educator_summer_2022_1

Australian

Meet the minister // Jason Clare shares his plans

Climate crisis

// How extreme weather impacts education

Time to step up

P RINT P OST A PP ROVED 10 000 8182

Will the government deliver for public education?

Way with words // First Nations language programs

SUMMER 2022 // ISSUE 116 $9.95

Game on

// Video games in the classroom

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Contents ON THE COVER It's time for the government to step up for public education.

PHOTO iStockphoto

26 08 06 NEWS IN BRIEF • • • • •

Tools to support inclusive teaching Famous faces in new campaign Plan to end gender-based violence Calls for out-of-field data Push for open access research

08 MEET THE MINISTER Education Minister Jason Clare shares his vision for a national approach to solving some of the education system's biggest challenges.

12 THE TIME IS NOW

22 22 GAME ON IN SCHOOLS

A LEARNING JOURNEY

Video games in the classroom can support neurodiverse students, improve student engagement and encourage girls to consider STEM subjects.

A comprehensive handbook offers teachers strategies to support children with dyslexia and dyscalculia.

26

REGULARS

FIRST NATIONS LANGUAGES Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language programs are improving learning outcomes and preserving culture for future generations.

04 From the president 05 Know your union 38 Recess

30 MINDS MATTER

NSRA talks are about to begin. Find out why this is our best chance in a decade to establish fair funding for our schools.

Excessive workloads and workforce shortages are creating burnout and a mental health crisis for the education profession.

18

34

CLIMATE CRISIS

TRANSFORMING EDUCATION

Extreme weather events are eroding educational equity and putting young lives at risk.

36

A UN summit has created a plan to improve equity and inclusion, quality and relevance in education by 2030.

www.aeufederal.org.au

SUM M E R 2 0 2 2 // 3

News

News in brief

New public ed campaign

h Children wit e disability hav be the right to ly. treated fair

A new campaign aims to promote public education “as the cornerstone of Australian society”.

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The Public Education Foundation campaign focuses on high-profile Australians who have attended public schools. The public education champions include award-winning actor Deborah Mailman, Paralympic gold medallist and Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) television presenter Kurt Fearnley and ABC journalist and news presenter Juanita Phillips.

The campaign will also promote public education’s core values: excellence, inclusions, diversity, fairness, equity and opportunity.

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code for more Scan the QR @OSHC. n about IncludeED informatio

Children’s Education

Fairness

ces: • must not discr against child iminate families or ren, their others beca of disability use • should cons ult families abou with adjustments t reasonable access and to support participation • can make a difference the lives of in children with disability.

©2022 Australian

The rights of families and children, supported others can be by your:

• attitudes • decisions • words • relat

ionships.

How do we embed a cultu of fairness re in our servi ce?

Your team should: • have regu lar conversationsrespectful with families to identify barriers to parti and opportuni cipation adjustments ties for • challenge discrimination they see it, read it or hearif it • work toge ther inclusion happ to make children with en for disability.

This project was funded by the Australian Government.

Children’s Education

and Care Quality

Fairness

Authority

Equity

Scan the QR code for more informatio n about the DDA.

Inclusion

New ACECQA disability resources The Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) has published a series of free resources to support teachers, education support personnel and other staff to understand the Disability Discrimination Act 1992.

The Act and the National Quality Framework promote inclusive programs, practices and policies that support children with disabilities and their families to access and fully participate in children’s education and care services.

ACECQA’s resources include posters, fact sheets and information sheets. tinyurl.com/2p87t4ts

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Ending genderbased violence A national 10-year strategy to end gender-based violence in one generation urges schools to play a part.

The End Violence Against Women and Children 2022-2032 plan, a commitment by the federal, state and territory governments, says the ambitious goal can be achieved if all Australians work together to “reshape the social, political and economic aspects of our society that allow gender inequality and discrimination to continue”.

It says every sector has a role to play in preventing, intervening, and

responding to those who experience gender-based violence. For example, schools may face family violence as a child protection matter and staff may require appropriate training to safely support women and children experiencing violence.

In Australia, one woman is killed by an intimate partner every 10 days, on average, and one in three women has experienced physical violence since the age of 15.

The strategy says schools need to engage young people, including boys and young men, in respectful behaviours and relationships.

“They should recognise children and young people as victim-survivors of violence in their own right and meet their safety and recovery needs.”

