A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Corey Bloomfield, CQUniversity Australia These long summer holidays may seem like an extra blessing to families who are dealing with a child who does not like school or who refuses to go. But even as January stretches out in front of us, parents will no doubt be thinking about the challenge of getting their child [...]
Nina Van Dyke, Victoria University and Fiona MacDonald, Victoria University As children return to classrooms for 2024, school communities will be confronting bullying in person and via technology. In-person bullying and cyberbullying affect significant numbers of children and young people in Australia and around the world. The eSafety Commission recently revealed a 40% jump in [...]
Jenny Gore, University of Newcastle and Drew Miller, University of Newcastle Australian schools are facing unsustainable pressures. There are almost daily reports of too many students falling behind and not enough teachers to teach them. Meanwhile, the teachers we do have are stressed, overworked and lack adequate support in the classroom. Governments are well aware [...]
Dr Andrew Deuchar Australia has been in the grip of a crisis in public education for well over a decade. Teachers are burnt out and leaving the profession in large numbers. Enrolments in teaching courses have dropped and many students who start courses are not finishing their degrees. Many attempts to fix public education [...]
Maria Nicholas, Deakin University; Andrew Skourdoumbis, Deakin University, and Ondine Bradbury, Monash University Earlier this month, the New South Wales government announced it would roll out programs for gifted students in every public school in the state. This comes amid concerns gifted school students are not achieving their potential. A previous review in 2019 estimated [...]
Associate Professor Suzanne Rice, Dr Alice Garner and Professor Lorraine Graham Australia’s teaching workforce doesn’t reflect the diversity of our population. That means too many Australian children are missing out on the opportunity to be taught by someone who looks like them. Only one per cent of teachers report a disability – compared with 18 [...]
Peter Anderson, Griffith University; Kerrie Mengersen, Queensland University of Technology; Owen Forbes, Queensland University of Technology, and Zane M. Diamond, Monash University Every year, NAPLAN tests are used to see how Australian students are tracking in reading, writing and maths. And every year, we see analysis that Indigenous students are lagging behind their non-Indigenous [...]
Melissa Cain, Australian Catholic University and Melissa Fanshawe, University of Southern Queensland About 90% of Australian students with disability attend mainstream schools. Equitable access and participation in education is a fundamental human right. But as last year’s disability royal commission found, this does not mean students with disability are fully included in their classrooms, school [...]
Nigel Howard, Flinders University and Andrew Bills, Flinders University Earlier this month, the ABC reported an alarming national poll about school refusal. Of the 1,000 parents surveyed by the Greens-commissioned poll, 39% agreed or strongly agreed their child had experienced school refusal in the past year. School refusal is already on the radar for policymakers. [...]
Josh Ambrosy, Federation University Australia Each year in Victoria, thousands of students disengage from school between the start of Year 9 and the end of Year 12. Many are expelled or suspended. Others simply switch off in class, skip lessons, or quit school to seek out different educational and training pathways. Whatever the reason, many [...]
