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2017 28 4 September 2017


ET News Digest
Your Weekly Education Newsletter
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Gallup poll finds declining student engagement and hope for the future

Startling findings in the fifth Gallup Student Poll show that as Australian students move through the education system they become less hopeful for their future and less enthusiastic about their school. 

 

The online poll was completed by a sample size of 8864 students in Years 5-12 from 28 schools who chose to opt-in this survey. The poll was conducted during school hours from Tuesday to Friday. It measures the non-cognitive elements of an education which have been demonstrated to impact both academic outcomes and success in life. Read More

ELLA preschool language program to be expanded

The Commonwealth Government will expand the Early Learning Languages Australia program (ELLA) in 2018 with Modern Greek and Hindi to be added to the apps for Arabic, Chinese, French, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese and Spanish.

 

The announcement follows the release of a report by Deloitte and Swinbourne University of Technology that evaluated the 2016 program trial sites and  confirmed that the trial had shown positive results in increasing language exposure for preschool children. Read More

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Most disadvantaged schools missing out on Teach for Australia recruits

Public schools pressure group Save our Schools (SOS) has used the findings of the Teach for Australia (TFA) Evaluation Report released by the Commonwealth Dept of Education and Training to criticise the fast-track teacher training program.

 

SOS claims that the report "raises serious questions about the effectiveness of the program. It shows that TFA teachers are not being placed in genuinely disadvantaged schools and a high proportion leave teaching within three years of completing the program."

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Rissalah College to pay back $4.3 million to NSW government

Rissalah College, a 529-student K-6 school in Lakemba, Sydney, has agreed to replay $4.3m and will lose all funding if it employs, contracts with or pays long-time former principal Ali Roude or members of his family at any future time. Read More

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Mentoring program for early career teachers in the Northern Territory

In an initiative designed to reduce the attrition rate which can be as high as 50% in the first five years, the NT Dept of Education has launched a mentoring program to support teachers in the early stages of their career. 
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Education has 'dropped the ball' in teaching writing skills

Many Australian children are leaving primary school without the handwriting and keyboarding skills to enable them to perform at their best in writing tasks across the curriculum, according to Dr Noella Mackenzie of Charles Sturt University’s School of Education. Some children are unable to perform efficiently on tasks that require them to write – by hand or on keyboards – because they have not learned the skills or practised them enough. Read More

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Engineering is Elementary program for schools launched

Questacon, Australia’s National Science and Technology Centre, and Raytheon Australia and have marked 10 years of partnership by announcing the development of a pilot of the Engineering is Elementary program.

 

The new program draws from a highly successful science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) initiative created by the US-based Museum of Science. 

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$2.7m funds for intensive English tuition for refugee children in NSW schools

Newly arrived refugees attending Catholic and independent schools will benefit from $2.7 million to fund intensive language tuition and other specialist support.

 

Education Minister Rob Stokes has announced the one-off funding over two years to assist non-government schools cater for the significant influx of refugees arriving under the humanitarian intake from Syria and Iraq. Read More

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Brain boost? A headset to stimulate the brain is being developed at Uni WA

Student innovators and graduates from The University of Western Australia are developing a headset that can monitor human brain waves and stimulate the brain to improve concentration and boost the brain’s performance.

 

The headset uses Electroencephalography (EEG) technology to detect the state of the brain in real-time and determine metrics such as concentration and fatigue, and then applies a small electrical current, known as a transcranial alternating current (tACS), to stimulate better mental performance. Read More