ILLUSTRATIONS ISTOCKPHOTO.COM

by the was funded This project Government.

Australian Authority and Care Quality

©2022 Australian

There is evidence that shows students learn better and are more inspired when taught by in-field teachers.

Associate Professor Linda Hobbs Deakin School of Education

Research for all Researchers are demanding open access to educational research to help increase its visibility, reach and impact.

Call for out-of-field data A new report that examines out-of-field teaching and its effects on teachers and students recommends better data, career pathways and support for teachers.

The Deakin University report, Australian National Summit on Teaching Out-of-field: Synthesis and Recommendations for Policy, Practice and Research, was co-written by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) and Griffith University researchers and lists 22 actions and 46 recommendations.

High on the list of recommendations is agreement upon a nationally accepted definition of out-of-field teaching.

The report calls for more comprehensive data on the long-term effects of out-of-field teaching on teachers and students. It also looks at the need for better support for those teachers who are currently teaching out of field and

at creating stronger career pathways into teaching, including re-training for mid-career professionals hoping to become teachers.

Deakin School of Education associate professor Linda Hobbs says the first step to address the problem is to better understand how staff shortages affect Australian classrooms.

“There is evidence that shows students learn better and are more inspired when taught by in-field teachers,” says Hobbs.

She says the report shows that teaching out-offield has become an increasingly critical issue.

“We believe it is something that needs to be addressed urgently to mitigate any impact on students’ education and teacher wellbeing.”

Important research findings are being left out of policy and practice because of a lack of access to published research, write Tracy Creagh, journal manager at Queensland University of Technology and Pru Mitchell, manager of information services at the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) in the EduResearch Matters blog. They are calling on tertiary institutions to make presented educational research publicly available.

“Unless you are a researcher with an academic library login, then paywalls, restrictive terms of access, and the time to get hold of legally published research, shuts out the very people who need this information,” Creagh and Mitchell say.

Open access is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles combined with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment.

Creagh and Mitchell say open access ensures that those outside of education institutions, including those responsible for writing policy and providing information, have access to timely research. “It also supports collaborative research without restrictions on a global scale,” they say.

ooftas-collective.org/toofsummit

SUM M E R 2 0 2 2 // 7

Minister commits to fair funding for every school Education minister Jason Clare is advocating a national approach to solving some of the education system’s biggest challenges, including the teacher shortage, workloads, fair funding and equity.

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Q&A

The minister, who was educated in the New South Wales public system at Cabramatta Public School and Canley Vale High School, spoke to AEU federal president Correna Haythorpe about his plans.

Q You’ve talked elsewhere about your teacher Mrs Fry and the influence she had in your life. What was it about Mrs Fry and her classroom that has stayed with you and how has she influenced who you are as a person today?

A When I got this job, the first thing I did was go back to my old primary school to give my teacher Mrs (Cathy) Fry a hug.

It just seemed like the right place to start.

Cathy started there, at Cabramatta Public School, in 1978. And she is still there.

Changing lives.

Cabramatta is not a flash, wealthy part of town. It wasn’t when I went to school there.

It still isn’t today. It’s full of people from around the world. Working hard. Scraping by. But they want the best for their kids.

And they know the power of education.

The kids I shared a classroom with came from everywhere, from South America to Southeast Asia.

A lot couldn’t speak English when they first came to school. I’m still friends with a lot of those kids. This sounds like a cliché, but I can tell you it’s true. Today they are partners in law firms, pharmacists, multimillionaire start-up business owners.

How? How does this happen?

You know the answer. It’s because of people like Cathy. And people like you.

Education minister Jason Clare with students from Canley Vale High School.

Q Let’s chat about equity – what PHOTOGRAPHY OFFICE OF JASON CLARE

Q What inspires you the most about public education?

A I am proud to be a product of public education.

Our public schools bring together children from many different backgrounds, different faiths and cultures. Parents with different jobs, different incomes and different lives. That’s important. It makes our schools a microcosm of our community and teaches us about one another.

do you consider to be equity?

A I think equity is basically about fairness.

Making sure everyone has what they need to succeed. That’s not the case at the moment. The fact is that children from poor families are still less likely to go to preschool, to finish school, or to go to university. It is the same if you come from the bush or are an Indigenous person.

I don’t want us to be a country where your chances in life depend on your

postcode, your parents, or the colour of your skin. But that’s where we are today.

Q What do you ultimately want to achieve in this portfolio?

