Minnis Journals

ET News Digest

Your Weekly Education Newsletter

Schools join to train teachers
Five Sydney schools have got proactive about sourcing their future employees, joining together to pilot a training program which will ensure the supply of high-quality teachers.
There’s a big difference here: the trainee teachers will be working in the schools with students for their entire tertiary education and trainee teachers will enter into a four-year undergraduate or two-year postgraduate degree program. Read more

Harping on about musical foundations
The thing about the harmonica is that you can get pretty good in a fairly short amount of time, not Stevie Wonder good but good enough to have fun with it and feel a sense of achievement.
And as far as a foundational instrument goes there is always the recorder but the harp can be taken all the way through to a career, recorder not so much. A harp is also inexpensive and portable and so doesn’t present the logistical problems and expense of say a double base or a drum kit. Read more

Party Higher Entertainment focuses on student wellbeing in schools – and it’s having powerful results
Party Higher is a national wireless headphone entertainment company and the only silent disco company in Australia that specialises in silent disco for children and youth.
The company has been around nearly ten years, starting out with silent children’s parties which were very successful. Children in attendance were completely engaged and left feeling valued and uplifted. Director, Paul Rosenberg identified the great outcomes this could have for children at school. Read more

The maths of life, evolution and our world – Mahler Lecture Tour 2019
This December join University of Cambridge Corfield Lecturer Dr Holly Krieger in Melbourne and Brisbane during her national 2019 Mahler Lecture Tour and explore the maths of our world.
Free to attend, these events are presented by the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI) and the Australian Mathematics Society (AustMS). They will provide fun and engaging introduction to the world of maths and. Krieger will deliver two public lectures in Melbourne and Queensland and 11 specialist lectures.
Read more

Youth worries about mental health and the environment
The young are supposed to be care free but that isn’t the case, many are deeply concerned about mental health, the state of the world’s climate and the persistence of bullying
This year’s Mission Australia Youth Survey Report 2019 surveyed young people aged between 15 to 19 years old in Australia.
It's not all bad though, The Youth Survey Report indicates around six in 10 young people felt very happy/happy (60.7%) overall with their lives and are very positive/positive (58.3%) about the future.
Read more

Funding boost for South Australian youth leadership program
The state government has committed to an additional $600,000 over the next three years to the Youth Opportunities Association SA to run their Personal Leadership Training Program that assists identifying and fulfilling the personal and learning potential of students facing complex challenges in their lives.
The program delivers 60 hours of wellbeing and life skills training for selected year 10 students with ongoing phone based coaching for the following two years until the end of Year 12.
Read more

Should universities be enforcers or educators?
Why do students cheat? What should the consequences be for cheaters? Do Australia's universities face a plague of cheating? If so, how should they respond? These are important questions, particularly as our higher education sector is such a huge part of the national economy.
A national study out of the University of South Australia tells us that about 6% of students engage in cheating behaviour, and that the factors that put students at risk are a dissatisfaction with the quality of teaching instruction and being from a non-English speaking background. Read more