News

This is a monthly collection bringing together a number of recent and relevant articles on a chosen topic from the Australian Journal of Education. The theme of this month's issue is Cyberbullying.

As Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) programs become more widespread, questions are being raised about the benefits of allowing students to actively use mobile phones as learning devices in school. Over the past decade, several studies have taken a closer look at student and educator perspectives on the issue.

The report on an extensive review to guide efforts to overcome the educational divide between capital cities and regional and rural areas is now available to the public.

The Reconciliation Symposium explores the nature of reconciliation within the sector and brings the matter of reconciliation in early childhood into the spotlight to work towards a better future for all Australians.

Spots filling fast, don’t miss your chance to hear from highly sought after and world-renowned speaker, Sir John Jones!

The Schools Privacy Compliance Manual has been updated jointly with the Catholic Education Commission.

Please see the following video which you may use at your discretion.

Children’s author Morris Gleitzman has been chosen as the Australian Children’s Laureate for 2018-19. The author of nearly 40 books for young people, including Two Weeks with the Queen, Boy Overboard, Bumface and the ‘Felix’ series (all Penguin), will be presented with the laureate’s Magpie Award at a ceremony at the State Library of New South Wales on 15 February.

The Commissioner for Children and Young People WA has undertaken a major education consultation to explore the factors that influence a student’s level of engagement in school and the complex interplay these factors have on each other and their overall engagement.

On the 6th February, AISWA staff were fortunate to be guided by artist Jenny Knapp in the creation this stunning community artwork as part of the organisations Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP).

The Turnbull Government has locked in a $440 million funding boost for preschool education and is urging states to boost the enrolment and attendance rates of preschoolers in early learning. Minister for Education and Training Simon Birmingham said the extra funding would extend the National Partnership on Universal Access to Early Childhood Education into 2019 to more than 348,000 children to ensure they have access to 15 hours of quality early learning in the year before school. The Turnbull Government’s $440 million funding boost secures education opportunities for more than 348,000 of Australia’s littlest learners, Minister Birmingham said.

Indigenous retention is up 15% over the decade but is still well below the non-Indigenous rate.

The Independent Schools Council of Australia (ISCA) cautions parents about glossy marketing campaigns for education focused financial products that misrepresent the cost of Independent school fees.

From 2018 the Commonwealth funding arrangements for all schools will change. Under the current arrangements, all schools are moving towards their Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) funding entitlement over time. Originally envisaged as a total public funding model, the share of public funding being provided by the Commonwealth was based on historical funding patterns. This means that schools serving the same type of students receive different funding from the Commonwealth depending on where they are located.

The public submission process for the Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools (the Review) is now open and will close at 5 pm (AEDST) on 2 November 2017.

The Kate Mullin Association (KMA) has an annual Teacher Award. The Award is for the teacher in WA who makes the greatest contribution to teaching English to Aboriginal students, and is a flagship event of the year. The winner gets $5,000. Submissions close 1 November 2017.

In 2018, 12 outstanding educators will receive a $45,000 Teaching Fellowship, comprising $30,000 for a project at the Fellow’s school, $10,000 for professional development and a $5,000 study tour to a high-performing education system. Applications close on 12 October 2017.

The conference theme is Humanities and the Science of being Social with a focus on past, present and future means of communicating, connecting and collaborating. All sessions will assist teachers in their implementation of the WA Curriculum, pedagogical approaches, HASS inquiry skills, Information Technology, interdisciplinary methods of teaching HASS, interesting topics, issues and arguments.

What does it mean to use an inquiry approach in today’s classrooms? Many of us still think of inquiry as an approach lacking in structure or explicit teaching when in fact true, contemporary inquiry teaching is highly intentional and carefully designed. In this workshop, Kath will help Year 3-6 teachers explore both what effective inquiry looks, sounds and feels like in the classroom and understand why it can be such a powerful way to engage young people in learning. Based on her best-selling book ‘The Power of Inquiry’, the workshop will focus on both the planning and the pedagogy that accompanies this approach. Kath’s work emphasises ways to engage students in deep thinking through strategic questioning and the development of rich contexts that invite students to do the cognitive ‘heavy lifting’ as they wonder, investigate, analyse, make connections and take meaningful action. Teachers will leave the workshop with a greater understanding of inquiry as a teaching ‘stance’ across the curriculum and a practical repertoire of approaches they can use to involve their students as active investigators and powerful learners. Participants will receive a copy of Kath Murdoch's book 'The Power of Inquiry'.

The Aboriginal History Research Unit at the Department of Aboriginal Affairs (DAA) has undertaken a state-wide collaboration with the WA Museum (WAM), State Library of WA (SLWA), ABC and National Archives of Australia to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the 1967 Referendum, the 25th Anniversary of the 1992 Mabo Decision, and the 20th Anniversary of the Bringing Them Home Report. To acknowledge these milestones, the Western Australian Department of Aboriginal Affairs’ Aboriginal History Research Unit has developed an information toolkit to provide a unique WA perspective of this event and look at the progress of Aboriginal rights in WA to date. The Toolkit aims to educate the broader public and to be incorporated into WA school curricula, to focus on the history of these significant events and open up a contemporary dialogue with the Aboriginal community.

More than 250 regional and remote Indigenous students who attend boarding school in the metropolitan area will be encouraged to further their education through tertiary studies, employment and training at the 2017 Future Footprints Expo.

The Annual General Meeting of the Association of Independent Schools of Western Australia (AISWA) has endorsed the report of Economic Significance of Independent Schools to the WA Economy.