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 Age reports that the independent agency that monitors school funding says that public, Catholic and independent systems should be required to disclose how they distribute government funding to allow for more meaningful research into the relationship between funding and outcomes. The National School Resourcing Board said that its capacity to evaluate funding had been limited by a lack of data on how the school systems allocated funds to individual schools and how schools then spent that money. It recommended that future funding deals be tied to disclosure requirements. The Board said in a submission to the Productivity Commission: “There is no consistent transparent information currently provided by Australian governments or by the non-government sector that can be used to assess how school funding is being spent, or even how much funding each school actually receives.”
The Guardian asked readers to share their experiences of school refusal, the commonly used term for children who are so distressed by school that they are unable to attend. The Guardian heard from parents, carers, educators and wellbeing counsellors, and former students. Readers spoke of children whose ages ranged from kindergarten to high school – some are dealing with more than one child who can’t attend school. This is against a backdrop of both an education and mental health system under stress post-pandemic. In many instances, the distress about going to school originated with bullying; in others the issue was a system not catering to neurodiverse children. All readers were united by the experience of acute anxiety experienced by both children and families amid a crisis that has long-term impacts and for many, has no end in sight.
The Age reports that consent education for school children needs to be overhauled to include online dating, sexuality experts argue, after the extent of sexual assault of people using dating apps has been revealed. An Australian Institute of Criminology Data survey showed that almost three out of four dating app users have experienced technology-facilitated sexual abuse. Full Stop Australia chief executive officer Hayley Foster, whose organisation supports and advocates for victims, said that there was a “lack of accountability” perpetrated in online dating when people didn’t know someone personally. Sexuality education needed to encompass online dating, respectful relationships and image-based abuse, she said. Sex crimes prosecutor and consent expert Katrina Marson said that comprehensive relationships and sex education already look at online issues, but that there was no consistent program around the country.
According to The Australian, rather than greater screen time being the cause of their depression, struggling Australian teenage girls might be turning to digital media as a way to cope. A new study from the Black Dog Institute looks at the fast-rising rates of depression among Australian adolescents aged 12-18, particularly girls, and the impact of greater digital media use, concluding that the relationship is not as simple as many think. The report, Turning the Tide on Depression, found that an alarmingly high proportion are dealing with depression, with girls particularly affected. The study examined the potential role of digital media in depression, concluding that greater amounts of time spent on screens was linked with depression in teens, particularly girls. The report found that, “[r]ather than being a consequence of higher levels of screen time, depression may actually lead adolescents to engage in higher levels of screen use.”
The Guardian reports that the number of permanent teacher vacancies in New South Wales surged past 2,000 in July, with some schools looking for more than a dozen new staff amid an ongoing stoush between the union and the Government over pay and conditions. Union members rallied outside the Industrial Relations Commission on Wednesday as the Government attempts to push through a new three-year award. The president of the NSW Teachers Federation, Angelo Gavrielatos, said that the Government offer represented a real wages cut that would drive more people from the profession. “You can’t fix the teacher shortage problem without fixing the wages and workload problem,” Gavrielatos said. “Right now we have a crisis in our classrooms. Kids are missing out in public and private schools because of the shortages and teachers are burning out.”
The NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) is wishing all the best to the HSC Class of 2022, who started exams on Wednesday 12 October.
The key messages for exams remain:
According to the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA), during the summer school holiday closure period, a NESA Officer may need to contact your school for information if an issue arises with students' results, including VET competencies and Life Skills outcomes.
All schools can now identify their holiday contacts by logging into Schools Online:
It is preferred that two contacts are chosen per school.
The Guardian reports that a dire shortage of school counsellors means that New South Wales students are going without disability assessments and early interventions as staff scramble to triage the most serious cases, including suicide risks, sexual assaults and teen pregnancies. Department of Education figures reveal that there was one counsellor for every 650 students across the State in August, not accounting for staff on uncovered leave – meaning that the reality was far worse. The 2021 Gallop inquiry recommended that there be at least one school counsellor for every 500 students, “to address the significant increase in student mental health issues.” Exhausted counsellors, who have both a teaching and psychology degree, say that staff are quitting due to the high workload and intensity of consistently dealing with only the most critical cases. The Department has pledged that by June next year, every public high school will have a full-time school counsellor and a full-time student support officer.
The Age reports that students will no longer have to wear masks at school under new COVID-19 guidelines that started today [13 October 2022]. Other changes that came into effect at government schools when the pandemic declaration ended at midnight on Wednesday include vaccinations no longer being mandatory for staff or visitors, an end to physical distancing and the scrapping of alerts for parents over infections. While vaccination is no longer mandatory for staff or visitors at any Victorian school, including specialist schools, it is “strongly recommended” that staff and students keep up to date with COVID-19 jabs. Principals will also no longer be required to inform the school community if a positive case is associated with the school. From today, people will no longer have to isolate if they test positive to COVID-19.
