In recent months, one of Victoria’s oldest Catholic girls’ schools, Presentation College, announced it was closing down, citing falling enrolments. Other Catholic schools have decided to merge together, some also pointing to dwindling enrolments.
Meanwhile, Australia is in the midst of a population boom with new schools being built and overall enrolment numbers on the rise. So, are enrolments in Catholic schools going down across the country, and if so, why?
Enrolment numbers over the last decade
School enrolments across Australia are, overall, trending upwards. Our calculations show enrolments increased by nearly 12% from 2009-2018, representing around 409,000 extra students across all schools. If the current trend continues, four million students will be studying in Australian schools by 2022.
The trends show government and independent schools are becoming more popular than Catholic schools.
As the graph below shows, government primary school enrolments steadily increased until 2014. There was a fall in 2015, but then the numbers kept climbing. Government secondary school enrolments showed no similar lull, steadily increasing over the last four years.
The trend for independent schools was similar to that of government schools. The only difference is that independent schools generally have higher enrolments in secondary schools than in primary, as parents are more likely to make the choice to transition to an independent school in the secondary years.
Catholic primary school enrolments increased until 2014, then dropped slightly in 2015, like the government and independent school enrolments. However, Catholic primary enrolments didn’t recover and have remained reasonably stagnant since 2015.
Catholic secondary schools have been on a slight downward trajectory from 2016, with a loss of 1,798 students in the last two years.
The difference in primary and secondary student enrolments from 2014-2015, in part, reflects changing definitions of primary and secondary students in Western Australia and Queensland. The trend is mirrored in secondary schools where enrolments went up between the two years.
Enrolments increasing, but slower for Catholic schools
Government schools saw enrolments grow by 11% between 2009 and 2018 – an increase of around 260,000 students. Independent school enrolments grew by around 17% (84,600 new students) while Catholic school enrolments grew by only 8%, which accounted for around 61,000 new students.
As a share of the total enrolment growth, government schools accounted for around 64%, Catholic schools for 15% and independent schools 21%.
Government schools experienced significant growth from 2011. There was a decrease in extra student numbers between 2017 and 18, but the overall trend is up. Independent schools have maintained similar enrolment levels with a noticeable increase in enrolments over the last two years. But Catholic school enrolment growth steadily decreased each year since 2013.
In 2017 and 2018, Australian Catholic schools had a net decrease of 180 and 1,135 students respectively. Victoria and Queensland are the only jurisdictions that have experienced increases over the same period, with 839 and 1,153 additional enrolments respectively.
Why is this happening?
So, what’s driving the overall downturn in Catholic school enrolments? There has been some speculation, such as from the NSW Teachers Federation, it may be due to fallout from the Royal Commission into child sex abuse (which ran from 2013 until the final report’s release in December, 2017).
But the data also indicate enrolment patterns may be driven by broader demographic and social trends. New migrants may be partly responsible. Over the last ten years Australia has experienced a net overseas migration of more than two million people.
Analysis of census data shows students who arrive in Australia in the three years before the census date are most likely to go to a government school. In 2016, 77% of these students attended a government school.
Fewer of these students attend Catholic schools, with enrolments dropping from 12% in 2011, to 9% in 2016 among migrant groups. Migrant enrolments in independent schools have remained steady over those five years.
For many parents, the decision about which school their children will attend can be complex and dependent on many factors. Most of the research on school choice shows families typically exercise this choice at the secondary school level.
The key factors influencing parents when choosing a particular government primary school is the convenience of its location and whether other family members are at the school.
Research on school choice shows parents of children attending an independent school most frequently referred to academic results as the motivating factor behind their decision to send their child there. For Catholic schools, it was the religious values.
More Australian families are identifying as having “no religion”. Since 2006, students in the “no religion” category have increased, and those with a Catholic affiliation have decreased, from 30% to 27% respectively.
Of course, many families choose schools based on financial considerations. Recent analysis by the ANZ shows mid-tier private schools (which charge between A$10,000 and A$20,000 a year in tuition fees) saw a drop in enrolments in 2017 and 2018.
These families may be opting for so-called “magnet schools” which are high performing government schools where parents move to the catchment area to increase their chances of admission. This shows parents make strategic choices within school sectors as well as between them.
Note: Data was sourced from the ABS and ACARA and may not correspond with annual data released by school system authorities. However the overall trends are the same.Zoran Endekov, Education Policy Fellow, Victoria University
Take a Bite! The impact of Apple technology in deepening teacher and student learning.
