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 CompliSpace.
The Australian reports that religious schools have sacked, demoted or transferred teachers for being gay, using IVF, divorcing or having sex while single, a teachers’ union has warned. Liberal Party Senator Andrew Bragg is demanding the federal government amend its Religious Discrimination Bill to protect teachers, as well as students, from discrimination on the grounds of sexuality. The Independent Education Union, representing 75,000 private school teachers, is lobbying the Morrison government to include them in its legislation to shield gay students from school expulsion. National Catholic Education Commission executive director Jacinta Collins said religious schools should be able to “preference the employment of staff who share our faith or are willing to support the ethos and mission of the school’’. The Religious Discrimination Bill is unlikely to be put to the Senate before the next federal election, after Coalition MPs crossed the floor to vote with Labor on amendments protecting students but not teachers.
According to an article in The Educator, more than $180m a year will be stripped from 164 regional private schools when the new Commonwealth funding model is fully implemented, according to the Coalition of Regional Independent Schools Australia (CRISA). The coalition, which represents more than 40 regional and outer-metropolitan independent schools across Australia, says the new Direct Measure of Income model – due to be fully implemented by 2029 – will “hit schools squarely where it already hurts – in regional Australia”. CRISA Chairman, Stephen Higgs, said this impact will be felt in areas where communities are trying to recover from the devastation of drought, fire, flood and loss of tourism dollars due to COVID-19’s impact on travel. “These cuts disproportionately and unfairly impact regional Independent schools, with these schools losing funding at an average rate of $760 per student. By contrast this loss is $287 per student across metropolitan independent schools,” Higgs said.
The Herald Sun reports that happiness rather than homework leads to better NAPLAN results, a new study has found. Schools should stop “teaching for test scores” and care more about the “head and the heart of their students,” researchers say. Analysis of the wellbeing and academic performance of 3400 year seven to nine students shows happier kids score two points higher on their NAPLAN maths scores. Students who report that they are not depressed also post reading scores that are 2.5 points higher and maths scores that are three points higher. The effect was measurable seven to eight months later, the analysis by the Australian National University and the Gradient Institute has found. The researchers, led by Dr Diana Cardenas, controlled for other key family and school variables. Unlike many other studies, they also relied on students’ self-reports of wellbeing, capturing those who lack a professional diagnosis. Dr Cardenas said “investing in youth wellbeing “brings benefits today, for decades to come, and for the next generation””.
Thus, investing in youth wellbeing “brings benefits today, for decades to come, and for the next generation,” she said.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that debate over religious freedom has raised questions about how single-sex schools respond to transgender students. The NSW Department of Education runs more than 34 single-sex schools, with a spokesperson saying that public schools supported all students and worked with them and their parents “on a case-by-case basis”. The department’s online guidelines give more information, including that students should be referred to by their enrolled name and gender, which they could change if they chose. One legal bulletin said that, if there was a dispute between the student and one or both of their parents, the principal could make the decision that was in the best interests of the student, based on their age, maturity and health advice. If a student wanted to enrol in a single-sex school, their eligibility should be based on their identified gender, the online policy said, amongst other forms of guidance.
ABC News reports that as NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet announced a women's economic expert panel to guide government policies last week, he called for "revolutionary ideas" to break down structural gender barriers. Shaking up the school day could be one of them. One thing driving any potential changes is the juggling act working parents have to manage with regard to school hours. A trial of longer school days will begin in NSW later this year, and schools are able to apply to take part. Dr Carter, a former teacher and head of department, said detailed research into how students learn best should inform decisions. In NSW, Merrylands East Public School in south-west Sydney switched its hours to 8am to 1:15pm a decade ago. The change was in response to a survey showing 72 per cent of parents supported the shift. The school has a recess break and no lunch break but offers the same amount of teaching.
According to an article in The Educator, NSW teaching students will work in Catholic schools as part of a national roll out to address worsening teacher shortages across Australia. Under a new joint partnership between the Australian Catholic University (ACU) and the National Catholic Education Commission (NCEC), teaching students will be employed as paraprofessionals in NSW Catholic schools to address the growing shortage of teachers and provide paid, in-the-classroom experience. The announcement follows a major strike in December in which thousands of NSW teachers walked off the job in protest over worsening pay and workloads conditions. The partnership plans to not only address the short-term challenges posed by COVID-19, but involve a long-term strategy to place highly trained, workplace-ready graduates into Australian Catholic schools and early childhood education centres. The paraprofessionals will be employed up to four days per week with in-school mentoring and support from ACU.