A I want to help those children who are currently missing out. I sincerely believe that education is the most powerful cause for good in this country. It changed my life.

I am the first person in my family to finish school. I am the first person in my family to finish Year 10.

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(below) Education minister Jason Clare holding his Year 12 photo; with current students at Canley Vale High School.

My mum and dad grew up in western Sydney at a time when most workingclass kids didn’t finish school, let alone go to university. A lot has changed. My public education has given me opportunities they never dreamed of. But that still hasn’t reached into every corner of our country.

I want to do something about that.

Q What are you planning to do to ensure that every child has the same opportunity to a quality education?

A I can give you two examples of the things I have done in my first few months as minister.

First, for universities, we have funded 20,000 more university places to build skills where we have shortages. I have told the universities that every one of those places must be for young people from low socio-economic backgrounds, rural and remote areas, Indigenous Australians, Australians with disability and Australians who are the first in their family to go to university.

Second, it is a terrible fact that a lot of Indigenous children are not as ready to start school as many other children. Last year, 55 per cent of four and five-year-olds were assessed as developmentally ready to start school. But only 34 per cent of Indigenous children met that mark. And that percentage is going backwards.

That’s why one of my first acts as minister for education has been to extend the Child Care Subsidy for all Indigenous families. The Bill I introduced to Parliament provides a base level of 36 subsidised hours a fortnight of early education for all Indigenous children, whether their parents meet the activity test or not.

It’s not everything, but it’s a start.

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In the last 10 years we have seen a big drop in the percentage of young people studying teaching at university. There has also been a drop in the percentage of students completing their teaching degrees. On top of that, a lot of experienced teachers are leaving the profession, burned out.

Jason Clare Education minister

Q What do you think the biggest challenges will be in your portfolio and how do you intend to overcome them?

A There are a lot. One of the big ones is the teacher shortage crisis. As you know, we have a shortage of teachers right across the country, and it is only expected to get worse.

In the last 10 years we have seen a big drop in the percentage of young people studying teaching at university.

There has also been a drop in the percentage of students completing their teaching degrees. On top of that, a lot of experienced teachers are leaving the profession, burned out.

The only way to turn this around is if the federal government and the state governments work together. That’s what I’m doing.

In August, I brought ministers, teachers, principals, unions and other experts together from across the country to work on ideas to tackle this. We agreed to develop a national action plan and work is underway on that right now.

Q From your early conversations with teachers, what are the biggest challenges you think they are facing and how do you intend to resolve these – both in the long and short term?

A I have a lot of mates who are teachers.

They tell me what you already know, and what the research shows, workload is a massive issue.

I know the idea that teachers rock up at 9am and clock off at 3pm is rubbish.

The fact is Australian teachers work longer hours than teachers in many other countries but spend less time face-to-face teaching. On average, only 40 per cent

Q&A

Our public schools bring together children from many different backgrounds, different faiths and cultures. Parents with different jobs, different incomes and different lives.

That’s important. It makes our schools a microcosm of our community and teaches us about one another.

Jason Clare Education minister

of the hours Australian teachers work are spent in the classroom.

State and territory governments have a lot of the levers here to reduce workload, but it is something I want to work on with them.

Q The federal government’s four-year funding agreement with the states is due to be renewed next year. What will be your priorities in negotiating a new agreement? Most schools

around Australia have been denied the funding that they need to ensure a high-quality education for their students. The ALP made an election commitment to ensure that there was a pathway to 100 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard.

How do you intend to achieve that?

A We are committed to working with the states and territories to get every school to 100 per cent of its fair funding level.

Those negotiations will kick off next year.

The Productivity Commission is doing some work at the moment on the current National School Reform Agreement and what the next National School Reform Agreement should focus on.

In its interim report released recently it suggested that we should prioritise three things: • teacher shortages and high workloads • a lack of equity in student outcomes and • poor student wellbeing.

That makes a lot of sense to me.

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The time is now Australia has its best chance in a decade to finally get the fair and equitable funding system our schools need, and our students deserve.

BY N I C B ARN ARD

IN SHORT // Negotiations for a new NSRA are about to begin. // The agreement sets out public school funding and education policy for four years. // The AEU is calling on the new government to commit to full SRS funding for public schools and restore equity in education.

