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

Children as young as six mimicking Squid Game in playground, school warns

The Age reports that a Sydney primary school has asked parents to make sure that their children do not watch the popular Netflix series Squid Game, which depicts “extreme violence and gore”, because students are mimicking the games in the playground. Similar warnings have been issued by schools in Perth, the United States, Britain, Asia and Europe about the South Korean show, which involves debt-ridden contestants playing life-or-death versions of playground games such as red light, green light. In Belgium, children at the municipal school of Erquelinnes Béguinage Hainaut have played versions of games from the show and are “beating up” the loser, the school warned on Facebook. Linda Wickham, the principal of Dulwich Hill Public School in Sydney, wrote to parents on Thursday saying children as young as six and seven have acknowledged they have watched the series, which is rated MA for mature adults. The principal asked parents to change their Netflix settings to prevent children from watching the program, and to monitor their children’s online activity closely.

Schools prioritise quality online safety education during the pandemic

According to an article from Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, almost a third of all Australian schools are using quality online safety education providers endorsed by the eSafety Commissioner, the federal online safety regulator, as reports of cyberbullying continue to surge during the pandemic. The Trusted eSafety Provider program, which is run by the eSafety Commissioner, helps schools find providers of evidence-based and curriculum-aligned online safety education programs. Ms Inman Grant said eSafety’s Trusted eSafety Provider program is designed to provide schools with confidence that the external online safety provider that they engage has met a range of mandatory requirements. “This makes it easier for schools to find and select an online safety education provider they can trust to deliver a good quality program,” Ms Inman Grant said. While most participants have been students, “parents and teachers have also taken part in the programs to learn about such topics as cyberbullying, image-based abuse, and respectful online relationships.”

Videogames or homework? Why not both, as ACMI has 75 game lessons for you to try

According to an article in The Conversation, Australia’s national museum for screen culture, ACMI, has released an online digital game-based learning lesson bank. Game Lessons offers digital games as lessons – 25 lesson plans comprising 75 digital lessons. These are created by expert teachers for K-12 levels and include areas such as the arts, humanities, sciences, literacy and capabilities such as ethics. To support these resources, ACMI also has professional development opportunities and peer to peer interactions in a [messaging platform] Slack community. Teachers are encouraged to pick and choose and adapt the most useful or inspirational aspects of the plans for their classrooms. Games such as the ones in the new ACMI resource can be seen as another tool in a teacher’s toolbox. The technology may be used as a stimulus for a main teaching activity, such as a writing task, in the same way a book, video, excursion or objects are currently used.

The great science hoax: When STEM doesn’t stack up

According to an article in The Australian Financial Review, for the vast majority of people enrolling in STEM at both the vocational and university level, their outcomes are less than stellar. Two recent federal government releases revealed significantly below average full-time employment rates and salaries for science and maths graduates, both four months and three years after graduation. A recent survey of professional scientists also listed various gripes with the sector, including widespread job insecurity, sexism, low workplace morale, fatigue, a gaping gender pay gap, dissatisfaction with remuneration rates, deprofessionalisation and cost-cutting. Matt Sigelman, chief executive of Burning Glass Technologies, a company focused on labour force data, said that hybrid jobs are growing at a much faster rate than STEM-specific jobs, and they pay significantly more. “The jobs of the future will be what we call hybrid jobs; those require both technical skills and strong foundational skills, such as writing, communication, collaboration, and creativity,” he said.

Asthma hospitalisation cuts high school completion rates

According to an article in The Educator, a new Macquarie University study has revealed that students who have been hospitalised for asthma have a significantly higher risk of not finishing Year 11 or 12. Asthma specialists recommend developing management plans for children with asthma, but the Macquarie University CareTrack Kids study in 2018 found that there was fairly limited uptake of this advice. “Care plans have been shown to work and could be being enacted for more children,” Associate Professor Rebecca Mitchell, of the Australian Institute of Health Innovation at Macquarie University said. “When they’re not, we can see here the potential effect on academic performance – and the potential ongoing effect on their lives due to reduced employment opportunities.” Assoc/Prof Mitchell said she is keen to further investigate early intervention strategies for asthma management to prevent poor outcomes from occurring. “Peer support, supplementary programs and extra tutoring could all be of benefit here,” she said.

Understanding school choice

According to a media release from Independent Schools Australia (ISA), their 2021 School Choice Research Report looks at the perspectives of around 2,000 parents of students at Independent, government and Catholic schools, in Australia. Margery Evans, CEO of ISA says “unsurprisingly, most parents want more from education than just academic results. They are looking for schools to play a part in their child’s personal development and provide skills that will be used throughout life.” The report found that an overwhelming 82 per cent of parents in the Independent sector said Independent schools have adapted well to the COVID-19 pandemic, and that they were unlikely to change the type of school their child(ren) attended. Over two-thirds of parents said good communication, moving quickly to online learning, the quality of remote learning programs and familiarity with technology, were integral to this. The main reasons for choosing independent schools were educational excellence, good teachers, good facilities and a supportive environment, and education delivered in line with their beliefs.

