‘Distracting and addictive’: School rules for mobile phones*
* This interview was published in Sydney Morning Herald on 23rd September 2018 Mobile phones are supposed to remain in school bags during classes at Cherrybrook Technology High School. But Isabella Ormsby says that does not deter her fellow students from checking their phones for messages and calls, watching or making videos. “Most of the time the teacher will tell you to put it in your bag or sometimes they’ll take your…
read moreThe good news is bad news when it comes to Australian pupils’ PISA scores
There is good news and bad news for Australia in the latest Pisa – Programme for International Student Assessment – results released this week by the OECD. First the good: Australia is back in the OECD’s top 10 education countries. Now the bad: that good news is not because our education systems are performing better than before. Australia is still sliding downwards – but other countries are doing so faster. Many of…
read moreRespect our teachers
Teaching and parenting have one thing in common: Both are much more complicated today than they used to be. The months of school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic were concrete proof of that for many of us. In The Drum, Meg Southcombe spoke about the lack of respect that many teachers experience in their work. It is true that teachers feel increasing pressures from the system above and from parents on the side. Moreover, there…
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