Technology in the modern world is all pervasive and nowhere more so the in the field of education. Schools are constantly striving to ensure that their staff and students have both the best and most efficient hardware and infrastructure. They seek opportunities to be able to harness its transforming power and ultimately enhance the learning experience for students and teachers alike. The 3 parish schools in the Emmaus Catholic Parish, St. Thomas Goodwood, St. Therese Colonel Light Gardens and St. Joseph’s Kingswood– have been on a journey of collaborative partnership in developing their technology capacity, through an ongoing partnership with Apple education.
While each site has its own unique identity and strategic plan for school improvement, for the past 3 years they have been working with Apple education to improve the depth in digital learning for each site. This partnership had its genesis in the fact that each site improvement plan included targeted and coordinated provision for Apple technology across the schools. Once the IT ‘backbone’ was in place, it then evolved. In 2017, a targeted support and facilitation program sponsored by Apple Education Australia and led on site by Mr Matt Richards, who was not only an experienced educator and leader in Catholic education SA but also an Apple Distinguished Educator who had been working for Apple education. Matt worked with like-minded groups of educators at all 3 sites in action research cycle to develop their teacher’s capacity for utilising the technology available to them and to deepen their learning. At the same time, Matt partnered with staff in leading learning in the classroom.
At the commencement of the 2018 school year, each site decided to employ Matt Richards – who had become known as “Apple Matt” among the teachers and students – as a contractor, providing educational leadership and digital technology coaching services. Each site began a journey with their staff to become Apple certified educators (Apple Teachers) through online professional learning provided through Apple Education, as well as progressing toward becoming Apple Distinguished Schools. Two of the three sites have achieved this, with plans in place for all three to achieve this distinction. Across all three sites, professional learning of staff, and learning for students continued, and the available technology enabled the students to work towards becoming confident and careful creators and users of ICT – which is a key goal of CESA’s ‘Living, Learning, Leading Framework for school improvement, and the Australian curriculum.
During 2019, in partnership with Apple Education a significant learning showcase was undertaken during term 3. A bus tour of each site was planned, where leaders and teachers provided brief snap-shot presentations about their learning improvement initiatives. This was followed by the more significant aspect of the day where participants visited classrooms to see this learning in action - and have it explained by the students themselves. This was a key aspect to our tour’s success. There were close to 70 participants from across all SA education sectors involved in the day, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive!
Apple education Business Development Executive, Sebastian Croce, highlighted many significant positive responses from the event, but best summed up by stating that from the many events Apple had run over the years, this particular event achieved a quantity and level of positive feedback that was unprecedented. The depth of teacher sharing, professionalism of the schools, planning of the day and most importantly, the level to which our students could speak about their digital learning made this possible.
Our goal was to simply share as a cluster, the deep, engaging and purposeful learning by our students and ongoing vision, through Matt Richards’ coaching, of our teachers.
Teachers from all three sites have been affirmed and empowered through their involvement in this partnership, and Principals Dan Cowan, Amanda Humeniuk and Phil Schultz look forward to the partnership continuing to deliver whole school improvement in digital technology into 2020 and beyond.
Welcome to the 2019 ACPPA member (associate) survey.
We thank our sponsor,MSP Photography, for generously supporting this project.
How exciting to see our third survey going out! We are very keen to hear from members and look forward to your insightful and thoughtful feedback - it really does inform our planning and service offering to you. Thank you for participating as an active member of the ACPPA family.
After establishing a benchmark in 2017, last year's survey helped to uncover what had worked, what you noticed (or didn't!), and importantly, what still remains to be done.
Your views are important to us and assist us in delivering information, services and benefits to you that are relevant and engaging.
The survey should only take around 5-8 minutes. We will share the results with you early next year. Please take a moment to fill it in now.
Teachers’ time is one of a school’s most valuable and scarce resources, yet it’s often wasted because of poor leadership and management. Repeated demands for paperwork that has no apparent purpose, disruptions caused by tardy students or fights in the corridors, and delays due to broken equipment, missing textbooks, or a locked bathroom can zap teachers’ spirit and sidetrack their plans.
The time crunch is nothing out of the ordinary for teachers, but an in-depth new study shows how much an enterprising and responsive school leader can help — creating an environment where teachers use their time well, succeed with their students, and stay in the profession.
