The information in the Weekly Wrap is aggregated from other news sources to provide you with news that is relevant to the education sector across Australia and worldwide. Each paragraph is a summary of the subject matter covered in the particular news article. The information does not necessarily reflect the views of Ideagen.

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AUSTRALIA

Teachers taught to be ‘lay therapists’

According to The Australian, schools are training teachers as “lay therapists’’ to help anxious students “have a go’’, as principals criticise “helicopter parenting’’ for stoking high anxiety in one in five primary school children. Extrapolated across Australia, the research indicates 450,000 pre-teen children are showing alarming levels of anxiety. The results are the first findings from a two-year intervention called The Anxiety Project, launched by the NSW Primary Principals Association and child psychologist Michael Hawton. Mr Hawton said that parents who hover over their children and intervene to solve every problem, had raised a generation of kids lacking resilience and coping skills in what he called an “epidemic of anxiety’’. The Anxiety Project is training teachers in 54 schools as “lay therapists’’ to identify anxiety and show children how to stay calm and build resilience. It also involves offering parents “family management training’’ with tips to manage children’s mild anxiety at home.

Empowering school leaders to tackle cyberbullying and violence

According to The Educator, empowering children to be savvy online is as crucial as teaching them road safety. With the prevalence of cyberbullying, inappropriate content, and online predators, fostering digital literacy and responsible online behaviour is paramount. Brett Lee, founder of Internet Safe Education and a former cybercrime investigator stressed that schools must educate themselves about the platforms and technologies children are using. By fostering an open-door policy and restorative practices, schools can create an environment where students feel safe reporting issues. Lee said that “the biggest stakeholder for schools to engage is the parent community”. By aligning school policies and educating parents about protective measures, a united front against cyberbullying can be established. The common expert advice is that creating a safe digital environment requires a collective effort.

Sexually explicit content being produced by students- eSafety announces push to curb harms of generative AI

According to Information Age, a push to prevent generative AI being weaponised against others is underway after warnings that AI-generated child sexual abuse material and deepfakes are being reported to the authorities. eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said that “this month, we received our first reports of sexually explicit content generated by students using this technology to bully other students”. Grant called on the tech industry not to turn a blind eye, warning that our collective safety and wellbeing as a nation is at stake if we don’t get protections in place immediately. Grant said that while she doesn’t question the fact that generative AI holds tremendous opportunities for creativity and collaboration, she hoped that advanced AI would provide more accurate illegal and harmful content detection measures.

Experts recommend school-wide positive behaviour support to tackle disruptive behaviour

According to The Educator, The Media Centre for Education Research Australia (MCERA) said that educators are working to address the root causes of students’ disruptive behaviour through an evidence-based approach called positive behaviour support (PBS). The approach seeks to promote positive behaviour while mitigating disruptive and problematic behaviours among learners. It entails preventative and responsive approaches, starting with providing general support for all learners throughout a school. Dr Erin Leif, a senior lecturer at Monash University’s Faculty of Education said that “students experiencing academic and behavioural challenges at school are likely to suffer from social and emotional challenges such as anxiety, depression, peer rejection, and social isolation”. This is why schools need to employ PBS, which as Leif said, offered a “unified, multi-tiered framework for improving student behaviour”.

Teacher made to apologise for giving child ‘improvement strategies’

According to The Age, a teacher who had recently started at a new school was asked to give one student some improvement strategies. The child went home and complained. The principal asked that teacher to apologise to the parents for making that student feel “stressed”. Australia’s classrooms are ranked among the worst in the world when it comes to discipline and the responsibility for that should not fall solely on teachers, education experts have told a federal senate inquiry into disruptive classrooms. An OECD report earlier this year said the disciplinary climate in Australia was among the least favourable compared to other member nations while Australian teachers felt less capable when it came to dealing with disruptive students. Literacy instruction provider Multilit director Robyn Wheldall said that “there is a wealth of evidence from research and practice that we can draw on to bring about positive changes in classrooms, with relatively simple but effective methods”.

Is another teachers strike looming in NSW?

According to The Educator, the NSW Teachers Federation says the government “walked away” from a deal that would have seen starting teachers’ salary increase by nearly $10,000, and the maximum teaching salary increase by about $9,000. The NSW Teachers Federation is now warning of an “escalation of action” in September if the government continues to refuse to honour the agreement. “The teacher shortage in NSW is getting worse and the Government must address it by reviving and honouring the agreement it had to pay teachers what they are worth”, acting Federation president Henry Rajendra told The Educator. Rajendra said that the union remains confident that the Government “wants to do the right thing” and is hopeful the impasse can be resolved.

