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With the support of our delivery partners Early Childhood Australia and headspace, Be You will empower every Australian educator from early learning to primary and secondary school as well as our next generation of teachers to foster the mental health of those in their care and to look after their own wellbeing.
For the first time, Be You brings together, and builds on the success of, five established Australian programs to create one national, integrated framework designed to support the social and emotional wellbeing of children and young people across every Australian learning community.We're thankful for the contribution to the development of Be You from many stakeholders nationwide, and we look forward to the involvement of your organisation and others. This is an opportunity to make sure every educator across Australia knows there is support available. To that end, we have prepared a fact sheet and frequently asked questions for your information.
I also encourage you to have a look at Be You for yourself at beyou.edu.au.Please also let us know if have any questions or feedback on the launch phase of Be You. Be You will be continuously improved and added to as we gather feedback and move into future phases. We will continue to keep you informed as the initiative rolls out.
Yours sincerely
Georgie Harman
Chief Executive Officer
Beyond Blue
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The Executive of NCEC meet with members of Catholic School Parents [CSPA]; Catholic Primary Principals [ACPPPA] and CaSPA once a term.
At the most recent meeting in Sydney on Nov 1, 2018, the group had an opportunity to hear first hand from the Deputy Opposition Leader and Shadow Minister for Education, Tanya Plibersek.
Key topics discussed during the meeting with Tanya included:
At our regular meeting with just the usual Stakeholders, discussion included:
There was also presentation of an excellent video that can be used in schools to provide support for Religious Education. You are encouraged to view this below and also to use with staff, students and parents in your schools:
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Above [l to r]: Rob Laidler [CaSPA NSW Field Officer; Phil Scollard [Holy Spirit Catholic College LAKEMBA]; Andrew Watson [Pres CaSPA]; Tom Galea [Rosebank College, Five Dock]; Frank FitzGerald [Exec officer CaSPA]; Chris Browne [St Paul's Catholic College MANLY]
As the CaSPA Executive were due to meet with the Catholic Education Stakeholders group on Nov 1, President Andrew Watson and Executive Officer, Frank FitzGerald took the opportunity to meet with a small group of Principals from both Systemic and Independent Catholic Schools. The meeting which took place on the evening of October 31 in Sydney, had a number of objectives:
The latter is a complex issue given many factors including the existence of other important networks for Principals - especially ACSP - and the challenge of 11 different jurisdiction and the geographical spread of schools across the state.
CaSPA is not endeavoring to duplicate the work of other networks, but rather to determine how best to target our assistance, advice and collegial support. The CaSPA Field Officer for NSW - Rob Laidler - will continue to meet with groups around the state to assist them and promote better communication between these groups and the CaSPA Board.
| Posted in: Catholic Secondary Principals Australia | 0 Comments |
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They predate Australia's first TV broadcast, the switch to decimal currency and the polio vaccine and according to one expert, they are unlikely to end soon.
Dr Glenn Savage is a senior lecturer at the University of Western Australia and has written extensively on school funding."Because school funding is so politicised and because we have this strange mix of federal and state funding going to the different schooling sectors, no one is ever going to be happy, it seems, about any kind of announcement that's made," he says.
This politicisation of school funding has left Australian education in a fairly unique position, with a huge network of publicly funded private schools and a history fraught with conflict and compromise.1866-1973: "Godless compulsory education"
By the start of the 20th century, Australia's old system of publicly funded sectarian schools had been abolished, relegated to colonial history.The transformation was sparked by Victoria's 1872 Education Act.
Acting on the recommendations of an 1866 royal commission, the act stripped away funding from church schools and introduced free, compulsory, secular education in the colony.The rest of Australia soon followed suit, and a model of education was established that carried the country from federation through to the 1960s.
The Goulburn Strike played a major role in bringing that model to an end, and its repercussions are still being felt today.In 1962, six Goulburn Catholic schools shut up shop six weeks before the end of term, flooding the local state schools with 2000 new students.
The message was clear if Catholic schools were left without funding they would be forced to close, and the state system was not even close to equipped to handle the resulting influx of students."The Catholic sector was saying 'if we don't get some support ... we're going to go on strike and the kids will all have to flood back in to the public system', which would put the already strained public system under even more pressure than it was under at the time," Savage says.
Robert Menzies, renowned for his shrewd political instincts, would soon capitalise on the shift in public sentiment.In 1963, nearly 100 years after the royal commission, Menzies promised to provide a science laboratory for all schools, government and non-government alike.
He took the policy to the 1963 election, and saw it endorsed in the form of an increased majority.Three years after the 1963 election, and following a decade of fierce debate within the party, the Labor Party also abandoned its opposition to state aid for private schools.
In just a few short years, the debate had shifted from whether to fund private schools, to how and Australia's education system would never be the same."The developments in the '50s and '60s were just sort of antecedents, they were like adding pressure to the pressure cooker so to speak, and then by the time the '70s emerged, everything was under strain," Savage says.
