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.

AUSTRALIA

CompliSpace to sponsor Best First Nations Education Program

According to The Educator, 16 March marked National Close the Gap Day, an annual event aimed at bringing awareness to the gap in health, education, and employment outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Established in 2008 by the Federal Government, the Closing the Gap framework aims to achieve equality for Indigenous Australians in each of these critical areas by 2031. This year, the Australian Education Awards is introducing the new category of Best First Nations Education Program, which recognises schools that have fostered positive physical and mental health for Indigenous students. CompliSpace will be sponsoring the new award. “We are proud to support the inaugural Best First Nations Education Program award,” Rachel Partis, Head of Customer at CompliSpace, said. “This award shines a light on the many creative and meaningful programs that nurture First Nations identity and culture to provide quality education in an inclusive environment.”

Maitland high school brawl results in teacher's arrest, charged over alleged assault

ABC News reports that a brawl at a New South Wales school has ended with a teacher charged with allegedly assaulting a student. NSW Police said that the male teacher, 62, was arrested after an incident at Maitland Grossmann High School in the Hunter Valley on Tuesday afternoon. Video footage filmed by a student appears to show the teacher and students hurling paper at each other before a school desk appears to be thrown at the older man. He can also allegedly be seen grabbing a student by his shirt collar. The footage includes yelling and screaming as the school bell rings to signal the end of the class: "Phones down, that's enough," the teacher can be heard as students filmed. A teenage boy was assessed at the scene by paramedics, but was not physically injured. The teacher has been granted conditional bail and is due to appear before Maitland Local Court on 6 April.

NRMA delivers bus safety program for young students in NSW

According to Insurance Business Australia, NRMA Insurance (NRMA) has extended its partnership with the NSW police and local community organisations to promote safe school travel. The partnership focuses on kindergarten students, helping them stay safe when travelling to and from school through the annual bus safety program. This year, NRMA and the police and bus companies in NSW delivered the program in local communities, reaching 33 schools and over 1,400 schoolchildren in Wagga Wagga, Narrandera, Young, Forbes, Parkes and Cowra. Local NRMA proprietor Sarah Wardman said that the program is essential for children travelling for the first time. “We are proud to organise a program with our community partners that is helping young children learn about the potential dangers when travelling in a vehicle or crossing the road,” she said. Focusing on road safety, NRMA has also released some road safety tips for young drivers.

Victoria banned ChatGPT in state schools. But Catholic schools took a surprising stance

The Age reports that Catholic schools in Melbourne are being encouraged to harness artificial intelligence (AI) writing tool ChatGPT for teaching and assessment instead of banning it, as state schools have, while some educators argue that its inclusion in schools is inevitable. The Victorian Education Department put an interim ban on ChatGPT because the software’s terms of use had said that users must be 18 years old, but the minimum age was recently reduced to 13. But Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS) has advocated for utilising AI in education, encouraging teachers to embrace the chatbot and noting that students already use AI in their daily lives. “With greater teacher understanding and supported experimentation, governed by good policy to manage risks, AI could potentially improve teaching for stronger thinking and deeper learning,” Danielle Purdy, general manager of learning technologies at MACS, wrote on the organisation’s website.

Positive masculinity program at Brighton Grammar School aims to create respectful men

ABC News reports that for more than a decade, an all-boys school in Melbourne's leafy south-east has worked to create a program to develop its students into "respectful men." Brighton Grammar School's positive masculinity program, +M, has been developed with mental health experts and was designed to shape perceptions of manhood. Most recently, the school has worked with American-based researcher and director of the California State University's Centre for Men and Boys Matt Englar-Carlson. Dr Englar-Carlson said that there were a lot of buzzwords around masculinity, but the movement was focused around "healthy and adaptive" elements that needed to be cultivated in boys. One of the main concerns, according to Dr Englar-Carlson, was creating spaces where boys could be vulnerable. Brighton Grammar School principal Ross Featherston said that in his experience, boys generally wanted to talk about what it meant to be a man.

Victorian schools urged to apply insect sprays after third death from mosquito-borne disease

The Age reports that schools in regional Victoria have been urged to hire pest controllers to kill mosquitos after months of wet weather led to a rise in mosquito populations and mosquito-borne diseases, especially in the north. The strengthened safety advice came as the state recorded its third death this mosquito season from Murray Valley encephalitis, a virus that had not been detected in Victoria since 1974 until a woman died of the disease last month. The Education Department wrote to high-risk schools asking them to seek professional help to apply insect sprays to areas where mosquitoes were likely to rest, such as thick shrubs and building eaves, and to make insect repellent available to staff and students. It has offered funding to 500 high-risk schools, early childhood centres and camp providers to cover the cost of spraying. Schools have also been advised to move activities indoors if mosquitoes are active.

Australian Catholic University survey reveals rise in attacks on school principals by parents and kids

According to The Courier Mail, more than one in four Queensland school principals were physically attacked last year, while nearly a third were the victims of bullying. And, shockingly, it was parents who were often the perpetrators. A survey of principals found that nearly 47 per cent suffered physical violence and 53 per cent threats of violence in 2022. Around 2500 principals across the country took part in the Australian Catholic University’s annual Australian Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey. It found that physical violence, unpleasant teasing and cyber bullying were at their highest levels since the survey began 12 years ago. The survey found that one in 10 independent principals nationally were subjected to offensive behaviour, compared to one in five Catholic school leaders and half of government principals.

