Minnis Journals

ET News Digest

Your Weekly Education Newsletter

Early childhood teachers’ essential role in helping bushfire kids
A lot of young children find themselves in tough places, their networks are limited and outside of family, early childhood teachers are the next line of defense for children with trauma.
Many families and children come to Australian schools bringing with them many experiences of personal trauma, not the least bushfire victims from the latest disaster in Qld and NSW.
Read more

Future proofing our response to depression in the young
The Black Dog Institute is recruiting for its study Future Proofing, which is Australia’s largest-ever clinical trial into the effectiveness of mental health apps for preventing anxiety and depression in adolescents.
Interventions and especially tech driven ones have been identified as an effective tool to fight mental health issues in the young but more needs to be discovered, Future Proofing will help fill gaps in our knowledge.
The trial will be conducted in 400 schools and involve 20,000 Year 8 students who will contribute important mental health information. Read more

Why we need more male teachers
There are a lot of kids who are a bit light on males in their lives, the reasons are many and in a teaching environment introducing more males could be a good thing.
And it isn’t for the reasons that are often cited; introducing more males probably won’t increase the academic performance of boys, nor will they be able to provide surrogate father figures. Read more

Relief teachers need professional learning too
They’re the forgotten people of education in a lot of cases and their learning suffers as a result. While Australian school students may be spending a year of their total schooling with a Casual or Relief Teacher (CRT), a new evidence summary says they need a lot more support.
CRTs across Australia may be undertaking less professional learning and be moved down the list when compared to their full-time counterparts when it comes to compliance and funding for PD. Read more

‘Brave’ new word for children in 2019
Uncertainty is plaguing the planet and that is reflected by Oxford University Press Australia & New Zealand's (OUP ANZ) selection of the 2019 Children’s Word of the Year: Bravery.
OUP ANZ invited primary school students across the country to submit a piece of free writing, up to 500 words about their ‘Word of the Year’. Students were encouraged to be creative, factual, serious or funny in writing about why the word was important to them. Read more

Regional students connect with local industry
Now in its second year, the BrainSTEM Rural Innovation Challenge is giving students in Gippsland Vic an introduction to the type of skills that might be needed in a future job in the region's thriving food and fibre industries.
Over the last three months, a selection of Gippsland secondary school students have been working on a diverse range of projects – all of them aiming to offer a solution to a challenge, a problem or an issue in the region’s food and fibre sector. The project has been welcomed by industry and educators in a region where the sector is worth seven billion dollars. Read more

Still great to be a teacher when it comes to jobs
Again, you will be glad that you completed that teaching degree as again one of the areas with the healthiest job growth has been education and training.
While the latest SEEK Employment Report shows a decline of 7.8% in jobs advertised (y/y to October 2019) which isn’t too bad, and Community Services & Development (16.7%) led as the sector with the highest job ad growth for October 2019 (vs. October 2018), followed by Healthcare and Medical (5.6%) and Education and Training (5.6%).
The average advertised salary across Australia was up 2.0%. Read more