Minnis Journals

ET News Digest

Your Weekly Education Newsletter

90% of public school teachers use own money for student supplies
According to the latest ‘State of our Schools’ survey eight in 10 public school teachers buy stationery or classroom equipment, while nearly half of public school teachers buy library resources and textbooks.
Almost nine in 10 public school principals say fundraising and voluntary contributions are important to their school budget, with three in 10 using fundraising for basic infrastructure.
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Parents just as screen addicted as kids
Parents bemoan their children’s constant screen absorption but it cuts both ways as parents look to be guilty of the same thing.
Master of Educational and Developmental Psychology and PhD candidate, Carrie Ewin at Monash, says children are in real danger of losing their primary caregivers to mobile devices which can have long-term consequences for parent-child interactions.
Ewin conducted an observational study of 70 parents using mobile phones and electronic tablets in the company of their children at food courts and play areas in Melbourne shopping centres. Read More

Advantaged schools get first dibs on the best teachers
Australia allocates more and better teacher resources to socio-economically advantaged schools than to disadvantaged schools.
SOS National Convenor, Trevor Cobbold, said: “Advantaged schools in Australia have first call on the best teachers while disadvantaged schools face severe shortages of quality teachers. It represents a major policy failure. Governments are effectively discriminating against disadvantaged schools in terms of their access to quality teaching resources. Read More

... Something Nasty in the Woodshed
Phillip Spratt, ACSSO President has described the taxpayer funding of private schools as "an absolute misappropriation of limited national resources away from true need to those of entitled want."
Writing in the latest issue of ACSSO's newsletter he quoted Aunt Ada Doom in Stella Gibbon’s Cold Comfort Farm as she recalls her experience of seeing ... something nasty in the woodshed.
"The initial funding of non-government schools was only ever designed to allow a failing Catholic school to bring its total overall resourcing up to the same level Read More

Improving non-urban schools could add $56 billion to GDP
Australia could add more than $56 billion to its annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by improving educational outcomes for students in regional, rural and remote areas of the country.
The Economic Impact of Improving Regional, Rural & Remote Education in Australia – Closing the Human Capital Gap Report shows there is a $56 billion difference in earnings potential between rural, remote and regional students and their urban counterparts. Read More

Regional teachers wanted for fully-funded mentorship with Bell Shakespeare
Teachers from regional, rural and remote Australian schools are invited to apply for a fully-funded year-long mentorship with Australia’s national theatre company, Bell Shakespeare.
The 2019 Regional Teacher Mentorship will provide 30 teachers with the opportunity to travel to Bell Shakespeare’s Sydney headquarters for four days of specialist training in teaching Shakespeare, to collaborate and network with teachers from other regions, and to see the Company’s production of The Miser at Sydney Opera House, starring John Bell. Read More

The final countdown has begun for the ATO’s Tax, Super + You comp
Australian high school students have less than two weeks left to submit their creative entry for the Australian Taxation Office’s Tax, Super + You competition to be in the running to win a cash prize pool of over $6,000 in total and prized work placement with the ATO.
The competition encourages high school students from Year 7–12 to think outside the box and submit creative ideas that communicate the value of tax and super in the community. Read More

NT Education Awards: winners announced
Teachers, principals and support staff have been honoured for the outstanding work they do at the annual Teaching in the Territory Excellence Awards, held at Parliament House on 26 October. The gala was also streamed live to functions in Alice Springs, Nhulunbuy, Katherine and Tennant Creek. The Awards recognise and celebrate the contribution of NT Government school teachers, principals, leaders and support staff to quality education. Read More