"The public system was under strain, there were huge inequalities in the provision and outcomes across the country, there were huge concerns around inequalities in the system and then the Catholic sector was also under significant strain, and so everything sort of came to a head in the 1970s, which was what largely led to the commissioning of the Karmel Report."1973-2001: The first modern funding model
Commissioned under Gough Whitlam, the Karmel Report (Schools in Australia: report of the Interim Committee for the Australian Schools Commission), laid the foundation for Australia's modern system of school funding.Whereas non-government schools had previously received funding in the form of isolated, non-recurrent schemes like Menzies' science labs policy, the Karmel Report recommended ongoing funding for all schooling sectors.
Public schools were to be funded fully, private schools would receive partial funding based on their need and the capacity of parents to pay.The committee found it difficult to define "need", but eventually decided that it would be determined by the resources available to schools, particularly the number of teachers per student.
Over the coming decades, this would prove to be a contentious point.The Karmel Report also recommended that 'block' or 'systemic' funding be offered to private systems, meaning that they could opt to receive their funding as a lump sum, to distribute as they saw fit.
Savage describes the release of the Karmel Report as a watershed moment in the history of Australian education."It wasn't the first time that schools had been funded by the Federal Government, but it was the first time that recurrent funding had been given, so what they did primarily was establish a [model] for the Federal Government as the majority funder for non-government schools..." he says.
"[The Karmel Report] set up this dynamic which has yet to be resolved and may never be resolved, which is the tension between having a federal and a state funding mix, where one level of government is providing the majority of funding to the non-government sector, and then you've got the states providing the majority to the public sector."2001-2011: "No school will lose a dollar"
The next major funding shake-up came under the Howard Government, with the 2001 introduction of the socioeconomic status (SES) funding model.Under the model, parental capacity to pay was calculated based on the income of a school's neighbourhood an imperfect metric, but a more direct one than what existed previously.
Crucially, then-Education Minister David Kemp set the tone for 21st century school funding debates with his pledge that no school would lose money as a result of the change.In another striking parallel to recent education history, the Catholic sector initially refused to sign on to the new model but was placated by a $300 million special fund in 2004.
"So Howard promised that no school would lose a dollar as a result of bringing it in, there was a special fund set up for Catholic schools to make sure they wouldn't lose any money, it's all very Groundhog Day, right?" Savage says.That same year, then-Labor Leader Mark Latham published a controversial "hit list" of 67 wealthy private schools, promising to cut their funding if elected.
Polls showed that most voters approved, but the media response was merciless the parameters of acceptable school funding policy were made clear.Julia Gillard took heed, and in the lead-up to the first Gonski report she repeated Kemp's pledge that no school would lose a dollar.
"I think it's fundamentally contradictory to the aims of needs-based funding, you can't have needs-based funding when no school loses a dollar, the only way that that would make any sense would be if every school was deemed to be underfunded, and that's clearly not the case, at least in line with the Gonski model..." Savage says."[Because] you want to please the vested interests of people, more money always ends up being offered and this promise of no one losing gets repeated over and over again.
"The problem is, it gets repeated alongside the insistence that we need needs-based funding, so there's a paradox there. You can't have both of those at the same time."2011-current: The Gonski era
In 2011, David Gonski's Review of Funding for Schooling, the first Gonski report, was released.This was the genesis of the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS), a per-student funding target, calculated by analysis of funding levels at high-performing schools.
Two years later, Gonski's recommendations would be partially legislated in the 2013 Education Act."Compromises were kind of made from the very beginning," Savage says.
"What that amounted to was that no-one lost any money because 'no school would lose a dollar', everyone gained more money and so Gonski ended up being an incredibly expensive reform to bring in."And schools that should have, according to the Gonski formula ... [lost] money because they were technically over-funded with the new model, they didn't lose any money ... you ended up with a really compromised version of what was intended in the beginning."
In 2017, the Coalition passed the Quality Schools package, otherwise known as the Gonski 2.0 reforms.Significantly, the reforms abolished the System Weighted Average (SWA), which had been used to calculate parental capacity to pay in systemic schools.
The change was expected to cost the Catholic sector billions, and necessitated a review of how SES was calculated.The review was published this year, and recommended abandoning the Howard-era SES methodology in favour of one based directly on parental income.
The long-awaited change finally came about as part of this year's $4.6 billion funding package, but went largely unreported due to the ensuing controversy.Overall, Savage gives the package a mixed review.
"It's actually a step, I think, in the right direction, in terms of providing a more nuanced measure of parental income by using taxable income rather than census data. It gives a better understanding of what need is in those schools," he said."The issue though is that because they're transitioning towards it over the period of a decade, that's going to result in this $3.2 billion extra to this sector over that period.
"The other issue I think is the $1.2 billion choice and affordability fund, which people have been calling a 'slush fund', which I think is a bit questionable, in terms of like 'why is that extra fund needed?'"It's got nothing to do with making the Gonski model any better, it just seems to be more politically motivated than anything else."
