Parents and families continue to be hamstrung by inefficiencies and lack of accountability in Australian schools. Despite billions of dollars of annual spending, on everything from buildings, curriculum reviews and research to teacher wellbeing programs, additional tutors and computers, the…
Category: Parenting
Are schools providing maximum value?
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…
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,…
The First Schools
It has been said that the very first public school began in 459BC. It was the ‘house of the book’ or the ‘house of the teacher’, and it was established in Jerusalem by a Jewish scribe and priest, known as…
Our Nation’s Greatest Educators
I lost my Dad a few weeks ago. It was way too sudden. Initially, I wasn’t ready to say good-bye. Not because of unspoken love – we said it often; I wasn’t ready because I felt I hadn’t learned all…
Relationships and the Law
Tania and Rose were high school students. Their parents had separated more than a decade ago, and had shared responsibility for the girls, putting in place a ‘week-about’ strategy for their care and residential arrangements. The girls’ mother worked full-time.…
A Step Toward Community
On the coffee table in the reception area there was a bowl of fresh fruit. A few children popped in and helped themselves, before returning to their friends, their skipping ropes and their ball games, in the playground that smelled…
Wake Up Mums!
How can you aptly describe hearing your child’s first words? How can you share the experience of watching your child’s first steps? They are moments that are so very personal – and priceless. Increasingly, these motherhood moments are facing extinction.…
Who’s on Holiday? Hands Up. Hands out.
Every teacher is different. Some go the extra mile for students. Others give no more than they must. Some passionately improve their teaching. Others are nothing more than well-paid babysitters. Despite these differences all teachers haveone thing in common. They have 12 weeks…
Going (Technological) Cold Turkey: Time to Switch Off
Since the turn of the 21st century, mobile phones in schools have been problematic. They have contributed to an increase in technological addiction, academic disengagement, and concerns related to discipline, bullying and lobbying. Tragically, mobile phones have also played a…