Minnis Journals

ET News Digest

Your Weekly Education Newsletter

Reading’s for tough guys
Role models and perception shifts are essential if working class boys are to be encouraged to read; it’s not that these boys don't like reading it’s just they don’t want to be seen as soft or not having a life if they read.
Reading should therefore be encouraged through the reinforcement of the idea held by most working class boys that an ability to read at a high level would help them to get a good job and the broadening of reading materials in school to include magazines and comics which boys engaged with. Read more

Maths Pathway raises $2.1 million to change the way maths is taught
Melbourne-based Maths Pathway is changing the way Year 5 to Year 10 students learn maths, leveraging technology, classroom best-practice and professional learning to enable targeting of each student’s point of need.
Co-founded by two teachers in 2013, Maths Pathway has grown to be used in over 250 schools by more than 50,000 students. The approach has attracted a $2.1 million impact investment. Read more

Top professionals find meaning in teaching
Engineers, scientists and lawyers comprised 70% of all applicants for the 2019 Teach For Australia (TFA) cohort (more than 1000 applications were received) indicating that teaching offers the professional satisfaction that other careers don’t.
In 2017, the TFA program saw 57% of successful applicants come from another career. In 2018, 62% of successful applicants were career changers. Read more

Integrated suicide prevention works best
A study has found youth-specific interventions conducted in clinical, educational and community settings can be effective in helping those at risk of suicide.
Integrated approaches show the most promise, in particular those that combined educational workshops about suicide prevention with case detection designed to identify young people at risk. There is an absence of information that included indigenous, LGBTI and low SES students which requires more work. Read more

Personal and social capabilities teaching lacking in Australia
Despite the importance of mental wellbeing, a majority of teachers don’t feel equipped or supported to teach personal and social capabilities with two in five (41%) believing they lack adequate resources and support to introduce mindfulness to their students.
And this is despite the fact that starting the process young is paramount, with half of all mental illness having its onset by the age of 12 and 1 in 7 Australian primary and 1 in 4 secondary students suffering from a mental illness every year. Read more

‘Creativity’ is the word in 2018
Oxford University Press’s 2018 Australian Children’s Word of the Year is ‘creativity’ with judges settling on the word of the year after appraising student submissions of a piece of writing based on a word they chose to reflect their lives and interests.
Their work of up to 500 words could be fiction or non-fiction, funny or serious, using a theme of their choosing and 'bravery', 'pollution', 'technology' and 'environment' were all strong contenders.
Read more

Competition makes for excellence in Qld school architecture
Queensland is firming up its reputation as a hotbed of independent education, there is strong competition for students and that means parents are becoming very discerning about the schools they choose for their children.
Independent school enrolments in Queensland increased by nearly 2000, or 1.7%, from 2017 to 2018. This is the highest annual increase in recent years and nearly double the rate experienced from 2016 to 2017.
The competition has made everyone involved in building education facilities lift their game with nothing short of excellence being acceptable. Read more

$98million for child mental health and we still miss the obvious
Something very important to our nation’s health is missing from the new $98million BeYou initiative to support children’s mental health in schools.
Just launched with the gravitas of a former Prime Minister and the marketing slickness of a corporate heavyweight, BeYou promises to bring together five former mental health initiatives across secondary and primary school levels.
Read more