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A September Productivity Commission report revealed that funding from all sources for Catholic schools now outstrips that for public schools. Independent schools, always far ahead, are now almost out of sight. Catholic schools are increasing their government funding at nearly double the rate of government schools and independent schools have seen their government funding increase by 47 per cent since 2011.

Separately, the commission's interim report on the 2018 NSRA highlighted the drift under the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments, and called out the lack of detail on how the agreement was meant to support the students who needed it most.

The past nine years have seen an inequality in funding that we never expected to see … Gonski set out a timeline for addressing inequality, but it was systematically destroyed by the Coalition.

Correna Haythorpe AEU federal president

ILLUSTRATION FIONA KATOUSKAS

A

t the end of this year, state, territory and federal ministers of education begin negotiating a new National Schools Reform Agreement (NSRA) – the document that sets the policies and ground rules for funding schools for the four years from 2024.

For the new Albanese government, this should be unfinished business. Will the ALP take the opportunity to at last deliver the level playing field for students that was meant to be at the heart of the Gonski reforms it tried to introduce a decade ago?

The voices for reform are getting louder even before negotiations begin. A series of reports has underscored just how wide the gap has grown between public and private schools after nine wasted years under the Liberal-National Coalition.

New figures from the OECD in its latest Education at a Glance paper revealed that funding for public schools fell during the first two years of the pandemic – bucking a global trend of governments putting more money into their education systems to cope with the crisis. Only Hungary cut funding more.

Agenda

We don’t have enough teachers currently, let alone for the future … This has a direct impact in schools with classes being doubled up, people teaching out of their field and difficulties attracting people to rural and remote schools.

Correna Haythorpe AEU federal president

Bilateral agreements between Canberra and the states and territories “often do not identify measures to lift outcomes for students from all priority equity cohorts or, if they do, provide little detail on how measures will lift outcomes, or report any progress achieved,” it says. Elsewhere it notes: “The gaps have not been closed.”

Priority cohorts include those from disadvantaged backgrounds, from rural or remote communities, Indigenous students, and students with disabilities.

They overwhelmingly attend public schools. But the previous government’s priorities lay elsewhere, in special deals that funnelled billions of dollars to the Catholic and independent sectors on top of the funding they already enjoy.

HIGH EXPECTATIONS So, will the Albanese government and education minister Jason Clare deliver?

“The past nine years have seen an inequality in funding that we never expected to see,” AEU federal president Correna Haythorpe says.

“Gonski set out a timeline for addressing inequality, but it was systematically destroyed by the Coalition.

“It falls to Minister Clare to lead the process and get an NSRA in place that delivers for every child in public schools across the nation.”

The negotiations begin at a time when the public school system is under great pressure. The teaching profession is experiencing a crisis, with escalating workloads and chronic workforce shortages being indicative of government failure to properly resource public schools.

Add to this the impact of COVID, which has exacerbated existing inequalities in the school system.

How do we fix this?

Mending Australia’s broken school funding system won’t be easy, but the AEU says the foundations are in place.

Public schools must be guaranteed the full 100% Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) by the end of the next NSRA.

The federal government must abolish the arbitrary 20% cap on its contribution to public schools and lift its share of the SRS.

The Commonwealth must also abolish the 4% “depreciation” tax that allows state and territory governments to effectively cut a further 4% in their SRS funding.

Finally, it’s time to respect the teaching profession. When the next NSRA is negotiated, teachers and their union must have a seat at the table.

School leaders, teachers and support staff will be the ones to implement the policies it sets out.

So, ask the experts.

“We don’t have enough teachers currently, let alone for the future,” Haythorpe says. “This has a direct impact in schools with classes being doubled up, people teaching out of their field and difficulties attracting people to rural and remote schools.”

The current NSRA, which expires at the end of 2023, includes a plan to review teacher workforce needs, and to develop a national workforce strategy by 2020. This didn’t happen under the Coalition, and this work is now part of the developing National Teacher Workforce Action Plan.

But without detailed workforce planning and funding to attract and retain teachers, to support them at the start of their careers and work with them as they progress, the shortages will exacerbate, Haythorpe says.

Australian teachers continue to have some of the highest workloads in the OECD. Annual face-to-face teaching hours of 860 (primary) and 838 (secondary) are matched only by Lithuania, Colombia and Mexico. The Australian school year is three weeks longer than in many countries.

Workload is still growing and is the main reason teachers give for considering leaving the profession, the Productivity Commission says. Australian teachers also spend more time on non-teaching tasks than colleagues overseas.