The Age reports that vulnerable children who were abused in institutional care will be compensated for their trauma after the Victorian Government announced a long-awaited redress scheme yesterday. Premier Daniel Andrews announced that the Government would also deliver a formal apology to people who were placed in orphanages, children’s homes and missions and experienced physical, psychological and emotional abuse or neglect. The redress scheme will cover historical abuse cases from 1928 until 1990, when 90,000 Victorian children were placed in care. The Government said that it would invest $2.9 million to co-design the scheme alongside people with lived experience. The scheme will run for five years and will build on the National Redress Scheme available to abuse survivors, which was created after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
According to The Courier Mail, a top psychologist has renewed calls for Queensland to ban mobile phones in schools, in the wake of a spate of student fights promoted on social media. Videos of uniformed state school students have gone viral, while dedicated pages promoting the fights have popped up online. Leading psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg said that the schoolyard violence was a direct result of Queensland not banning mobile phones. Dr Carr-Gregg renewed his call for Queensland to follow Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania to ban mobile phones in state schools. However, a Department of Education spokesperson said that there were no plans to follow state counterparts. The spokesperson said that the use of mobile phones in schools had been at the centre of an anti cyber-bullying taskforce in 2018 that recommended that decisions on managing mobile phones in schools be made by principals.
The Queensland Government has delivered an updated and upgraded suite of resources for the delivery of respectful relationships education in Queensland schools, including a public online hub for families and students. New and strengthened information on concepts like consent education, reporting of sexual assault, ethical decision-making, coercive control, forms of abuse and drivers of gender-based violence have been incorporated into the new Respect program. The program will support teachers with the resources that they need to provide comprehensive, age-appropriate respectful relationships education. Education Minister Grace Grace said, “Queensland’s updated Respect materials are now available online in a Respectful Relationships Education hub, which also includes publicly available resources for parents and high school students. The Respect materials will be available for all schools – state, Catholic and independent.”
The Age reports that Western Australian schools will teach consent to students from pre-primary to Year 10 under an altered health and physical education curriculum revealed on Tuesday. The curriculum advances year by year until Year 10, when schools will be required to teach real-life scenarios where students learn strategies around seeking, giving and denying consent, including in sexual relationships. The nation’s education ministers endorsed the addition of mandated consent education in all State curriculums in April, with emphasis on coercion, power imbalances and gender stereotypes. Western Australian schools already teach consent on an ad hoc basis, but the curriculum changes will mean that health and physical education teachers must teach it in some form throughout the students’ schooling up to Year 10. Education Minister Sue Ellery said that the Government didn’t often mandate new subjects into the curriculum, but that the issue of consent was important.
The Guardian reports that three British teachers have been found not guilty of the equivalent of manslaughter by gross negligence after the death of a “beautiful and outgoing” 12-year-old pupil on a French school trip. Jessica Lawson died when a pontoon capsized in a lake in south-west central France. She was the youngest student on the trip in July 2015. At the Palais de Justice in Tulle recently, Steven Layne, Chantelle Lewis and Daisy Stathers were all cleared of any wrongdoing. Local prosecutors had argued that the trio deserved three years in jail for their part in the girl’s death. The lifeguard on duty at the time, Leo Lemaire, and the local authority in the town of Liginiac were also found not guilty. The trial heard how Lewis and Stathers began to “panic” after noticing that Jessica was missing. Layne said that he thought that the pontoon was a safety feature and saw no signs of distress when he looked at the lifeguard after it capsized.
According to The Washington Post, a growing number of states have adopted laws that let students take an excused absence if they feel anxious or depressed or need a day to “recharge.” The move is a recognition of a disquieting trend: In December 2021, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy declared a mental health crisis for American children, citing “an alarming number” of young people struggling with “feelings of helplessness, depression and thoughts of suicide.” Between March and October 2020, the percentage of children visiting the emergency room for mental health issues rose 31 per cent for children ages 12 to 17, according to the Children’s Hospital Association. Barb Solish, director of Youth and Young Adult Initiatives for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), said, “School policies that recognise mental health as an acceptable reason for absence can help students take the time they need to care for themselves and restore their health.”
ABC News reports that the school district in Uvalde, Texas, has suspended its entire police force pending the outcome of a probe into the mass shooting in May that killed 19 students and two teachers. In a statement, the district said that it had suspended all activities of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Department "for a period of time". The police force consisted of five officers and one security guard, according to its website. The district is awaiting the results of an investigation led by the Texas Police Chiefs Association and an outside firm into the shooting at Robb Elementary School, expected to be released later this month. School leaders also put two members of the district police department on administrative leave, one of whom chose to retire instead, according to a statement released by the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District. Remaining officers will be reassigned to other jobs in the district.