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

Teacher woes create student underclass

According to The Australian, overworked and poorly trained teachers have produced a growing underclass of struggling students, a damning inquiry has found. Too many students are reaching Year 9 with a primary school-level reading ability – lagging five years of learning behind their high-performing classmates – and one in three pupils is skipping 10 per cent of classes, the Productivity Commission reveals in a new report. More scrutiny of how schools spend their money, and a focus on student welfare, are recommended to boost academic results. Improving the quality of university degrees in teaching “should be a permanent priority’’, the Productivity Commission states in its interim report on the National School Reform Agreement. Student mental health is a focus of the report, which says that federal, state and territory governments should measure student wellbeing under its next National School Reform Agreement.

Contact sports put children at greater risk of fatal brain disease

According to The Educator, Australia’s major sporting codes are being asked to ban heading and tackling in children’s sports until they are 14 years old to protect the brain while it is still developing. Dr. Chris Nowinski – a former college football player and professional wrestler turned neuroscientist – said that children exposed to repeated blows to the head are at risk of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which can lead to behavioural and mood problems. It has become so prevalent in the country that the Australian Sports Brain Bank found that 12 of the 21 athletes it had examined since its inception in 2018 showed signs of CTE. Left without treatment, an increasing number of them end up being diagnosed with early onset dementia in care homes. In worst cases, it could result in suicide – half of these identified athletes with CTE were reported to have died by suicide. “No sport should accept repetitive head impacts before the age of 14,” Nowinski told The Sydney Morning Herald.

New resources to support children and students with disability

According to the Australian Government, informative new resources, co-designed by young people with disability and their carers, have been launched to help people with disability to access education and training on the same basis as their peers. The practical, easy-to-use resources will help students and young people with disability and their carers navigate the Disability Standards for Education 2005 (Standards) and the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth). The resources will help students and all young people with disability and their carers understand their rights to do with education and how to exercise those rights. All education providers must meet the Standards – ensuring that the rights of children under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) are respected. The Australian Government worked with Children and Young People with Disability Australia to develop and deliver the important tools.

Updates for the 2022 and 2023 NSW HSC

According to the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA), NESA’s Continuity of Education Committee has decided to withdraw NESA’s COVID-smart protocols for the 2022 HSC written exams, in line with the ongoing easing of COVID-19 restrictions. Schools will follow their school sector and system protocols and general NSW Health advice. The Committee is also extending flexibility for school-based assessments to principals with Year 12 students starting HSC courses in Term 4 2022 and sitting the corresponding sitting HSC written exams in 2023. This means that principals can decide on the number, type and weighting of assessments. For more information, visit NESA’s COVID advice page.

NSW COVID-19 accreditation extensions end soon

According to the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA), to help teachers during the pandemic, NESA provided automatic accreditation extensions. These extensions will end 23 September 2022 for teachers who are maintaining or working towards Proficient Teacher accreditation and are overdue or due up to 22 September 2022, or early childhood teachers whose first maintenance of accreditation was initially due 17 July 2021. NESA will continue to delay ceasing or suspending accreditation for any teachers who are overdue for as long as reasonably possible. Visit the NESA website for extensive support and advice on maintaining and achieving Proficient Teacher accreditation.

Record enrolments across NSW Islamic schools push cap limits

According to The Educator, independent school enrolments continue to surge across New South Wales, with as many as 20,000 students in the state’s 22 Islamic schools. According to The Association of Independent Schools of NSW, Islamic school enrolments have gone up from 5.4 per cent, back when there were only 18 Islamic schools in 2011, to 9 per cent in 2022. While Islamic schools only make up 0.56 per cent of NSW’s independent colleges, they accounted for a sizeable 18.4 per cent of all additional enrolments in 2021 across the sector. For instance, NSW’s largest Islamic school – Al-Faisal College – has increased in popularity with parents after it was ranked as the 26th best performing school in the HSC in the State. Principal Safia Khan Hassanein said that although she is thankful that Australia upholds the freedom of religion in education, the school is forced to turn students away because of the strict enrolment cap.

Experts slam NSW school’s fingerprint technology to stop vandalism

According to The Educator, Moorebank High School in NSW implemented a controversial biometric system in June, requiring students to scan their fingerprints before accessing the toilets to prevent vandalism and track it should it occur – a move that experts criticised as an “invasion of privacy.” Students were asked to provide fingerprint information for the system, with almost 1,000 having already done so. Principal Vally Grego said that the system was introduced in response to the thousands of dollars that Moorebank High School spends on restoring vandalised bathrooms on an annual basis. A spokesperson for the Department of Education clarified that the fingerprint system is not mandatory. Students who wish to access the toilets can opt to pick up an access pass from the office. The situation doesn’t fare well for privacy experts, who claim that the move contributes to the normalisation of surveillance on school grounds.

