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 more than four in five teachers and principals in Australian government schools say NAPLAN has failed to improve student outcomes and raised stress and anxiety in the classroom. With education ministers set to meet last Friday to debate overhauling NAPLAN, the Australian Education Union released results from a survey of more than 12,000 members that found overwhelming antipathy to the standardised test. Seventy-five per cent of them said NAPLAN was not an effective measure of school performance or an effective way to compare schools. The teachers' union called for NAPLAN to be dumped. Three states including Victoria commissioned a breakaway review of NAPLAN last year, arguing it is no longer fit for purpose. The AEU has already stated its opposition to overhauling NAPLAN, preferring to see it dumped entirely. Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan wants states to persevere with NAPLAN, arguing they should see through the transition to an online test before changing it.
According to a media release from the Assistant Minister for Finance, Charities and Electoral Matters, the Federal Government has released a discussion paper on a proposed cross-border recognition model, as a step on the path towards fundraising harmonisation and red-tape reduction for the charitable sector. The release of the discussion paper builds on work across jurisdictions to cut red tape for charities, including streamlining requirements for charities with state reporting obligations so charities are only required to report once to the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission (ACNC) in participating jurisdictions, and encouraging the use of the charity passport to reduce the requirement of charities to report to multiple regulators. Under the cross-border recognition model, a charity already registered with the ACNC would be deemed to hold a local fundraising authority in each participating state or territory. More information about the consultation process is on the New South Wales Fair Trading Consultation Page. Submissions will be open until 18 September 2020.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a number of powerful interest groups have declared support for One Nation leader Mark Latham's Bill to amend the state's discrimination laws in favour of religious freedom. But other church groups, as well as the peak body promoting diversity in Australian workplaces, have condemned the Bill, arguing it would permit vilification and harassment in the name of faith and prevent firms from fostering "inclusive cultures". The comments are contained in submissions to a state Parliamentary inquiry which are yet to be published but have been obtained by The Sun-Herald. Mr Latham's Bill would explicitly make it unlawful for a person to be discriminated against on the basis of their religion, bringing NSW into line with other states. However, it would also go much further, protecting people such as former rugby union player Israel Folau from adverse action by employers for comments made outside the workplace that are motivated by religious belief. The Parliamentary inquiry is ongoing and will hold public hearings before the Bill is voted upon.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the number of students with disabilities in the public education system is predicted to grow by 50 per cent in the decade to 2027, and they will need twice as many specialist teachers and thousands more support classrooms. Six new special needs schools will also have to be built every year if diagnosis and enrolment rates continue and policy settings do not change, modelling by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) for the NSW Department of Education found. The confidential report, obtained under freedom of information laws, prompted mental health experts to call for a major investment in disability support staff, training and resources for schools, saying teachers are not equipped to respond. Vicki Gibbs from Autism Spectrum Australia (Aspect) said diagnosis rates in children have climbed since the late 2000s when criteria changed and awareness grew. Professor Mark Dadds, a world-renowned expert in child behaviour disorders, said diagnosis rates were unlikely to go down. If children are taught in mainstream classrooms, each school should have in-house psychologists and behavioural experts.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that schools should not be left to become a de facto health system to meet the increasingly complex physical and mental needs of students, a leading professor has warned. Commenting on the trend for schools to hire their own health workers, Professor Ian Hickie said NSW Health and the Department of Education must work better together so teachers could focus on educating children. "[Teachers have] become pastoral, they've become parental; social workers, psychologists, neuroscientists," he told a NSW Teachers' Federation inquiry into the changing role and responsibilities of educators over the past 15 years. Many students with complex needs – particularly in disadvantaged areas – are not accessing the support they need off campus, so some public and private schools are using discretionary funds to provide those services. Professor Hickie, co-director of the University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Centre, acknowledged these services were needed, but said schools should not have to fill the gap and urged the health and education departments to liaise more effectively.
The Age reports that a slow and staggered return to school is the way to go, say Victoria's education unions, as thousands of students still face uncertainty as to whether they will return to school this year. Under the government's road map to reopening the state, childcare is back on for all parents from the end of the month, preps to grade 2 and senior students return to school in October, but grade 3 to year 10 students will continue with remote learning. In metropolitan Melbourne, from the week beginning October 12, the students returning to school are: prep, grade 1, grade 2, year 11, year 12, year 10s studying VCE or VCAL subjects and children at specialist schools. In regional Victoria, all students - from prep to year 12 - will return to school the week of October 12. Students from grade 3 to year 10 in metropolitan Melbourne will continue remote learning. There is a potential for a staggered return for those year levels from October 26 if there was an average of less than five new cases day, according the government's road map.
The ABC News reports that the Queensland Government has quietly waived its tough coronavirus border restrictions for boarding school students from interstate. The state's Chief Health Officer Jeanette Young granted travel exemptions for students who hail from areas of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) with no active COVID-19 cases. The move, made on Sunday, allows students to reunite with their families without mandatory hotel quarantine, almost two months after the Queensland Government declared all of NSW a coronavirus hotspot. However, boarders are required to "not leave the boundary of their primary place of residence" and are allowed no visitors while they are there. Dr Young wrote to Department of Education director-general Tony Cook to flag the exemption for "primary and secondary boarding school students" and their parents or guardians, in a letter published on a government website. Dr Young said students and their parents or guardians did not need to complete a Queensland border declaration pass when travelling to the state. But they must carry a letter from a school confirming enrolment, and a statutory declaration from the parent or guardian that the student's home was in an area with no active cases. They would also need to prove they had complied with all conditions, and have identification for both the student and parents or guardians.