The commission notes that out-offield teaching, where the teacher is not qualified in the subject they teach, has reached 25 per cent in maths, 30 per cent in design and technology, and 18 per cent in science and English.

“Classroom shortages today mean leadership shortages tomorrow,” says Haythorpe.

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Agenda

… if we take a disadvantaged student here in Australia and send that student to a school where most of the students are not disadvantaged, the benefit of simply being in a different environment during the primary and secondary schooling is worth about two-and-a-half years.

Pasi Sahlberg Southern Cross University

A SYSTEM ON LIFE SUPPORT Ken Boston, a member of the original Gonski review panel, said in 2016 that teachers in disadvantaged schools were working “in the emergency wards of Australian education” yet lacked the “battery of specialist support” one would find in a hospital.

“Their numbers are inadequate for the job at hand, and funding is not available for the necessary support from fully qualified personnel such as counsellors, speech therapists, interpreters and school–family liaison officers,” he said.

The situation has not changed.

The OECD pins the blame for Australia’s declining education performance firmly on its inequitable funding system.

The 2022 Education at a Glance report found that parents spent more on schools than almost any country in the OECD. One fifth of all school

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funding in Australia comes from parents, matched only by Turkey – a staggering 0.7 per cent of GDP. That’s twice or even three times as much as parents in most European countries.

Pasi Sahlberg, professor of education at Southern Cross University, says he was shocked when he moved to Australia from Finland. The author and academic says he found himself paying about $1000 per child a year for his children at a local state school.

“In all the other countries in the OECD, private education is privately funded and when it’s public education [the government] is held accountable for funding it.”

Sahlberg, whose career has taken him from head of Finland’s Department of Education to the World Bank, the Gonski Institute and now Southern Cross University, says Australia is an outlier among OECD education systems,

both in the size of public spending on private education and in the segregation of students from wealthy and disadvantaged families.

“That is very difficult if you want to have a world-class education system, especially if you’re aiming for equity,” he says. “The OECD found that if we take a disadvantaged student here in Australia and send that student to a school where most of the students are not disadvantaged, the benefit of simply being in a different environment during the primary and secondary schooling is worth about two-and-a-half years. Same kid, same parents, same community but the school environment is different.

“Most of the Nordic countries today understand well that socio-economic diversity is good policy if you want to have a society that’s well educated.”

Sahlberg believes Australians are ready for the “hard conversation” on what we should expect from our education system and how we can ensure it benefits not just those lucky enough to attend the “best” schools but society and the economy as a whole. He says that means we need to consider how to reframe education as a public good, not a private benefit.

“We shouldn’t tolerate this situation where all the public schools are underfunded at the same time as a significant part of taxpayer money is going to private schools that don’t actually need that money. That’s something that’s very difficult to explain to foreign observers.”

WHAT IS EQUITY? A good starting point, Sahlberg thinks, would be a discussion on what we mean by equity – a surprisingly poorly defined term given its centrality to the NSRA.

In a paper co-authored with Trevor Cobbold of Save Our Schools, he says the lack of a definition of what equity looks like in practice has enabled authorities to “avoid accountability”.

They propose a definition that encompasses both an individual and social objective; individual in that every child should receive the education that allows them to participate fully in society; and social in that our education system should deliver the truly egalitarian society that Australia prides itself in being.

“Continuing large disparities in school outcomes entrench inequality and discrimination in society …

Equity in education is fundamental to an egalitarian, democratic nation,” they write.

The amorphousness of our understanding of equity and the significant impact this has on public

ILLUSTRATION JESSAMY GEE

... socio-economic diversity is good policy if you want to have a society that’s well educated.

Pasi Sahlberg Southern Cross University

National Teacher Workforce Action Plan Federal, state and territory governments committed in August 2022 to developing a national action plan to combat the teacher shortage in consultation with the teaching profession.

The plan will focus on five priorities: elevating the profession, improving teacher supply, strengthening initial teacher education, maximising the time to teach and better understanding future workforce needs across early childhood and schools sectors.

The National Action Plan working group is due to announce in

December 2022 its priorities for immediate action.

As a member of the working group, Haythorpe is hopeful of a positive outcome.

“It has the potential to form the basis of the next NSRA and provide a framework for governments to address many of the problems facing the profession, if it’s implemented properly,” she says.

