was "dismayed and ashamed" by decades of child sex abuse by priests, after a report was leaked showing that thousands of minors were assaulted. The study, commissioned by the German Bishops' Conference, was due to be presented officially on September 25, but several local media published key conclusions, including the damning finding that more than 3,600 children were sexually assaulted by priests in Germany over nearly seven decades. Authors of the study also warned that the true scale of the abuse may be greater as some documents were "destroyed or manipulated". According to the study, 1,670 clergymen in Germany committed some form of sexual attack against 3,677 minors between 1946 and 2014, Spiegel Online reported. Most of the victims were boys. The study concluded that more than half were 13 years old or younger at the time of the abuse after examining 38,000 documents from 27 German dioceses. Over the last decade, several German Catholic institutions have revealed cases of child sexual abuse, including an elite Jesuit school in Berlin, which admitted to systematic sexual abuse of pupils by two priests in the 1970s and 1980s. Last year, a world-famous Catholic choir school in Germany, the Regensburger Domspatzen school, revealed that more than 500 boys there suffered sexual or physical abuse in what victims have likened to "prison, hell or a concentration camp".

Historical sex abuse victim calls for school sacking

According to Radio NZ, a sexual abuse victim is calling for a prestigious Catholic school to sack its rector for not removing a teacher who sexually assaulted him years ago. Peter Boock has complained to the board of trustees at St Bede's College in Christchurch, and to the Education Council, about the rector Justin Boyle. Mr Boyle initiated an investigation of the teacher Robin Pettit in 2011, when Mr Boock first made a complaint. Mr Pettit had admitted to sexually assaulting Mr Boock in Dunedin in the late 1960s, when he was about 19 - and before Mr Pettit was a teacher - and the former a young teen. However, Mr Pettit continued teaching at St Bede's after the complaint and investigation.

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