In her latest book, Where Teachers Thrive, Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Susan Moore Johnson describes 14 schools studied between 2008 and 2015. These schools required an in-school workday for teachers ranging from 6.5 to 9.25 hours. Teachers typically had designated blocks for instruction; planning and preparation; supervisory tasks (such as monitoring bus arrivals or lunch in the cafeteria); as well as afterschool staff meetings and professional development. No matter how long their workday was, most teachers said they did not have enough time to complete “essential tasks.” Responsibilities like grading, reading, lesson planning, and calling parents often fell into out-of-school hours, leading many teachers to question whether they could teach at the level of quality they aspired to or would stay long in the profession.
In the most satisfying and successful schools, Johnson found, teachers had agreed about how they would do their work together, developing in-house systems for responsibilities like hiring, curriculum, team meetings, and school norms. Administrators respected their time and minimized disruptions.
Johnson found that some schools were vibrant and productive workplaces for teachers, while others were demoralizing, depressing, and sometimes infuriating. In the most satisfying and successful schools, teachers had agreed about how they would do their work together. They had developed in-house systems for important responsibilities, such as hiring new colleagues, developing curriculum, meeting as teams, and enforcing schoolwide norms and rules. Administrators respected their time, minimized disruptions, eliminated needless requirements, and trusted teachers to use their time well. In response, teachers were willing to step up to their school’s new challenges.
“The schools where teachers thrive are actually schools that are very well managed by principals who protect teachers from interruptions and unrealistic demands,” Johnson says. “Teachers play a role in working together to devise strategies for better using the time that’s available.”
How school leaders can make the most of teachers’ time
Rather than treating teachers’ time as something to be spent freely, work hard to conserve it. Pay attention to the “little everyday things” that chip away at time and limit progress, like broken equipment, empty toner cartridges, or an internet system that’s repeatedly down.
Make teachers’ time a top priority when building the schedule. In assigning prep periods, schedule common planning time for those teaching the same grade level, cluster, or subject. Then assign specialists to cover classes during those blocks. Fiercely protect teachers’ time for collaboration.
“The schools where teachers thrive are actually schools that are very well managed by principals who protect teachers from interruptions and unrealistic demands.” — Susan Moore Johnson
Reduce administrative tasks that have little or nothing to do with teaching or supporting students. Can someone else supervise bus arrivals, rest rooms, or the cafeteria? Do teachers really need to submit lesson plans for each class every week, or would a sample of lessons be just as informative?
Provide convenient, reliable technology so that teachers can easily complete routines such as taking attendance, scheduling meetings, distributing agendas, sharing meeting notes, or making lesson plans available to peers.
Ensure that all teachers have the curriculum and materials they need for the subjects they teach, so that they can spend their prep time planning classes, grading papers, and conferring with students, rather than searching the internet for content or scrounging for basic supplies.
Work with teachers to develop schoolwide standards for students’ behavior and consistent responses to violations, so that the school becomes an orderly, predictable setting for teaching and learning.
Recognize that some teachers will need additional time. New teachers and teachers who work in challenging settings or teach students with special learning needs may need more time to analyze student needs and respond with appropriate supports. Establish contacts with community agencies that can expand the school’s capacity to provide help for students and families.
Encourage teachers to suggest more efficient ways to organize their time and responsibilities. Explore the potential of flexible schedules that permit different arrival or departure times for teachers’ with family responsibilities. Or consider having teachers specialize in one or two subjects in upper elementary grades so that they can concentrate their time and efforts on doing well what they know best.
Kindly reproduced from Harvard Graduate School of Education
10 min readThe general idea of personalised learning is where teachers help students understand key concepts through individualised learning and group work. from shutterstock.com
The education debate in Australia becomes tangled when the same key concepts are used by various groups and individuals to mean very different things.
Take the concept of “personalised learning”. It can describe a flexible approach to learning which starts with each student’s individual strengths and capabilities, and encourages a wide range of learning activities. Or it can be used to justify a program of rigid and scripted individual learning progressions.
In the past few years the idea of “learning progressions” has garnered a lot of attention in curriculum debates and reviews. Invariably it is argued learning progressions promote “personalised learning”.
It is important therefore to subject this claim to some scrutiny and try to understand the version of “personalised learning” being promoted in policy circles.
From year levels to learning progressions
In 2017 the then Turnbull government appointed David Gonski to lead a review into how to improve Australian schools. The idea was that if the amount of Commonwealth money going to schools was to be increased – as recommended by the earlier Gonski review in 2011 – then we needed guidance as to what the money should be spent on.