Judge dismisses challenges to NSW COVID-19 vaccination orders for workers

ABC News reports that a judge has dismissed two legal challenges to health orders requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for workers in NSW. The cases heard in the NSW Supreme Court involved 10 plaintiffs including workers in health, aged care, construction and education. All said their employment had been impacted by orders requiring vaccination to continue working. Each unvaccinated worker cited similar concerns about insufficient long-term data on COVID-19 vaccine safety and side effects. They commonly contended that the orders violated rights to bodily integrity and privacy, implemented civil conscription, represented a breach of natural justice and were made by Health Minister Brad Hazzard without clear legislative authority. Justice Robert Beech-Jones on Friday ruled that all grounds had failed. "The differential treatment of people according to their vaccination status is not arbitrary," Justice Beech-Jones wrote in his judgment. "The approach taken by the minister is very much consistent with the objects of the Public Health Act.”

No pay in 2022 for teachers who baulk at COVID vaccination

The Age reports that Victorian teachers who refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccination can take leave until the end of this term but will not be paid in any form after the 2022 school year starts. As the state prepares for the nation’s widest-reaching vaccine mandate to come into effect from Friday, school principals are also seeking clarification from the Andrews government on what to do if unvaccinated teachers attend campus despite the edict. Those who refuse to get vaccinated will be prevented from obtaining a worker permit and while Victoria’s uptake has been rapid, most sectors are preparing for a small number of hesitant employees to be absent from work on Monday. Employers are also navigating unfamiliar territory around leave arrangements and the potential termination of contracts. That includes the education sector, where government surveys suggest 98.4 per cent of teachers have had one dose.

Qld teen eating disorders exacerbated by secret clubs

The Courier Mail reports that dangerous “no-eating clubs’’ at Queensland primary schools are part of an escalation in eating disorders. Kids as young as seven are presenting with the life-threatening psychiatric disorder, with a fourfold increase in all cases since June 2020. The number of boys diagnosed with anorexia nervosa has also markedly increased over the past decade, increasing from about one in 20 cases, up to about one in five. The disorder can be lifelong but recovery is possible, dependent on early diagnosis and treatment. Well-meaning educational health programs taught at schools have also come under scrutiny. With a strong focus in recent years on the harmful effects of obesity, Dr Catania said children were being asked to measure their BMI (body mass index), their weight, keep food diaries and even do skinfold tests to determine body fat percentage in front of their classmates. For some kids, this has led to obsessive food behaviour.

Doctors to be stationed in 50 QLD schools

According to an article in The Educator, doctors will be stationed in 50 Queensland schools from May next year, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has announced. The pilot program, introduced by the Palaszczuk Government, is part of the government’s $100m student wellbeing program and aims to improve health care for young people across Queensland in the wake of the COVID-19 lockdowns. Education Minister Grace Grace said she expected all clinics to be up and running by May 2022 and that, “Providing students with access to timely healthcare, at no cost to them or their families, will have a positive impact on students’ health, mental health and their readiness and ability to engage at school, and we want to ensure as many students as possible can benefit.”

INTERNATIONAL

Texas school official says classrooms with books on Holocaust must offer ‘opposing’ views (United States of America)

The Guardian reports that a Texas school district official told educators if they kept books about the Holocaust in their classrooms, they would have to also offer “opposing” viewpoints to comply with a new state law. The new law requires teachers who discuss “widely debated and currently controversial issues of public policy or social affairs” to examine the issues from diverse viewpoints without giving “deference to any one perspective”. The district superintendent, Dr Lane Ledbetter, offered a “sincere apology” in a statement shared on Facebook, saying the district also understands the law does not require opposing viewpoints on historical facts. A district spokesperson told NBC News it was trying to help teachers comply with the legislation as educators were in “a precarious position with the latest legal requirements”. State education experts told NBC News that the bill does not deal with classroom libraries. The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, has said that law, HB 3979, is an effort to abolish critical race theory in schools.

Afghan refugee stabbed to death in London in front of schoolchildren (United Kingdom)

The Guardian reports that a teenage Afghan refugee was stabbed to death on a sports field in south-west London in front of schoolchildren playing rugby. The victim, named as 18-year-old Hazrat Wali, from Notting Hill, was attacked at about 4.45pm on Tuesday on Craneford Way, Twickenham, yards away from Richmond upon Thames College, which he attended. Despite the efforts of a teacher who provided CPR after he collapsed, Wali was pronounced dead in hospital shortly after. A murder investigation has been launched. Munira Wilson, Twickenham’s MP, said police, who were yet to make any arrests, were “pursuing a key suspect who is still at large”.