“It is being developed in consultation with the teaching profession in what is a significant change led by the minister to not only have unions back at the table but to ensure that we have an active decision-making role there.”

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New teachers the key Next year, Anne Marie McGlasson will start her new career as a primary school teacher after two years of a Master of Teaching degree. She says she and many of her fellow students are burned out before they even begin.

With 30 years in the TAFE sector and three earlier higher education qualifications under her belt, she says it’s “the most challenging course I’ve ever done”.

The pressure of workload and the hit-and-miss nature of support for newly qualified teachers are key reasons for the high levels of attrition that the AEU says must be addressed to avoid worsening the teacher shortage.

Those shortages fall heaviest on schools serving the students with the The masters [degree] highest needs; an equitable school I’ve been doing has no system is impossible without fixing specific topic on special workload and recruitment issues.

McGlasson’s recent placement, in a needs and coursework South Australian primary school high on dealing with trauma has the state’s index of disadvantage, brought been minimal. home some of the gaps in her training.

She realised teachers needed a full set of “soft skills”, to take a holistic approach to meeting the needs of their students at odds with the data-driven benchmarks such as NAPLAN. “The masters [degree] I’ve been doing has no specific topic on special needs and coursework dealing with trauma has been minimal,” she says.

She says professional development for graduate teachers should include a focus on students’ emotional maturity and Anne Marie McGlasson social competence.

Teaching graduate Professor Anna Sullivan, director for the Centre for Research in Educational

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and Social Inclusion at the University of South Australia, says the atomisation of the school system, with responsibilities devolved to the principal, has created gaps in support for new teachers. A national and systemic approach outside individual schools is needed.

Every graduate teacher is supposed to be mentored and supported by their school, with a reduced workload.

That can work if the teacher has a permanent job, but 60 per cent of teachers are in insecure work, roughly split between casual work and contracts of 12 months or less, says Sullivan. Plus, the time allowance for this support varies from each state and territory.

“Early career teachers often teach across schools and across systems.

They completely miss out on a solid substantial induction process,” she says.

“At the same time, they’re always looking for their next job, which really changes the way they teach. They’re always under scrutiny, under pressure to prove that they’re a quality teacher.

“If you look at classroom management, they’re not going to ask for help because they feel they’re showing they can’t cope, can’t manage. That encourages them to use very old-fashioned classroom practices to keep students calm. This is at a time when they’re supposed to be supported to develop their classroom management skills.

“Australia needs to take seriously the induction of new teachers, regardless of their employment status,” Sullivan says.

Agenda

We're one of the richest countries in the world ... and we're about to spend a quarter of a trillion dollars on tax cuts that are overwhelming for blokes earning over $200,000 a year; then we say we can't afford nice things.

Richard Denniss The Australia Institute

schools was illustrated by Richard Denniss, executive director of the Australia Institute, at an education round table it hosted in September with the AEU and workers' alliance United Voice.

“We justify giving enormous amounts of money to schools that have indoor equestrian arenas on the basis of equity, we make an argument on fairness,” he says. “Because if they’re not sending their kids to public schools, they’re helping us out and we should give them something.

“This is not education expenditure.

When we, as a society, are having indoor arenas, air-conditioned rifle ranges and swimming pools … it’s not educational. It’s amenity, it’s status, it’s weight. We’re one of the richest countries in the world. Our debt is still low and we’re about to spend a quarter of a trillion dollars on tax cuts that are overwhelming for blokes earning over $200,000 a year; then we say we can’t afford nice things. These are choices.”

Haythorpe says the evidence is clear.

“We’ve got a growing body of national and international data that sets out the deep

inequality that exists in Australia’s school funding system and the impact that is having on the lives and futures of our students. There’s a Labor government in power and it needs to step up and realise the commitment it made over a decade ago, and fix this for our children and students.

“This is the time.”

Nic Barnard is a freelance writer.

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Climate crisis

impacts young lives As extreme weather becomes more commonplace, there is an urgent need to address how this affects children’s education and developmental outcomes as part of the educational equity conversation.

A

s much of Australia recovers after devastating floods, research here and overseas shows that the effect of extreme weather events on children’s education extends beyond interruptions caused by school closures, damage to buildings and loss of materials to childhood development and health.

In Australia, associate dean and associate professor of education at Charles Sturt University (CSU) Brendon Hyndman is co-editing a forthcoming

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By negatively impacting students’ ability to learn, the heat could cause northern Australian students to lag behind southern jurisdictions ...