A central proposal in the subsequent 2018 report, dubbed as Gonski 2.0, relates to “personalised learning”. Using the well-rehearsed argument that all students should be able to demonstrate a year’s learning growth every year, the report’s first recommendation is that schools move from a year-based curriculum to a curriculum expressed as learning progressions independent of year or age.
It claims this move will enable schools to better meet the individual learning needs of students than does the organisation of schools by year levels. The latter, the report says, is a remnant of the industrial era and must change if schools are to come into the 21st century.
Certainly, the idea of scrapping year levels potentially creates greater flexibility for students and teachers. Rather than aiming curriculum at the average of a cohort of students at a particular age, teachers can “personalise” the curriculum by making an individual student’s readiness for learning the key criterion for curriculum planning.
Of course, a number of schools already do this, and in many other schools where year levels are still used, teachers use adaptive or differentiated teaching to cater for individual interests.
There is always a danger removing year levels will result in a return to streaming if teachers group students according to perceived ability levels rather than age, but this is not an automatic outcome and can be guarded against.
However, the question of removing year-level structures can’t be separated from the issue of what is taught and how. And it is here that it seems the report has taken a progressive idea like personalisation and colonised it with an instrumental purpose.
Gonski’s version of personalised learning
There are different approaches to personalising learning. Some enable teachers and students to negotiate learning programs based on students’ interests and learning needs.
For instance, in the Big Picture schools in Australia and the US, students investigate topics or issues individually or in groups and report on their findings.The key to this kind of learning is skilled teachers helping students make connections across the curriculum, because key concepts are understood through negotiation and collaboration.
This approach prizes student agency and group as well as individual activities. It recognises learning is not a linear and scripted activity.
There are many approaches to personalised learning, some of which include indivudal and group activities.from shutterstock.com
But that is not the version of personalised learning proposed in the 2018 Gonski report. This report recommends an approach where content and skills across every area of the curriculum are atomised into bite-sized chunks of knowledge, and then sequenced into progression levels.
Students work on their own and, at regular points, use online assessment tools to test their readiness for the next chunk of knowledge. Once one level is mastered, they move onto the next.
The report recommends that, over the next five years, the recently developed and implemented Australian Curriculum should be rewritten so every learning area and general capability is written up as a number of progression levels.
It offers an example of “spelling” being broken into a 16-level progression, with students mastering each step before moving lock-step onto the next level.
The Gonski version of personalised learning bears an uncanny resemblance to the model of direct instruction developed in the US in the 1960s. This is a tightly scripted, step-by-step approach that follows a predetermined sequence through packaged resource materials.
Assessment follows each instruction phase with tests aligned to the behavioural goals of the program. The results are fed back to the teacher and student, and the stage is then set for the next phase.
Similarly, Gonski suggests students advance incrementally through progression levels. At regular intervals they should be assessed by an online assessment tool against the learning progressions that measure student attainment and growth in attainment levels over time.
The tool could also suggest, for consideration by the teacher, potential interventions to build further progress.
Although there is an apparent nod in the direction of teacher decision making, it is inevitable the tightly scripted nature of the process will result in a reliance on the use of online resources.
Online assessment tools make students automatons
The National Education Policy Centre in the United States recently reviewed a number of personalised learning programs in the country that have adopted similar characteristics to those Gonski prescribes. The report concludes that they reflect
[…] a hyper-rational approach to curriculum and pedagogy that limits students’ agency, narrows what they can learn in school, and limits schools’ ability to respond effectively to a diverse student body.
The manifestation of this model in the US has been a financial bonanza for private technology companies such as Summit, owned by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. These companies have developed online tests and learning resources capable of tracking the progress of, and devising programs for, individual students.
With such programs, students become individual automatons moving through standardised progression levels. Creativity and critical thinking are stifled as students are steered down an already determined path. And teachers are increasingly excluded from the process, as planning and decision-making is done by algorithms.
The result is a narrow and highly individualised learning experience that is unlikely to prepare students adequately for the challenges of the 21st century.
The point is that “personalised learning” can take many forms. Some approaches will liberate learners, some will tightly constrain them. The model proposed by Gonski is more likely to do the latter. Far from moving schools away from an industrial model, Gonski’s model would entrench it.
