Australia

Unique internship program for young teachers

A four-week internship program at an outback school in Queensland has boosted the confidence of three young teachers prior to beginning full time work this year. The ABC reported that the program saw the teachers working full time at the remote school with a 50 to 100 per cent teaching workload with the aim of better equipping them for their first year of teaching.

Research reveals that teachers are bullying autistic students

The Autistic Family Collective has conducted new research that shows more than 44% of bullying cases against students with autism examined were found to have been started by the students’ teachers and other school staff. One co-convenor of the Collective, Cas Faulds, says that the report is just the tip of the iceberg as there have been at least seven stories of abuse of autistic children in the media in the past three months. Co-convenor Dr Leia Greenslade said that ‘clearly there is an issue with teachers perpetrating abuse of autistic children in Australian schools’.

Childcare provider will not ban unvaccinated children despite new laws

The ABC reports that Queensland’s biggest childcare operator will not make use of a new power to ban children who are not up-to-date with their vaccinations. The ‘no jab, no play’ laws were passed with bipartisan support in October, however Creche and Kindergarten’s (C&K) CEO has said that while they are pro-vaccination, the 143 centres his organisation operates will not be excluding children from early childhood education opportunities.

New child abuse laws come into force in Victoria

The first day of 2016 saw the new ‘child safe standards’ come into force in Victoria. The set of seven standards apply to all Victorian child-related organisations and compliance with the standards is a requirement of registration for non-government schools. A Ministerial Order will soon be released explaining how schools are to comply with the standards. Non-government schools are required to be fully compliant by August 2016. For more information on the standards see our School Governance article here.

International 

‘Borderlife’ book banned from the school curriculum in Israel

The Education Ministry in Israel has removed the book ‘Borderlife’ from the country’s high school curriculum over concerns that the novel about a romance between a Jewish woman and a Palestinian man would encourage intermarriage. News.com reported that the rejection of the novel has caused outrage in Israel and accusations of government censorship. The Education Ministry has since backed off the ban slightly, allowing the book to be read in advanced literature studies classes but not as a part of the regular curriculum.

Students will have to know times tables by age 11

The Guardian reports that every child in England will be expected to know their times tables before leaving primary school from next year. As a part of the Department of Education’s ‘war on innumeracy and illiteracy’, students will be tested against the clock on their tables up to 12×12 in the new computer-based exams.