The changes are scheduled to roll out over a decade, and Savage says that some schools will eventually lose money as a result."I think that that would be good and right, it would mean that we do have something close to needs-based funding," he says.
"But 10 years is a long time and politicians are very aware of that, so you can make promises that extend into the vague future and then often those parties don't need to be held accountable for that later on, because the political climate shifts, new promises are made and then the whole thing repeats."It's the gift that keeps on giving."
By Geordie Little
Published October 18, 2018 on https://au.educationhq.com/explore/news/
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That's the suggestion of think tank the Grattan Institute after it took a (very thorough) look at NAPLAN data.
"We've looked at how much students are learning from one test to the next and tried to understand where students are making the most progress," report author and education commentator Peter Goss said.The TL;DR version of the Grattan Institute report card:
To look at the schools side-by-side, the Grattan Institute compared them to a national benchmark, or average. That average is: 12 months of growth for every 12 months of schooling.
Let's look at how each state and territory performed.Victoria
Victoria has a long history of supporting students who are considered disadvantaged and in this report card those students make four months more progress than the national average for students in years 7 and 9.But for students who are advantaged, the Grattan Institute found the state did not do well at extending them.
New South WalesIn NSW, the story is better for those students considered advantaged.
What about mum and dad?
According to the Grattan Institute:
In Victoria, students whose parents were educated to year 11 or below reached a level of numeracy about five months ahead of similar students in NSW by year 9.
But, Victorian students whose parents were educated to a bachelor degree or higher were sitting about 10 months behind their NSW peers by year 9.
The state does well at extending gifted students, but struggles to provide support to disadvantaged students in secondary school.
"NSW teachers receive extra support on how to teach gifted students, including specific teaching materials and professional learning," it said.
Mr Goss:"The most worrying message is within every state and territory that the students who are making the least progress, are those in disadvantaged schools."
QueenslandHere we are at the top of the class.
In Queensland, children in years 3 and 5 are about two months ahead of the average in reading.Those same students are one month ahead of the national average when it comes to numeracy.
"This story is consistent across all school sectors (government, Catholic and independent), although it is most obvious for government schools," the report card noted.
So, what's going on in Queensland primary schools?There was a bit of a "shock" in 2008 when Queensland was one of the lowest performing education systems, ranked behind the Northern Territory.
Since then, there have been major reviews and reforms around NAPLAN.South Australia
If your primary school-aged child goes to school in South Australia, they are likely to be a month behind the national average in numeracy and reading.The Grattan Institute report card said students in SA were "consistently at the lower end of the national spread".
And even among "educationally advantaged schools", there were very few high performers.Australian Capital Territory
The ACT is sitting at the bottom of the class, and according to the Grattan analysis, it really shouldn't be."The ACT has very high achievement because its students come from advantaged backgrounds; mostly their parents are well educated, mostly they're in good jobs," Mr Goss said.
"Once you compare those the ACT schools to other similar schools, it doesn't look nearly as good."Like SA primary students, those in the ACT "consistently make less progress in numeracy and reading compared to similar schools in other states".
In a "worrying trend", the ACT system is getting worse, falling further behind the national average in recent years, according to the Grattan report card.
The 2010-12 cohort made around two months' less progress than the national average in numeracy
The 2014-16 cohort made five months' less progress than the national average in numeracy and four month less in reading
And while ACT high school students are high achieving, they are, on average, more advantaged and when you take that into account, the territory "trails the national average considerably in student progress".
Tasmania
It may be small, but, when you consider the lower average socio-economic average in Tasmania, it's not an underperformer."This result suggests their schools are not, on average, doing a bad job," the Grattan report said.
After adjusting for disadvantage, Tasmania makes similar progress to the national average in all areas bar one secondary writing.In that subject, Tasmanian students perform "well above average".
Northern TerritoryLike Tasmania, the Northern Territory has some work to do, but "contrary to popular perception", it's not an underperformer.
In fact, the report card said the NT was "doing a tough job well"."The report shows that their students progress broadly in line with students in similar schools in other states," the Grattan Institute said.
Mr Goss: "They have to educate far more students who are from disadvantaged families, and in the NT also there are so many school that are very remote and have very high Indigenous populations."Western Australia
In Western Australia, primary students sit just above the national average for numeracy, reading and writing from years 3 to 5.In reading, WA students progressed better than students from NSW, Vic, SA and the ACT.
The national concern: disadvantaged studentsSo, looking at the benchmark of 12 months of progress for 12 months of school, Mr Goss said, as a nation, we've got some catching up to do.
"If we compare students who are in pretty high-achieving schools, that are already doing well, versus students in pretty low-achieving schools, in mathematics or in numeracy, the low-achieving schools are only making half as much progress as the high-achieving schools," he said.That means disadvantaged students are making about 1.5 years of progress every two years, compared to students at high-achieving schools who are making three years of progress every two years.
"In our analysis, when you look at achievement levels, the socioeconomic background of the students is about twice as important as anything associated with the school," Mr Goss said.
From: ABC.net.au
By national education reporter Natasha Robinson and the Specialist Reporting
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