Rather than immediately adopting a model such as “progression levels”, surely it would be better to clarify our understanding about personalised learning, including the theories and assumptions on which various versions are based.
Then, if personalised learning is the goal, why not evaluate a number of different models of personalised learning?
“…And in the naked light I saw ten thousand people, maybe more People talking without speaking, people hearing without listening People writing songs that voices ever shared, no one dared disturb the sound of silence…”
There is a silence echoing within government chambers, as the need to address the disparities in Indigenous education is not spoken about. Indigenous education policy seems to be at a standstill.
It has been almost a year with no review or evaluation of national strategies for educating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Strategy, the agreement between Australia’s education ministers, was made in 2015 and was supposed to “guide the education of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people from birth through to further education and employment pathways”. But it now seems redundant. It has been a year with no superseding policy and no action plan.
To me the silence is unforgivable. There are around 300,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children under the age of fifteen in this country today, and by 2031 around half of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders will be under 25 years old. I am advocating for them.
Talking without speaking, hearing without listening
The government promised a “refresh” of the National Indigenous Reform Agreement, more commonly referred to as Closing the Gap. However, a set of draft targets was released in December of 2018, ten months ago, suggesting what could be enacted. That’s all we got.
And when we look at these draft education specific targets, they are simply a reimagining of the goals as set out in previous iterations of policy. That is, the focus again falls on Numeracy and Literacy, Year 12 qualifications, attendance and so forth: same focus, similar goals, similar written words.
The truth is the priority areas (or whatever they are called now) have not changed since 1975, The Report to the Schools Commission by the Aboriginal Consultative Group in June 1975 highlighted, way back then, the lack of progress in Indigenous education. The fact that the priority areas remain stagnant and merely rephrased is something I wrote about in 2016.
The chasm
You could think all this failure and stagnation around educating First Nations people would inspire action and innovation to truly begin addressing the inequities. Dominant voices within government espouse to wanting to “try something new, to change the way we work as governments – to work in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians”.
And yet, never has there been so large a gaping chasm between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the Australian Government than present times. Our voices and the Uluru Statement from the Heart have been silenced, denied and rejected.
Still waiting
To add insult, according to the commitments made within the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Strategy in 2015, was the promise that: “This strategy will be reviewed in 2018, which is a significant year in measuring progress against COAG’s Closing the gap targets. An evaluation will consider the effectiveness of the strategy as a framework.”
Well 2018 has long gone and we are still waiting to see the review.
It is hard not to be cynical and postulate sarcastic laments. But we can wish.
Perhaps the delay is because, as Prime Minister Scott Morrison asserts in his Prime Minister’s foreword in the Closing the Gap Report 2019, “the main area of change needs to be in how governments approach implementation of policies and delivery of services. Stronger accountability can be achieved through co-designed action plans that link targets to policy action, funding decisions, and regular evaluations”.
Perhaps the government has been compiling an actual Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Advisory Group made up of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educators whose ‘business’ is education and know how targets can be achieved.
Perhaps the government has finally listened and recognized that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth bubble, those under the age of 15, makes up over a third of the total Indigenous population. This inevitably means that a large number of the population will be of school age. Surely this must have some influence on the urgency of addressing the inequities and ‘closing the gap’.
The reality is that if a new iteration of the policy is not released soon, any momentum will be lost as was suggested in the Evaluation of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Action Plan 2010-2014. Without the policy, and making schools and systems accountable as well as governments, our kids and their educational attainment, their dreams of a future become silenced.
Imagine
More recently, Indigenous and non-Indigenous students alike released the Imagination Declaration asking ministers “to imagine what’s possible…[and that,] it’s time to think differently”.
If you haven’t read it, you should. Be inspired.
As the children said, “We are not the problem, we are the solution … We urge you to give us the freedom to write a new story.’
But here we sit and wait for any response from government. We wait for government to provide the next policy. And one last wish that if do we get one there will be no fudging to backdate it to include 2019, as the year is almost over.
The children, teachers and schools wait for an end to this silence.
Melitta Hogarth is a Kamilaroi woman who is Senior Lecturer in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at University of Melbourne. Prior to entering academia Melitta taught for almost 20 years in all three sectors of the Queensland education system specifically in Secondary education. Melitta’s interests are in education, equity and social justice. She recently completed her PhD titled “Addressing the rights of Indigenous peoples in education: A critical analysis of Indigenous education policy”.