Associate Professor Brendon Hyndman Charles Sturt University

book, The Impact of Extreme Weather on School Education, with Jennifer Vanos, associate professor in the School of Sustainability in the College of Global Futures at Arizona State University.

The book considers how to protect international school communities from extreme weather influences, the training that teachers receive for weather protection in schools, building design, and the impacts of closures on schools.

Often these issues only receive attention during disasters, says Hyndman.

PHOTOGRAPHY ISTOCKPHOTO.COM

BY CHRI S T I N E LO NG

Climate change

We have research from India that shows if a mother has experienced a flood or a drought it affects the child’s later outcomes in terms of their educational achievements like maths or vocabulary.

Dr Catherine Porter Young Lives

But there are other hidden aspects that have an impact on children’s education.

He says even elevated temperatures, lack of air flow, or if children “are not quite protected and supported enough in the school yard”, can affect learning.

Hyndman observed students in Darwin were expected to learn under extreme and prolonged heat, despite research showing they are most attentive at temperatures between 20 and 24 degrees. In some schools there is airconditioning in staffrooms, but not in classrooms, he says.

The extreme heat could have a negative effect on students’ and teachers’ health but also their functioning and ability to pay attention and learn. Often conditions lead to turnover of teachers, which had a negative impact on students’ continuity of learning.

“By negatively impacting students’ ability to learn, the heat could cause northern Australian students to lag behind southern jurisdictions across a range of learning outcomes,” Hyndman says.

UNEQUAL EFFECTS One US study found that exposure to extreme heat and rain during prenatal and early childhood years in countries in the global tropics could make it more difficult for children to complete secondary school education.

The Young Lives study, an Oxford University longitudinal research project that has followed the lives of 12,000 children across four continents since 2001, reveals extreme weather events are having a significantly unequal effect on the poorest and most vulnerable children.

The study of two birth cohorts in India, Peru, Vietnam and Ethiopia looked at the

Climate change by numbers

Only

12 of the 27 climate change plans submitted by countries in the East Asia and Pacific region

mention education

2018 World Bank global analysis of missed education shows that limited educational opportunities for girls and barriers to completing 12 years of education cost countries

US$15–US$30 trillion

A study following the lives of 12,000 children across four continents reveals extreme weather events are having a

significantly unequal effect on the poorest and most vulnerable children

climate conditions the children have experienced as well as their nutrition, height and weight, cognitive skills such as maths and vocabulary, and educational attainment.

Dr Catherine Porter, Young Lives director, says the study found climaterelated shocks could even affect a child in the womb.

“We have research from India that shows if a mother has experienced a flood or a drought it affects the child’s later outcomes in terms of their educational achievements like maths or vocabulary,” she says.

Similar consequences occurred when children in Peru experienced frost or rainfall shocks, or when there was drought in Ethiopia.

Recent research undertaken by Young Lives in Vietnam concluded that “childhood exposure to climate shocks such as flooding and related crop failures affects children’s nutrition, growth, cognitive skills and access to education. This impedes their learning including developing basic literacy, numeracy, and socio-emotional skills – with the poorest children most affected”.

Shocks can lead to the poorest families withdrawing children from school, and girls and young women often taking responsibility for household chores and child-minding, the Young Lives study found.

“Children can be temporarily pulled out of school and, depending on how long that lasts, it could become permanent,” says Porter.

“For example, in Ethiopia around half (of the children studied) have not yet finished their schooling and they are coming up to age 20,” she says.

SUM M E R 20 2 2 // 19

Resources Cool Australia is an evidence-based free program of support and resources for teachers on sustainability, the environment and more. Learning activities that can be downloaded from the Cool Australia website are year-level specific to Year 12 and linked to the Australian Curriculum standards and the Early Years Learning Framework outcomes. coolaustralia.org

When one of the three campuses of The Rivers Secondary College in Lismore went under water in its worst flood on record in February, its 700 students were forced to relocate.

Timetables were merged and Richmond River High students were accommodated at the Lismore High campus in the Northern Rivers town of New South Wales.

A second flood a month later raised doubts about whether the students would ever return to the historic site.

Chris Williams, acting executive principal of The Rivers Secondary College, says the Department of Education has told the community it is “highly unlikely” that the North Lismore campus is a viable site for a rebuild. School Infrastructure NSW has concluded that the extensive damage and vulnerability to future flooding make it impractical and very difficult to return.

