Educationreview

As parents and guardians, we place a lot of trust I teachers. Not only do we need to trust them for more pragmatic reasons like needing to return to work, but the idea of socialising a child hinges on the trust that a teacher – and by extension school leadership – can provide.As you can imagine, these issues of trust are compounded when you have a child with a disability, no matter how mild or serious it may be. This week the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability kicked off in Townsville, with a four- day hearing devoted to the educational experiences of children with a disability in Australia. In must be said from the outset, that well-trained, well-suited and supported mainstream teachers are doing incredible jobs in some parts of the country. Three north Queensland schools, in particular, have introduced policies of full educational inclusion, adjusting curriculum requirements and making students feel valued and welcome. However, as testimony after testim

Having been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, Samwise Holmes's high school years were characterised by relentless bullying, feeling isolated constantly and even having his head flushed down a toilet.But being subjected to such extensive and cruel bullying didn't defeat him. With the help of his partner Cynthia Guthrie, who was regularly bullied at school and experienced severe anxiety and depression, Samwise or Sam as he likes to be called has established a program to tackle the issue of bullying in an active and engaging way.Called Backflips Against Bullying, the program uses acrobatics and parkour (a sport involving obstacles, commando rolls and efficient ways to get from A to B) to engage K-12 students before getting them to understand the issue of bullying on a deeper level. The program has been successful, being performed in 150 schools in NSW already and there are plans afoot for national expansion. The Backflips Against Bullying programming supports the the anti-bullying curriculum developed by the N

Professor Pamela Snow is is the Head of the La Trobe Rural Health School and will soon become the Professor of Cognitive Psychology in the School of Education at La Trobe. In this podcast, Snow talks about how blended reading approaches, which are a mixture of whole language and phonics approach to reading, have become popular in many classrooms, yet they risk not providing vulnerable students with the foundation skills necessary to move on to more complex texts..The world-renowned reading expert also addresses the so-called Reading Wars, saying Whole Language approaches make sense to many teachers because reading is essentially about meaning-making. However, she also cautions that explicit phonics, vocabulary and comprehension instruction need to occur before such meaning-making can be realised by the student.While she agrees that some knowledge of reading instruction is helpful for secondary teachers, the aim should be that "95 per cent" of students have basic reading skills by the time they leave primary s

This week the NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell announced she wanted “an overhaul” of ATAR. Her decision was based on research showing the population has lost faith in it and it was causing students too much stress.AS 61,000 NSW students begin their HSC examinations, Mitchell said the way the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank is calculated should be discussed, as well as extra issues related to the test. The NSW Teachers Federation, however, disagrees with the idea of an overhaul, arguing “meddling” with it could advantage wealthy students and compromise the Higher School Certificate, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.Although the “tool” for university entry has been in use for decades, educators and other stakeholders argue that it encourages students to select subjects that will lift their rank, rather than ones they are talented at or find interesting. Secretary of the NSW Department of Education Mark Scott has been a critic of ATAR, calling it a “strait jacket around our kids”.Listen to the podcast

Dr Susan Long has taught in various roles, states and even countries since the 1980s. Her PhD focused on maths and science education and she is passionate about inspiring people who don’t necessarily aspire to become leaders in schools to do so. Currently she is head of innovation at a Catholic all-girls school in east Melbourne.In this podcast, Long emphasises wellbeing as the biggest challenge facing Australian schools, with many students suffering from mental illness and trauma, some of which is intergenerational.In regards to international tests such as PISA, Long recommends not getting too caught up in league tables and instead focusing on the information that can be gleaned from the tests. After all, in her words: "It's one test that students take when they're 15."She does mention, however, that there may be some lessons to be learnt from high-performing states such as the ACT, which she contends score around the top 10 per cent in such tests in the world.Long also presents evidence that the five-year b

A major story that emerged today appeared in The Age and is related to an earlier story we wrote on a maths teacher shortage in Australia. According to the article, far too many secondary school teachers who are unqualified to teach math, particularly in the senior years, are being forced to so.This trend has been witnessed by The Academy of Technology and Engineering, with the think tank warning that unqualified maths teachers are causing fewer VCE students to select maths in the senior years. Fewer than 10 per cent of VCE students took advanced maths in 2017, a 20-year low.Nationwide, the outlook isn’t much better – in 2017 there were only 9.4 per cent of Australian students enrolled in higher mathematics in Year 12 , the lowest recorded level in 20 years. Although recent data placed Australia above the OECD average in terms of mathematics, it was identified as one of 10 countries that experienced a steep decline in mathematical literacy between 2012 and 2015.Listen to the podcast for the full report.See om