Saying nothing is not an option – the education sector needs a strategy to help students deal with grief and loss
Loss is common in childhood with one in four Australian children experiencing parental separation, divorce or death during childhood or adolescence. Family breakdown can create feelings of loss and fear for children and young people who are often excluded from decisions that will impact on their futures.
Frequently, children’s mental health issues are picked up at school by teachers who rely on instinct, and empathy to pick up signs that a child is not coping. Teacher preparation to support grieving students is uncommon and most schools do not have a planned holistic response to support students to deal with traumatic events in their lives.
MacKillop Family Services (MacKillop), through its Good Grief program, delivers high quality loss and grief training and education programs throughout Australia. The programs provide a safe learning environment where children and young people can give a voice to their experience, understand their feelings and learn new ways to adapt from loss.
One of Good Grief’s most widely adapted programs, Seasons for Growth, is an evidence-based change and loss education program that uses imagery of the seasons to illustrate the experience of grief. The program has supported in excess of 300,000 children, young people and adults in 7 countries, receiving a ‘high’ impact status in the Australian Research Council’s 2018-19 Engagement and Impact study. Seasons for Growth also supports refugee children, young people following suicide events and children involved in natural disasters and drought, adults experiencing loss, Indigenous people, prisoners, and parents of children in the program.
Through its Education and Grief and Loss programs, MacKillop Family Services is hosting a two-day conference as part of its commitment to support children, young people and families to heal from adversity.
National and international experts in childhood education, mental health and organisational wellbeing will come together for the Lead the Way Towards Wellbeing conference in Sydney on 31 October and 1 November 2019. Through presentations and workshops, they will share their experience in innovative whole school approaches and the latest research regarding the impacts of trauma, loss and grief on children’s wellbeing and learning.
The conference will also focus on the rights of children. Professor Anne Graham AO, Director of the Centre for Children and Young People at Southern Cross University is one of Australia’s leading researchers in the area of Childhood and Youth Studies and children’s rights. Professor Graham will share her research at the conference and reflect on the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“The main international human rights treaty on children’s rights is the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which Australia ratified in December 1990 and it’s time to see how we are tracking and whether a rights emphasis is reflected in policies, programs and services aimed at improving children and young people’s lives,” Professor Graham said.
Rosie Batty AO will talk about the impact of Family Violence and the experiences of loss and grief, a major issue in Australia irrespective of age, culture, sexual identity, ability, ethnicity, religion or socioeconomic status.
Keynote speakers also include Assoc Prof Judith Murray, Associate Professor in Counselling and Counselling Psychology, The University of Queensland, who will explore the theory and lived experience of grief and trauma; Assoc. Prof. Sandra Bloom, M.D.; Butchulla and Gawara salt water man, Isaiah Dawe, Founder of ID. Know Yourself; Brendan Murray, Director of Article 26 and Allan Sparkes, CV, OAM, VA.
Education workshops will address exclusion, conflict, loss and grief, emotional and behavioural difficulties and mental health issues with evidence-based strategies that can be integrated into classroom management, wellbeing and pastoral care practices in your school. These evidence-based strategies support students to heal and re-engage with learning while supporting staff wellbeing and sustainable change.
Lead the Way Towards Wellbeing takes place on Thursday 31 October and Friday 1 November 2019 at Waterview, Bicentennial Park, Sydney Olympic Park.
Find out more about the conference program and registration details by visiting the website: www.cvent.com/d/f6qbkp or contact Good Grief directly at events@mackillop.org.au or 02 8912 2700.
A great opportunity to be a part of active research directly relating to your school.
In 2020 ACPPA are conducting a joint research project with Australian Catholic University (ACU) and the University of Notre Dame Australia (UNDA) to delve in to the training and development of initial teacher education from your perspective.
This research will draw on your school based experiences, thoughts and opinions about how our student teachers are prepared, the structure of practicums, and their overall readiness as graduates.
Keep a look out for news about the project and ways to get involved.
Express your early interest by contacting me now to have a direct impact on how intial teacher education impacts your school.
National Health and Physical Education Day – an initiative promoted by the Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation – was held on 12 September. The day highlighted the importance of HPE in the Australian Curriculum, and its influence on the learning and development of children. On the ACHPER website, you can access information about membership, their advocacy work, resources, publications and professional learning.
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES
The Australian Curriculum: Technologies describes two distinct but related subjects: Design and Technologies, in which students use design thinking and technologies to generate and produce designed solutions for authentic needs and opportunities, and Digital Technologies, in which students use computational thinking and information systems to define, design and implement digital solutions.
