Comments for

Comment on Are Australian children being taught the right foreign languages? by Cory Olsen

Cory Olsen — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 05:19:16 +0000

It woud certainly benefit our society if the citizens of Australia were more able to engage with Asia through greater language ability.

Comment on Parents must support school attendance by Tania Woods

Tania Woods — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:25:17 +0000

I think its really sad that my son & many more special needs kids in Broome are missing out on school, because we STILL dont have a bus to help them get to school or to be included in activities, the rest of the school are participating in! Its all very well to pass the buck & expect the community to support our kids when it concerns transport, but Liz Constable should realize most carers & parents use that school time to relax (seeing as we dont get respite here in Broome), to do normal house duties that cant be done when our kids are at home, or yes Liz, a lot of “super carers” work too, to support their families, because in most cases the child with special needs is not the only child in the home.

So where do they find the time to support their child & help others at the school at the same time? Do you tell people in Perth to ask others to get their children to school & school activities like swimming lessons, carnivals, movies etc.. Or rely on other carers & community groups to transport their kids? No, you give them what they need… My son use to go to Carson Street school in Perth, so i know at first hand the funding & resources the government CAN provide, even at a priority.

Although my son has missed a lot of school, i am a parent who absolutely knows the benefits of school attendance, especially for special needs & Aboriginal children. But i am also a parent who will do anything to make my son happy & try include him in LIFE…..even if i am a single mother with three other kids to take care of, or that i dont have a car, or that i dont have family to help me, or the fact ive already had numerous nervous break downs etc, etc.. Getting my son to school & maintaining his attendance isnt just about education, for us its about living a LIFE! The schools themselves, Homeswest, local Government, and Education & Transport ministers should be held responsible for our kids too. We as parents with special needs kids have to prioritise & do things everyday because we love them & try to help others out of the kindness of our hearts whenever we can. But you people do whatever it is you do because you get paid for it!

So tell me Liz Constable how would you feel if someone told you, that you had to be left out every time there was something exciting happening at your workplace, or something you should 100% be included in? How would you feel if everyone made decisions on your behalf because you couldn’t be there? Or even worse, how would you feel if that was your child being left out!?

High schools get the funding they want, visibly Perth schools get priority over country schools, everyone else gets the funding they need to support their students. Broome primary school get the use of local buses for swimming lessons & other outings, DCP have a bus for their kids, childcare groups have buses, & there’s a bus for kids who live out of town to get to school on….where does that leave our kids? So how about you prioritise for once “Education Minister” Constable, make it fair & give us a bus!

Regards
Frustrated Mother

Comment on Parents must support school attendance by Caterina Ponzio

Caterina Ponzio — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:55:07 +0000

‘Minister calls on parents and carers to get children to school. Communities must support school programs to make a difference’.

Broome parents, carers and schools are still waiting for the Minister to allocate a bus so 52+ “special needs” students can get to school – “special needs” students can’t travel on the “normal” school bus as they are not accessible for students with mobility issues eg wheelchairs or supervised for students that need extra help and attention on their journey to school. Also schools need accessible transport/bus to enable “special needs” students to be included in school excursions, swimming lessons, school sports carnivals, etc like all other students!

Education Minister Liz Constable must do much more to get these children to school as attendance figures showed too many students were still regularly missing public schooling beacause they can’t get to school!!!

But of course “Education” Minister Liz Constable has bigger problems to contend with – as seen in today’s news – families holidaying in Bali!!

Comment on A new National Curriculum takes off by Adelaide Packaging

Adelaide Packaging — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:25:02 +0000

You have published a fantastic resource.

Comment on NAPLAN results reveal more needs to be done by Mark

Mark — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 01:49:54 +0000

NAPLAN is barely OK as an indicator of overall performance for individual schools. It is an atrocious and deeply flawed tool for comparing schools however. It is a ‘one-off’ test, and does not take into consideration anything like the individual student’s background or ongoing progress. It is increasingly losing any relevance as now schools are devoting so much time ‘teaching to the test’, and then it is delivered in a very ad hoc way. There are many incidences of weaker students being urged to not attend on the testing days, and the level of teacher assistance during testing has to be seriously questioned.
Now that the WA DoE have announced moves to begin full-time formalised learning at the Pre-Primary level, and moved Year 7s into high school with specialised education, the results will drop even lower.
The most successful education systems in the world (ie. like Finland, Norway) do not start formalised learning until the child turns six as it recognises that the brain is just not ready for formalised learning until then. WA used to be the envy of Australia with its informal pre-primary system where students were given all opportunity to develop brains through play and socialisation. We will now begin to see more boys failing and the need for more money being spent on remediation classes in schools to overcome the damage done by pushing formalised learning onto children too early.
At the other end, the most successful countries (ie. Finland, Norway) do not let students begin specialised education until they turn 14. By moving our Year 7s into secondary school a year earlier, this too will have a negative impact educationally on a lot of students who needed the extra year to consolidate in Year 7 at primary school. There are also the many issues emotionally and socially.
It amazes me that we are going down this track when we had it right, once! Why do we have to blindly follow NSW and Vic, and the UK and the USA, for that matter? Why are we allowing ourselves to be dictated to from a very questionable National Curriculum. And it’s going to cost our state an immense amount of money (about $1 billion) to make the shift into formalised PP and specialised Year 7). Why fix something that was clearly not broken? Imagine if that money was pumped into schools in WA minus the stupid, meaningless changes. We could have a great ICT program operating (are you aware that WA school still use Windows XP as the operating system!! And we are only permitted to use Office 2003!! Kids have to relearn these skills now as their home computers are all using Windows 7 and whatever the latest Office version is. We are forced to use a very redundant system in our schools). We could also pump more money into school student services and provide a much higher and more effective level of support. We could do so much with that billion dollars, and not just waste it in making structural changes to our system.

In regards to National Curriculum, who says that Year 7 has to be taught by specialists in high school? You could quite easily teach the curriculum in a shed on a farm. It’s all about the dedication and skill of the teacher – the content at Year 7 level is not rocket science!
I am just amazed and stupified at the people who make these terrible decisions.
And who will be left holding the can? The schools and the teachers of course! Everyone will conveniently forget that it was the due to the terrible decision making of our politicians.

Let common sense come back into Education, and stop wasting money and time on things that really don’t make any difference!