Karen McDaid is an experienced Mathematics teacher and is now the Head of Department for Mathematics at Cluey Learning, an online tutoring service that provides personalised education in Mathematics, Chemistry, English and NAPLAN.In this podcast she provides teachers with some useful tips to share with their students when preparing for Year 11 and Year 12 exams. From compiling topic learning logs to handwriting formula sheets to better engage students' cognitive processing, Karen shares what works when preparing for high-stakes Mathematics tests.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A new report is proposing a rethink on how educators approach senior schooling and tertiary education, and calls ­for the ATAR to be supplemented with a more comprehensive “learning profile”.The Australian Learning Lecture (ALL) position paper, titled Beyond ATAR: A Proposal for Change, is the culmination of more than a year’s work, with the input of several working groups, and a comprehensive mix of leading academics and education experts.In this podcast, ALL's founder, Ellen Koshland, talks about the key ideas behind the report and argues that out current system of 'single score' assessment is not fit for purpose and tells very little about a young person's talents, interests and potential.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With HSC exams just around the corner and university exams not too far away, helpful tips could mean the difference between flunking and succeeding.But as Geoff Kinkade from Studiosity's Academic Advisory Board tells Education Review, the broader picture of life needs to be kept in perspective. This podcast offers top tips and sage advice.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Commencing at the Domain in Sydney’s CBD, the school-day Climate Strike 4 Action protest attracted an estimated 80,000, while Melbourne drew an even larger crowd of 100,000. Indeed, protesters from over 100 cities and towns across Australia took part in similar strikes and. globally, it is estimated that millions marched in the name of climate change, Australian political leaders continued to downplay the issue and commentators with more conservative opinions of climate change have dismissed the global strikes as promoting "hysteria", with some journalists even calling 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg 'mentally ill" after her emotional and accusatory speech at the UN on climate action.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lectures are quickly becoming dead. Well, that's the view of Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Victoria University Professor Marcia Devlin.Listen to the podcast for Devlin's key observations on traditional lecturers as well as how learning is changing at the university through the "VU Way".See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At last week's COAG meeting, Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan called on all states and territories to follow Victoria's lead and ban mobiles phones during school hours. However, many experts and parents disagree with a blanket ban, with many believing an outright ban denies learning opportunities and discourages self-regulation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Each year, the Global Teachers Prize names the world’s top 10 educators. This year, just one of them was an Australian. Humanities teacher Yasodai Selvakumaran from Rooty Hill High School in Western Sydney shares her journey leading up to being nominated, and her role as a mentor and advocate.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lyn Stone is a linguist, literacy expert and founder of literacy consultancy group, Lifelong Literacy. She spoke to Education Review about the need for teachers to be better equipped for literacy instruction so she can one day be made "redundant".See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In his final installment of the Studying for Success series, Dr Steven Greene explains the importance of high-stakes tests and some strategies to effectively prepare for them.These strategies include rigorous planning, identifying your strengths and weaknesses and practising tests beforehand.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr Steven Greene shares his tips about what note-taking is, why it's important and some strategies for doing it well in the third installment of our series on studying for success.Greene says effective note-taking should be "an accurate record of the class" and will help guarantee success if done correctly.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

John Marsden is a children's book author, educator and founder of two alternative schools in Victoria. His latest book, The Art of Growing Up, is a for-adults manifesto of how today's authority figures are stifling the development of kids. Inside, he puts forward ideas on bullying and other matters that have attracted controversy and criticism, including from the academia. Here, Marsden shares his views.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over 60,000 kids in Australia experience significant absence from school due to illness or injury. Joanna Fardell, a team leader on the Kids with Cancer Foundation’s Behavioural Science Unit, says we need to do better at connecting sick kids to their classrooms and classmates.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Love him or hate him, Mark Latham is always passionate about getting things done, And his latest agenda has been improving NSW's education system, particularly performance- based teacher pay and lifting student achievement across the board. Listen to our summary of Richard Garfield's interview.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now a PhD student at Monash University, Stephanie Wescott was one of those 'oft-cited" statistics that left teaching in her fifth year. After writing an opinion piece for the The Age, Education Review spoke to Stephanie about some of education's key concerns and the growing idea "that teachers can;r be trusted to do their jobs".See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.