Queensland private schools under review after controversial sexuality contracts

The Age reports that Queensland school accreditation rules will be reviewed after controversy surrounding a Christian college’s gender and sexuality contracts. The State Government has appointed Cheryl Vardon to lead the independent review of the accreditation framework for non-state schools in Queensland. It comes after Brisbane’s Citipointe Christian College made national headlines when it sent parents gender and sexuality contracts for students. The contracts demanded that families denounce homosexuality and that students identify by their birth gender or risk being excluded from the school. The review will also consider whether accreditation and eligibility criteria “reflect and meet government, community and stakeholder expectations”. The rules for state schools in Queensland and non-state schools in other jurisdictions will be considered, as will other reviews, reforms and inquiries, such as the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Queensland schools aren't required to notify families if a student tests positive for COVID-19. Should they be?

ABC News reports that a Queensland father is upset that his son's school fails to notify parents about COVID-19 cases despite sending out alerts for head lice infestations and chicken pox infections. Govinda Lange, whose son Zen attends Ironside State School at St Lucia in Brisbane's west, informed the school about the eight-year-old testing positive for COVID-19 last month. He was disappointed when the school did not tell other parents of children in Year 3 about the case. "It just denies us the opportunity to make an informed decision about how we want to protect our children and ourselves," Mr Lange said. Guidelines vary from state-to-state about whether principals are expected to advise parents and staff about COVID-19 cases in their schools. In a statement, the Queensland Education Department said that if students or staff were unwell, they were told not to attend school, and that included if they had chickenpox or COVID-19.

New funding for work with at-risk children and their families in South Australia

The Government of South Australia has committed an additional $16.6 million to South Australia’s child protection system with a focus on best practice approaches to keep children safe within their family unit and Aboriginal-led initiatives that will provide the foundations for transformational change. Recognising the unacceptable over representation of Aboriginal children in care and the commitment of all jurisdictions to do better, the investment will include targeted efforts to support Aboriginal children and their families to stay together, through Aboriginal-led decision-making for Aboriginal children, young people, families and communities. The State Government is also committing $3.2 million to establish an independent Aboriginal community controlled peak body designed to empower the Aboriginal community to ensure that measures are in place to improve care and protection outcomes for Aboriginal children and young people.

Better supervision of high school outing could have prevented student Adriaan Roodt's death, ACT coroner finds

ABC News reports that inadequate supervision has been blamed for the death of a 17-year-old Canberra boy during a school activity on Mount Ainslie five years ago. Adriaan Roodt suffered catastrophic head injuries when a large log fell on his head while he and several others were playing a game of Capture the Flag. Adriaan died later in hospital. Coroner James Stewart detailed how the boys had been in a place out of sight of the teachers supervising the game when they began to try to lift the log. But Coroner Stewart stopped short of blaming the teachers, instead taking aim at the ACT's Education Directorate for not maintaining adequate policies, procedures and training for teachers in safety risk analysis. "There was an almost impossible maze of policy for the teachers to navigate," Coroner Stewart said. He also noted that there were too few staff to supervise the game and that there was insufficient access, training and compliance checking on the policies that were in place.

Racism is “everywhere”, reveals report based on survey of children and young people in the ACT

ABC News reports that the ACT's young people have experienced racism not just from their peers but also from their teachers, according to a new report. Released by the ACT Human Rights Commission, the report was put together based on survey results from over 2,000 young people aged up to 24. The report includes descriptions from survey participants, who detail their experiences with discrimination. The report also found that students felt scared to go to school because of the racism they were enduring. Some students said that because schools would sometimes simply urge them to ignore racism and bullying, instead of taking further action, the situation would escalate and become violent. The Commission concluded, "Schools and sporting bodies should be required to develop and implement anti-racism policies and procedures, in consultation with children and young people, and people with lived experiences of racism."

INTERNATIONAL

Australia to protect schools, children affected by war (International)

According to yahoo!news, armed groups that attack schools will be prosecuted by Australian military forces as part of their endorsement of an international schools protection pact. Australia joins 116 other countries that have formally endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration. As part of the declaration, military policies and measures will be put in place to ensure that education continues for all children during war. This includes investigating attacks and prosecuting those responsible, and discouraging the use of schools for military purposes. Schools in war-affected countries were subject to more than 5000 attacks in 2020 and 2021, according to the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA). With the International Safe Schools Conference to take place in Malaysia this year, Human Rights Watch (HRW) is expecting Australia to encourage other countries to commit to the pact.

More than a hundred people arrested over suspected Iran schoolgirl poisonings (Iran)

SBS News reports that Iranian police say that 110 suspects have been arrested in connection with the suspected poisoning of thousands of girls in schools across the country. Students say that they have been sickened by noxious fumes in incidents dating back to November that have mainly occurred in girls' schools. Authorities say that they are investigating but there has been no word on who might be behind the incidents or what – if any – chemicals have been used. Iran has heavily restricted independent media and arrested dozens of journalists since the outbreak of country-wide anti-government protests last September, following the death of Mahsa Amini. An MP on a government panel investigating the incidents said earlier this month that as many as 5000 students have complained of being sick in 230 schools across 25 provinces.

Teacher censured after asking students to apprehend egg-throwing intruders (New Zealand)

According to rnz.co.nz, New Zealand’s Teachers’ Disciplinary Tribunal has found a senior teacher guilty of serious misconduct after asking two students to apprehend egg-throwing intruders on his school's grounds. The incident was part of a long-running rivalry between two South Island boys' schools, and left one of the intruders with a broken collarbone. The tribunal said that a "red mist" descended on Justin Fowler, the then-assistant principal and director of boarding at a school in Oamaru, when he saw people throwing eggs at vehicles and buildings at the school in June 2020. In the resulting pursuit, one of his students tackled an 18-year-old, breaking the man's collarbone. Police referred the student to its youth aid section for assault, along with the intruder. The tribunal said that Fowler accepted wrongdoing but did not accept that his actions were serious misconduct.