Tasmania will cut the Safe Schools program after federal funding expires, being the second state to do so in a week, following the lead of New South Wales. Federal funding for the anti-bullying and education initiative expires at the end of ...
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States struggling to compute NAPLAN digitisation
The national digitisation of NAPLAN isn’t being processed smoothly by the states and territories. Queensland is the latest state to pull out of the NAPLAN online testing trial. The sunshine state education minister Kate Jones made this announcement on 7 ...
More »UK schools standards minister pushes phonics agenda
The UK minister of state for school standards has advised a federal phonics panel, which is looking at introducing a mandatory, nationwide Year 1 phonics check. While the details of what Nick Gibb told the panel are unknown, he did ...
More »The beat of young people’s lives shown through SBS Youth Week
Mfaume Kakozi, 18, lives life to the beat of his own drum. Born in central Africa’s Democratic Republic of Congo, he fled his homeland at a young age due of war. He made his way to a refugee camp in ...
More »Study finds obesity shaped by burgers for boys, single parents for girls
Excessive sausage rolls and hot chips unsurprisingly contribute to boys’ obesity. But unexpectedly, not so much to girls’, a new study has found. Researchers from Queensland’s QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute also ascertained that, oddly, girls from single parent families ...
More »Parenting expert warns: we’re ‘killing our kids’
Psychologist Steve Biddulph thinks girls have it tougher than they used to. His latest tome, 10 Things Girls Need Most, teases out what he considers to be the crux of girls’ issues: parental anxiety. Biddulph calls it an "Anglo-Saxon disease” ...
More »AFL coaches offer sporting advice to get disabled kids involved
Sport is a cornerstone of Australian culture but children with disabilities often miss out. A Deakin University program is hoping to change this with the help of the AFL, the National Disability Insurance Agency and Moose Toys. AllPlay, led by ...
More »Study finds parents are better than teachers at this one thing
“I wiggled awound the woom at west-time”, two-year-old Lara proclaimed. By this, of course, she meant she wriggled around the room at rest-time. If this speech pattern persisted, Lara might’ve been diagnosed with an articulation disorder. But, like many other ...
More »Opinion: students who are intellectually gifted can also have learning difficulties
Mention the terms ‘intellectual giftedness’ and ‘learning disability’ and there is a general understanding of what each term means. However, most people are unaware that in many circumstances the two can go hand-in-hand. Current US research suggests that 14 per ...
More »Potential of dogs as reading aids unleashed
Weighing 113 kilograms and standing over two metres tall, Baron, an English Mastiff, could be Australia’s largest dog. But that’s not his only claim to canine fame: Baron is also a certified therapy dog. At Penrith Valley School in Sydney’s ...
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