Young man appears to impersonate student at Victorian high school

According to the Herald Sun, a Melbourne school has launched an investigation after a video of a young man impersonating a student and attending classes in uniform appeared on social media. The school is looking into the incident and will strengthen its security. The clip shows the male dressed in full school uniform. “I pretended to be a student at my friend’s school,” it read. The clip shows the hoax student sitting in class taking notes and walking around the playground. The #sneakingin hashtag is popular among students, who are posting videos of themselves sneaking into schools and other public places. Susan McLean, cyber safety expert, said that the clip “raises a whole range of serious issues, not the least the safety of the students”. A Victorian Department of Education spokesperson said that the school was “aware of and investigating this incident and will review and strengthen its processes to ensure any unauthorised person is not present on school grounds”.

Child Protection Week 2022 draws to a close

According to Queensland Police Bundaberg, as National Child Protection Week has drawn to a close, it is a timely reminder to talk about child protection. The theme for this year’s events was “Protecting Children Is Everybody’s Business.” The goals of Child Protection Week are to raise the profile of all issues connected with child protection, including child abuse prevention, treatment, research, education, service provision and support; create a state-wide umbrella focus for child protection allowing government and non-government agencies to present a cooperative and coordinated community oriented campaign; support and value professionals and volunteer child protection workers by providing ‘best practice’ training and a forum to exchange ideas and information; and offer a framework to recognise advances in the field, and thereby contribute to better outcomes for all children and young people, especially those who have been harmed or are at risk of harm.

South Australia strives to provide autism teachers in every primary school by 2023

According to The Educator, instead of sorting out people on the spectrum to special schools, the South Australian Government will place a specialist autism teacher in every government primary school in the State by 2023. The $28.8 million program came to fruition after the recent appointment of Emily Bourke as Australia’s first autism minister. This follows new research from the University of South Australia showing that parents lack awareness on the specific learning needs of autistic children. Each school will receive guidelines on how to choose an autism inclusion teacher by November. Once selected, they will undergo more training to grow each school’s capacity to work with children with autism in time for when Term 1 starts. It is estimated that one in 100 people in Australia have autism. However, the Australian Education Union found that 83 per cent of principals said that they don’t have enough resources to meet the needs of students with disability at their school.

Western Australia joins other states in combatting period poverty with free sanitary products

According to The Educator, Western Australia is the latest state to offer free pads and tampons to secondary female students from Years 7 to 12. The topic of menstrual health is often underdiscussed in reproductive health education, even more so with the real-life problem of period poverty. It’s an issue where low-income women cannot afford or gain access to sanitary products that are otherwise essential to maintaining bodily hygiene. The term also refers to the increased economic vulnerability that women face from the financial burden imposed by menstrual supplies. Offering free sanitary products won’t just help with expenses but will also keep students engaged in school without having to worry about the next month’s cycle. Simone McGurk, Minister for Women's Interests, told ABC News, "For too long, girls and young women have felt embarrassed [and] they often haven't had access to the products they've needed."

INTERNATIONAL

Queen Elizabeth II: GPs to close and schools advised to for funeral (Northern Ireland)

BBC News reports that GPs in Northern Ireland will close and schools have been advised to shut on Monday, the day of Queen Elizabeth II's funeral. Monday 19 September is the day of the Queen's state funeral and will be a bank holiday in the UK. Schools in England, Scotland and Wales are also expected to close. Schools in Northern Ireland had previously been told by the Department of Education (DE) that they could make a decision on whether to close. Education Minister Michelle McIlveen has now written to schools to update that guidance. Ms McIlveen said that the day of the Queen's funeral would be a day of national mourning and a bank holiday. "It is therefore now expected that schools should close on Monday 19 September 2022, observing the bank holiday. This will enable the paying of respects to Her Majesty and takes account of reduced public services on that date,” she said.

Child advocacy group warns of “no consequences” for Children's Act gaps (New Zealand)

According to stuff.co.nz, the chief executive of child protection charity Safeguarding Children has called for urgent changes to the New Zealand Children’s Act, which she claims leaves “unsafe people working with children.” Willow Duffy has spoken out to demand changes to the New Zealand Children’s Act as part of the charity’s “How Safe?” Child Safeguarding Week. She said that they have also launched a petition calling for changes to the Act to strengthen its legislative powers to safeguard and protect children. “The Children’s Act 2014 falls very short when it comes to providing a robust legislative framework for child safety,” she said. “There are no consequences for those who do not comply with the Children’s Act. Children deserve better than this.” Duffy said that New Zealand’s Child Safeguarding Week is an opportunity for people around New Zealand to focus on the safety of children and young people in Aotearoa.

Grade 1 teacher who said boys and girls no different in “gender fluidity” lesson cleared by rights tribunal (Canada)

According to the National Post, when a Grade One teacher at an Ottawa elementary school told her class about gender fluidity and that there was no such thing as boys and girls, Pam Buffone’s daughter was left confused and unsettled, the mother says. She and her husband eventually complained to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, alleging that the school had discriminated against the six-year-old based on her sex and gender identity. But a tribunal adjudicator has ruled that the Ottawa public-school board did not violate the girl’s rights with its gender-themed instruction, saying that there was no direct evidence that she was harmed by the material. It may mark the first legal ruling in Canada on what has become a hot-button issue: the appropriateness of teaching primary-aged school children about gender identity. Adjudicator Eva Nichols focused her decision on whether the girl had been the victim of discrimination, finding that this was not the case.