The Age reports that Catholic and Independent schools have dismissed the government’s religious discrimination bill as unnecessary, saying faith-based schools welcomed gay and transgender students and their focus was on wellbeing, not expulsion. President of the Principals Association of Victorian Catholic Secondary Schools Darren Egberts said schools had an “absolute responsibility” to ensure a safe environment for children who were transitioning or LGBTQI. Independent Schools Victoria chief executive Michelle Green said parliament should be able to pass legislation that protects the rights of faith-based schools to operate according to their faith, while simultaneously protecting all of their students from discrimination. An increasing number of Victorian schools are making operational changes to accommodate gay and transgender students. Ninety-nine “gender X” students – people who do not exclusively identify as either male or female – completed VCE last year, according to figures provided by schools to the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority.
The Age reports that dyslexia support advocates have attacked the Victorian state government’s plan to grade the literacy and numeracy standards of all year 12 students in the General Achievement Test this year, arguing it will shame students with learning difficulties. The principal of a thriving progressive government school has also warned that many students who chose an exam-free year 12 would potentially opt out of sitting the test. The GAT will be overhauled this year, meaning students’ literacy and numeracy standards will be assessed and recorded on their graduating certificate for the first time. Students who meet or exceed minimum standards of literacy and numeracy will receive a certificate of attainment, while those who fail to meet the standards on the day of the test will not. A Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority spokesperson said special provision was available for students with a disability, acute or chronic illness including anxiety, or other personal circumstances that might affect their ability to complete an external assessment.
According to an article in Adelaide Now, Catholic Education SA will build three new schools, expand five campuses and open two new early learning centres in an ambitious five-year plan. It has also put 20 new preschools and a horticultural training centre on the radar as it drives student growth. The strategy for 2022-27 was announced by chairman of the SA Commission for Catholic Schools Denis Ralph on Wednesday night. Annual fee reductions of between $100 and $500 during the Covid-19 period had fuelled enrolments, with the cuts putting a Catholic education in reach of many more families, he said. The new schools will help Catholic Education reach its target of increasing student numbers from 48,000 now to 54,000 by 2027. The plan includes one new school in the southern suburbs, probably in the Bedford Park district, for reception to year 12. Adelaide’s north would get a new school, initially for reception to year 6, with the Riverlea housing development in Buckland Park a possible but not definite location.
The Guardian reports that Tasmania’s education minister, Sarah Courtney, has announced she is resigning from politics amid criticism for taking a French holiday as stressed parents prepared to send their children back to school during the pandemic. Courtney’s holiday went for several weeks and overlapped with the return to school and uncertainty over Covid restrictions and concerns, drawing criticism from Labor and the Greens. Courtney, who caught Covid while overseas and had previously held the health portfolio, announced last Thursday she was going. Courtney added that she was not resigning over the criticisms surrounding her holiday, but as a result of a “range of different factors”. “The past two years in particular has been especially gruelling; rewarding, but very gruelling and exhausting,” she said. She also referenced a recent family tragedy, saying a funeral was to be held the next day for her grandmother who had died with Covid.
The West Australian reports that WorkSafe in August conducted random inspections and reviews at local schools — including Geraldton Grammar School — as part of an industry-wide audit. A WorkSafe spokesperson said the investigation was closed in December and the school was issued with improvement notices to address the areas of concern. The inspector said there was an overall “perceived lack of care and action by management about employee psychological health and safety”. She said there was also an absence of a risk assessment policy for slips, trips and falls at the school, with at least two musculoskeletal injuries sustained by staff between 2019 and 2020. WorkSafe inspectors will return to the school early this year to check compliance with the notices has been achieved or is in the process of being achieved.
Reuters reports that seven predominately Black schools in Washington were evacuated over bomb threats last week and later cleared, including a high school that was threatened a day earlier during a visit by U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris' husband, authorities said. The District of Columbia Police Department said four public high schools and three charter schools had received threats. Washington police later declared they were "cleared with no hazardous material found." Authorities have not indicated a connection to race in the spate of bomb threats, and police said the incident did not appear targeted at Emhoff, who was visiting Dunbar for a Black History Month event. But the incidents have further raised fears among Black communities already rattled by a series of bomb threats made recently to at least a dozen historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs, nationwide. Washington police say they are investigating this week's threats to Dunbar, considered the first high school for Black Americans in the United States, and the other schools.
According to an article in 1 News, survivors abused at the St John of God Brothers in Christchurch began giving evidence at the Abuse in Care Royal Commission last week. The hearing will run over six days in Tāmaki Makaurau, with the Catholic church acknowledging the offending there against disabled boys was statistically more serious than any other Catholic institutions, with 144 people reporting abuse. It was just before Donald Ku's 10th birthday that he was taken to Marylands School, 48 years later he finally had a chance to speak out about the horrific abuse he suffered over four years. “You say after a while I started to adapt to the sexual things that happened at Marylands I was threatened by Brother [Bernard] McGrath to keep quiet about what was going on… once he took you to the hospital morgue as a way of silencing you,” Ku said. The St John of God order’s Australian leaders acknowledge brother Bernard McGrath as one of Australasia’s worst child sex offenders. Twenty-five other Brothers and employees had allegations of abuse made against them too.