Minnis Journals

ET News Digest

Your Weekly Education Newsletter

Berwick Primary School takes the Primary title and Hoppers Crossing wins Wakakirri Secondary Title
Berwick Primary School in Victoria has claimed the top award in the biggest performing arts festival for schools in Australia with Hoppers Crossing Secondary College taking out the Secondary title.
This year’s Wakakirri search for the Story of the Year saw 280 schools hit the stage at 50 events at professional theatres around the country. Read more

Move to waive tertiary debts for remote teachers welcomed
Finding teachers is hard, finding teachers that are willing to work in a rural remote setting is harder still and incentives to assist are to be encouraged.
Flinders University education expert and reviewer for the 2017/18 Independent Review into Regional, Rural and Remote Education in Australia, Emeritus Professor John Halsey, welcomed the government’s announcement to waive HELP debts for up to five years for teachers working in very remote schools. Read more

Latest book from John Hattie out
Visible Learning Guide to Student Achievement critically examines the major influences shaping student achievement today. A revision of the International Guide to Student Achievement, this updated edition provides readers with a more accessible compendium of research summaries – with a particular focus on the school sector.
This book provides practitioners and policymakers with relevant material and research-based instructional strategies that can be readily applied in classrooms and schools to maximise achievement. The seven sections begin with a synthesis of major new findings. Read more

Indigenous youth have most psychological distress
In 2018, more than three in ten (31.9%) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people met the criteria for psychological distress, compared to 23.9% for non-Indigenous young people.
Females were twice as likely as males to experience distress. The increase in psychological distress has also been far more marked among females (from 22.5% in 2012 to 30.0% in 2018, compared to a rise from 12.7% to 15.6% for males). Read more

Encourage STEM to fight climate change
With thousands of Australian students recently joining their peers from over 82 countries in pressuring world leaders to urgently address climate change, attention must now turn to how as a society we can better support their passionate pleas into future careers.
The commitment demonstrated by students across the globe is testament to the importance that our next generations are placing on reversing the global carbon footprint. The question remains; what is the best way to leverage this passion in order to access a career that will enable them to better protect the environment? Read more

Victorian pair receive top maths honours
A teaching duo has transformed maths and NAPLAN performance in a Victorian primary school and have been named joint Outstanding Primary Teacher winners at the 2019 Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute Choose Maths Awards.
Recognised for their creative approach to strengthening mathematics learning and teaching at Boneo Primary, Liz Dewar and Ryan Jellie will share the $10,000 prize, including $2500 each for professional development and a $5000 funding injection into its mathematics program. The pair's work has seen student performance and perception of maths soar. Read more

Education institutions see most Trojan attacks
Education was the top industry globally impacted by Trojans in 2018, and cybersecurity company Malwarebytes Labs has identified this trend will continue to accelerate in 2019.
Trojans represented almost 30% of all detections on institution-owned devices. Among devices plugging into the network, Trojans represent the single largest threat category, even above generic Malware and Adware detections. Trojans use deception and social engineering to trick unsuspecting users into running seemingly benign computer programs that hide malicious ulterior motives. Read more