“We have been advised that there will be a rebuild. We just don’t know what that will look like or where it will be,” says Williams.

In the meantime, the displaced students are continuing their education in demountable buildings.

The impacts of climate change, such as more extreme weather events and regular flooding, mean that there will be more and more areas where schools not only have to clean up, but close their doors – sometimes for good. As a result, students in these areas will face increasing disadvantage.

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Luke Woodward, principal of Richmond River High, says the site currently has 33 classrooms, a library, toilet blocks, as well as science labs, art rooms, workshops, and kitchens. And more demountable classrooms will be installed.

For the students, ongoing support will need to be part of the new normal, he says.

Woodward says the school has provided material support including meals for some flood-affected students and recognises that ongoing emotional support is crucial to learning. Staff and advisers are in regular contact with students and their families.

“We are the rock in a lot of the kids’ worlds because a lot of them are still in temporary accommodation,” says Woodward.

WHAT CAN BE DONE? It’s Getting Hot, a 2019 UNICEF paper on climate change effects in East Asia and the Pacific, says education systems urgently need a strong voice in climate change discussions.

Several years later there is still a significant gap, according to a UNICEF spokesperson: “Only 12 of the 27 climate change plans submitted by countries in the East Asia and Pacific region mention education – and even then, the focus is on education as a tool to raise awareness of climate change without considering the huge needs of the education sector.

“Education officials must have a seat at the table when these plans and financing priorities are developed, and children’s views and priorities must be taken into account.”

That means looking beyond physical losses, as the indirect impact on children’s education can be more long-lasting and potentially more costly. The report cited 2018 World Bank global analysis of missed

Education officials must have a seat at the table when these plans and financing priorities are developed, and children’s views and priorities must be taken into account.

UNICEF spokesperson

PHOTOGRAPHY ISTOCKPHOTO.COM & GETTY IMAGES

Flood-damaged Lismore unlikely to be rebuilt

Climate change

Things can be done to mitigate but of course it would be better to try and stop the acceleration of the climate crisis.

Dr Catherine Porter Young Lives

education, which shows that limited educational opportunities for girls and barriers to completing 12 years of education cost countries between US$15 trillion and US$30 trillion.

Action could include improving the evidence base to inform climate and education policies and developing sustainable financing mechanisms for climate resilient education systems, the report says.

Young Lives also highlights the need for better policy connections. A Young

Lives policy brief issued this year says that policymakers need to better understand how climate-related shocks, nutrition, and foundational learning interconnect. That would enable more social protection programs to reach disadvantaged households in disasterprone regions, particularly those aimed at vulnerable infants and adolescent girls and aligned with early learning and school feeding programs.

Porter says safety nets in Ethiopia and Peru have had a protective impact

on young people’s skills. She says ideally, policies such as insurance-based support to governments in developing countries would be in place before a shock occurred and there would be automatic triggers when rainfall was above or below a certain level.

“Things can be done to mitigate but of course it would be better to try and stop the acceleration of the climate crisis,” says Porter.

Christine Long is a freelance writer.

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SUM M E R 20 2 2 // 21

Video games engage and connect neurodiverse and neurotypical students

BY MARG ARE T PAT O N

Video games in the classroom are improving student engagement and encouraging girls to consider STEM subjects.

IN SHORT // Video games can help students to develop socialemotional, as well as computer, skills. They are also a powerful tool for disengaged and/or neurodiverse students. // Supporting girls to play video games could stimulate their interest in a STEM career.

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S

ummer Jeppesen first started exploring the online game Minecraft at her school library’s computer lab a couple of years ago.

“Once I get into it, it’s relaxing, but it can be challenging, too,” says the Year 5 student at the remote Shepherdson College in the Northern Territory.

“A highlight for me has been building a house with my best friend. It was

pretty big – 15 by 15 square [blocks].

We did half each, and it had all these vines growing over it, with two floors and a balcony.”

Her peer, Bradley Yunupingu, says the video game “is good, and it makes me feel good building a different world with very tall buildings with my friends”. Their school has 400 students and is in the Galiwin’ku community on Elcho Island about 500 kilometres north-east of Darwin.

Video games

I realised I could use gaming as a space for social inclusion, particularly for kids with disabilities or who were neurodiverse.

Dr Matthew Harrison Melbourne Graduate School of Education

(above) