With just a few weeks before Victorian schools start their end of term holiday, or ‘vacation’, there’s a timely question we need to ask: Are schools providing maximum value? More than 2,260 schools, some of them with state-of-the-art facilities and…
Category: Leadership
Communicate and Innovate
Most parents and school leaders have the same desire: to ensure children’s needs are matched with the best possible teaching. Victorians are in yet another lockdown. School education has been disrupted once again for more than 1 million children. Stress,…
Responsibility: The Consequence of Freedom
Personal freedom! It’s one’s power, or right, to act, speak, or think as one wants. It’s a fundamental principle in many societies – past, present and, presumably, future. Or is it compromised to some extent by the personal freedom of…
To Be Fair
Sharing a point of view is easy. All that’s required is an opinion, a voice and a platform. It’s a cheap way of talking. Robust debate, on the other hand, requires making a genuine investment in what you stand for.…
Collaboration in education: fundamentally flawed
Schools often get caught up in the ‘next big thing’. Collaboration, it seems, remains hot on the 2019 agenda. And, like most big-ticket items, it will be misunderstood, misrepresented, and poorly implemented, if at all. Collaboration is a model that…
Does (Class) Size Matter? Performing Under Pressure
As the school year begins in earnest, teachers around the country will come under renewed pressure to achieve the unachievable: optimal student outcomes. Why unachievable? Allegedly because of unmanageable class sizes and high student-teacher ratios. The debate has been going…
Peace and (Deafening) Quiet: Educating in Silence
At the end of WWII, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) was established to promote peace and goodwill across the globe, and to prevent another world war. The founding nations of UNESCO believed education would provide the…
2019 – Celebration Of A Nation
Celebrations to welcome a New Year filled with promise, possibility, optimism and change are just hours away. For Australians, the celebrations have even greater significance. The first day of January is the anniversary of the greatest document ever negotiated in…
The Principal Act
Researchers consistently agree that teachers are far more likely to have a large and positive impact if they: 1. Know what needs be taught 2. Teach 3. Monitor what has been learned 4. Adapt their teaching as necessary In other words, if teachers competently…
Political Correctness – Honestly?
Some say political correctness is a movement for the insecure. Many claim it’s a cancer that has penetrated our schools and compromised our children’s future. At best, political correctness (PC) is dishonest. Some points to consider: Independent and Catholic schools…