Part 2 in this series on advancing handwriting, narrative writing and critical thinking with chalk will now introduce the reader to: Orthographic-integration In terms of developing skilled and efficient handwriting automaticity, and correlated creative narrative content, research undertaken by Suzanne ...
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Phonics can pull Australia out of its reading rut, but parents need to play their part: Opinion
It’s hard not to be alarmed by the state of reading in Australia. Since 2000, our students have dropped from 4th to 17th place in the PISA survey of global reading results, and foreboding reports on the national state of ...
More »Melbourne school successfully trials Australian-first contact tracing technology
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic being largely under control across Australia, experts know that the virus is still circulating in some communities and could force the country into more lockdowns and school closures at any point. It is for this reason ...
More »PETAA ‘committed to supporting teachers’ as NSW joins SA in implementing mandatory phonics checks
The Primary English Teaching Association Australia (PETAA) has committed to supporting teachers after New South Wales joined South Australia in introducing mandatory phonics screening checks in primary schools from 1 December 2020. The association has a long history of involvement ...
More »School staff wellbeing: key things to consider for 2021
“Wellbeing, mental health, and psychological safety are the core pre-conditions of learning, performance, healthy functioning, and contributing.” This sentence is as true for adults as it is for children. The more we define these terms the more we build a national ...
More »AEU calls for the government to ‘step up’ after releasing State of Our Schools survey
Public school principals are struggling to provide adequate funding for students with a disability and report having to siphon funds from other school budgets to make up for the shortfall, according to the Australian Education Union’s (AEU) 2020 State of ...
More »Self-harm study prompts calls for earlier intervention
Australian children are reporting self-harm as early as grade 6, a new study shows. Researchers assessed more than 1200 children living in Melbourne each year from age 8-9 years to 11-12 years. Twenty-eight of the 1059 students in the study ...
More »Here’s to the educators, leaders and schools who somehow thrived in 2020
2020 will go down as one of the most disrupted and challenging years for Australian school communities. Yet, despite the substantial pressure and constant changes many endured, some have not only survived 2020 hopefully intact, but have continued to thrive ...
More »Chalk, talk, teach, write, read, achieve, repeat: part 1
Write, erase; write, erase; write, erase. Practise, practise, practise, achieve. Repeat. Here we have the universal imperative actions of gross and fine motor skills and the power of sequence learning, which leads to robust handwriting skill efficiencies developing, with associated ...
More »More funding is not the answer to lifting Australian student achievement: new report
A new report has found that Australian student achievement has continued to decline despite being one of the highest spending countries on schooling in the world. In a report by the Centre for Independent Studies’ (CIS) Glenn Fahey, titled Dollars ...
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