Ousted Victorian Liberal MP Moira Deeming says teachers are teaching “sexual ideas” in trans-positive school curriculums

According to The Australian, expelled Victorian Liberal MP Moira Deeming has accused teachers of “cutting the connection between the parent and their child” in championing a trans-positive curriculum. Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference Australia in Sydney on Sunday, the former teacher said that educators were allowed to “lie and withhold information from parents” and introduce “sexual ideas” to a child behind their parents’ back. Transgender issues were one of the central themes tackled at Australia’s biggest conservative conference, drawing prominent current and former politicians and advocates. Deeming said that “I just cannot believe the absolute total wholesale destruction of child safeguarding. They’ve put into policies and in the law that teachers are allowed to lie and withhold information from parents”. Ms Deeming encouraged parents to speak to their children more and be aware of what they were being taught.

Victorian schoolchildren using mobile phone apps to conduct vape deals

According to the Herald Sun, school children as young as 12 are using mobile phone apps to conduct concealed vape deals in toilet blocks during lunch breaks. Vaping has become so rampant in schools that students are buying the illegal goods in bulk online and selling them to other pupils. Teachers, who work at independent schools in Geelong, South Yarra and Mount Waverley, said they had filled out several incident reports relating to students using social media apps including Instagram to sell vapes. It comes as new VicHealth survey data reveals less than half of young people know that e-cigarettes can contain up to 200 toxic chemicals like weed killer and paint stripper. A Geelong teacher told the Herald Sun that “we are finding hundreds of dollars in students’ school bags and students are continuing to sell vapes and smoke them in the toilets despite warnings of consequences” she said.

Multiple schools in South Australia targeted by bomb threats

According to The Educator, a wave of bomb threats has struck schools and healthcare facilities across metropolitan and regional South Australia, leading law enforcement agencies to initiate thorough investigations into the matter. The trend, which had been progressing over the past week, heightened on Tuesday. Gilles Street Primary School, situated in Adelaide's central business district, found itself among the targets. Families of its students received a letter from the principal on Tuesday morning, detailing the reception of two alarming emails. The messages claimed that pipe bombs had been planted within the school premises. As authorities delve into the origins of these threats, they have issued a stern warning to the individuals responsible. Legal consequences, including the possibility of prosecution, await those found guilty of perpetrating these acts.

Qld Beaudesert State High School called out in protest over toxic bullying after two students die by suicide

According to The Courier Mail, concerned children and their families protested against toxic bullying at Beaudesert State High School on Tuesday morning after two students suicided within 20 months of each other and several remain on suicide watch. Organiser Ivy Lambert, sister of Onyx Rose who died on July 16 at age 13, said that students on the school grounds joined in the final chant “kindness is the key” before being told by teachers to be quiet. The rally followed a meeting between Ms Lambert and her mother Michelle and Education Minister Grace Grace and Education Queensland director-general Michael De’Ath at Beaudesert Shire Council last Friday. Meanwhile, a change.org petition started by Ms Lambert in late July has attracted more than 10,000 signatures. The “save our children, say no to bullying” petition calls on the state government to introduce new laws to protect students.

INTERNATIONAL

Why Is Our Children’s Mental Health Getting Worse? (United Sates)

According to Psychology Today, since 2010, we’ve seen dramatic increases in rates of mental health disorders among our kids, including depression, anxiety, and suicide. Yet, we’ve also in that time, been focusing on better treatment and improving the social determinants of health. Using data from different indicators of child well-being, they found that children are showing signs of more stress and more disorder. The data shows a link between the spike in mental health disorders occurring while social media use became rampant. How exactly does endless screen time, social comparisons, and fear of missing out (FOMO) disturb children’s sleep patterns and psychosocial development? It’s difficult to know what is going on, but clearly, we need to rethink the world we are exposing our children to. We need to offer them better filters and a more hopeful message about the future.

District Education Councils move to accept advocate's gender-identity policy, urge government to do the same (Canada)

According to CBC News, district education councils in New Brunswick are moving to accept an alternative gender-identity school policy, and say the best way forward is for the province to heed legal warnings about the policy now in effect. Education Minister Bill Hogan, who changed Policy 713 recently, has said it now makes it mandatory for school staff to deny students' request to informally change pronouns if they're under 16 years of age and their parents don't consent. But in a report presented this week, it was found that the province's revision, with its attempt to recognise parental rights, violated children's rights and ignored advice from medical professionals and mental health experts. Child and youth advocate Kelly Lamrock recommended that the policy allow kids to informally change their pronouns starting at about 12 years old. Lamrock said kids 12 or older should be presumed to have capacity to make decisions that are at odds with their parents' views.