The ABC News reports that boarding school students are facing the "dramatic situation" of not knowing when next they will see their parents, locked out by state border closures for the school holidays. Australian Boarding Schools Association CEO, Richard Stokes, said most of the 491 students who go to boarding school in Queensland, but live in New South Wales, will not be allowed to return back to school after the holidays without isolating for 14 days. Mr Stokes said a blanket arrangement is being called for that looks after boarding school students and does not rely on individual applications for exemption. Mr Stokes said because parents are not allowed to come and get their children from school, the association is putting forth suggestions to Queensland Health, such as a border bus. Claire Butler is the President of the Isolated Children's Parents' Association NSW and said there needs to be some sort of essential travel criteria and there needs to be consistency. Peak bodies continue to liaise with Queensland Health and the State Education Department in an effort to extend the border bubble.
According to an article in The Conversation, the messages to stay safe during the pandemic are essential, but there are a couple of things we need to make sure of when communicating advice to children. First, they must be educated as well as informed. For example, children may be told to wash their hands without being educated about how it helps their personal safety. Knowing the how and why of health behaviours develops children’s health literacy and increases their likelihood of adopting the behaviour. Second, children need the opportunity to ask questions and have them answered by experts in ways they can understand. This is where formal COVID briefings for children could help. A televised COVID briefing with a multidisciplinary panel of experts would not only satisfy children’s right to access quality knowledge, but also create an enduring, age-appropriate resource to help schools, teachers and the wider community into the future.
According to 7news, a Victorian boy has reportedly become the first Australian child to be diagnosed with a rare inflammatory illness associated with COVID-19. A nine-year-old has been diagnosed with the severe immune response syndrome, Paediatric Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome (PIMS-TS), The Age reported. Safer Care Victoria (SCV) issued an alert on Thursday to confirm cases of PIMS-TS had been reported in children in Victoria. “PIMS-TS has been described in children in areas with high incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Case incidence has been noted to increase in the months after COVID-19 peaks,” it said. “There are likely to be further – albeit rare – cases of PIMS-TS in Australia in areas with higher SARS-CoV-2 transmission. “PIMS-TS occurs two to six weeks after infection with SARS-CoV-2,” it added. SCV said the median age is nine years and “it is more common in boys, those of ethnicities other than Anglo-European, and obese children”. The initial infection may also be asymptomatic.
The Educator reports that a new study has found that 40 per cent of private school parents are “very satisfied” with their children’s schooling – eight per cent above the national average (32 per cent) for all school types. The Parents Report Card, released by Futurity, surveyed more than 1,800 parents (Government, Catholic and Independent) on the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic to capture perceptions about the state of education in Australia. The research discovered parents across each sector type reported similar levels of satisfaction, with 85 per cent of parents who send their children to Independent schools being either “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their children’s schooling. This was just ahead of parents who send their children to Catholic schools (84 per cent), while 77 per cent of parents who send their children to public schools are either “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their children’s schooling. The 2020 survey shows that parents who have children in independent schools generally consider their spending on tuition costs to be good value for money.
The New York Times reports that, as schools around the country debate how to reopen safely, a growing number of Catholic schools — already facing declining enrolments and donations from before the pandemic — are shutting down for good. About 150 Catholic schools have closed, said Kathy Mears, the director of the National Catholic Educational Association, equal to about 2 percent of the 6,183 schools that were up and running last year. The number of closures is at least 50 percent higher this year than in previous years, Ms. Mears said. Enrolment at Catholic schools in the United States peaked at 5.2 million nationwide in the early 1960s, according to the National Catholic Educational Association. But as the percentage of practising Catholics has declined across the United States, so has the number of children enrolling in Catholic schools. Enrolment for the 2019-20 school year was down to about 1.7 million.
The CBC reports that, in a precedent-setting ruling, an Ontario Superior Court judge has sided with a parent who wants her son to return to school over the objections of the child's father, who insisted the child take his classes online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Justice Andrea Himel heard motions related to the case dubbed Chase v Chase in the Newmarket Courthouse north of Toronto in mid-August and ruled in favour of the mother the week before last. The ruling, the first of its kind in Ontario since the pandemic began, comes as family lawyers tell CBC News that many estranged couples are bringing up the question of who decides whether their kids go back to school or distance learn. They say that threatens to tax a family court system already under strain due to delays caused by COVID-19. In her ruling, Justice Himel reminded parents that there are other tools to resolve such disputes and that they should exhaust those before heading to court.
The Times Educational Supplement reports that boarding pupils from overseas are looking to the United Kingdom as a safer option than the US or Australia, according to leading figures in the sector. Barnaby Lenon, chair of the Independent Schools Council (ISC), said there was "growing interest" among families of overseas pupils in China about securing boarding places in the UK, because of the "serious" nature of the pandemic elsewhere. “I’ve spoken to agents in China this week who said that there’s growing interest in students coming back to the United Kingdom," he said. "And that’s partly because quite a lot of them actually went to schools in America and Australia, where COVID is still quite serious. "It’s still quite serious in the UK as well – but if there was no COVID in America then the situation would no doubt be worse for us." This is more positive news for independent schools, which were forecasting a disaster at the start of lockdown but now report a "fresh wave of enthusiasm" sparked by positive experiences of remote learning.