Check out the growing collection of resources from the Digital Technologies in Focus project, which can support all teachers and schools in the implementation of Digital Technologies.
Resources to support effective engagement between home and school
Check out the free new online Gearing up for Parent Engagement in Student Learning resources that can help parents and educators better support a meaningful partnership between home and school towards improving the learning and wellbeing of students.
Based on a nationwide research project conducted with government, Catholic and independent school principals and parents, the resources include toolkits specifically developed for both primary or secondary principals and school staff.
A free subscription offer for both the print edition of Education Matters and e-newsletter for all ACPPA members?
Click the special link below.
ACPPA members can then sign up by filling in the relevant details. There is a separate section for the Primary and Secondary magazine, enabling you to sign up to one of both magazines.
5 min readAustralian schools are pretty much left to their own devices when it comes to teaching students about the climate emergency. Shutterstock/Suphakit Wararatphong
This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.
Climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing our society today, so you would think it would be an important topic for study in the school curriculum.
But in Australia that’s not the case. Schools and teachers are largely left to fend for themselves and use other available resources if they want to raise the issue with students.
Put climate change in education
Calls for climate change to be part of the curricula for primary and secondary education were detailed in 2010 when the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) established the Climate Change Education for Sustainable Development (CCESD) program. It was part of the organisation’s effort to increase “climate literacy” among young people.
The importance of climate change education was later covered under Article 12 of the Paris Agreement, which Australia and other countries signed in 2016.
Under the Paris Agreement Work Program, countries have agreed to develop extensive education programs and to promote public participation in decision-making.
Some countries – such as Vietnam, the Philippines, South Africa and China – already have national education programs addressing climate change.
Australia is not one of them.
People want action
Australia has not designed, implemented nor funded a coherent educational approach to our climate emergency. That’s despite the fact poll after poll of Australians show the majority want more action on climate change.
The Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience identifies education in schools as a priority in understanding risks of climate change. Yet education departments at state and federal level show few public signs of creating a coordinated curriculum approach.
Explicit links to the topic of climate change in national and state curricula are only found within the senior secondary (Years 11 and 12) and secondary (Years 7 to 10) Humanities, Geography and Science learning areas. Some are compulsory and some optional depending on the school and year group.
We can find no explicit mention of climate change in the primary (Years 1-6) curriculum, though students learn related topics on endangered species, renewable energy and natural disasters.
We predict that continuing curriculum redevelopment will focus more effectively on the climate crisis as its effects become more pronounced. But the current piecemeal approach doesn’t address the problem at scale.
For now, climate change is hinted at but generally unnamed in school curricula. Climate change education is certainly not mandated, nor is it directly nor sufficiently funded.
In and out of the curriculum
In the past 20 years climate change education has been in and out of the formal curriculum depending on the whims of government.
Early in 2010, the Australian government abruptly withdrew funding and support for AuSSI without explanation. The first and second National Action Plans were abandoned.
Schools left to go it alone
No overarching, national coordination has been in place since. Australian schools have been pretty much left to their own devices when it comes to teaching the climate emergency.
Children and young people are presently reliant on the initiative of teachers, parents, principals and professional associations to introduce and maintain sustainability programs to learn about their futures in school time.
Their alternatives are to rely on peers and on information from community and non-government organisation (NGO) networks.
Catholic schools can draw inspiration from the Papal Encyclical, Laudato Si’ (“on care for our common home”), and most schools promote energy, waste and water conservation.
In the last decade, state and federal governments have shied away from systematic, climate change education. That’s despite the real risks to all Australian children and young people who are facing the prospect of diminished lives without climate stability.
There is much to be done within the education sector to maturely and responsibly address the risks of climate change. Denial, prevarication and obfuscation do not alter thermodynamic reality.
Education is central to climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience. As effects become more frightening, it is reasonable to ask: what is being done about recognising and systematically supporting climate change education in state and national school curricula?
This article was co-authored by Angela Colliver, an education for sustainability specialist who designs educational programs and curriculum resources for Australian schools.
Ron Rosentreter and Frank Hennessy Qld; Kevin Clancy SA; Phil Cash Qld; Jim Smith WA.
Zoran Endekov, Education Policy Fellow, Victoria University
Alan Reid, Professor Emeritus of Education, University of South Australia This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
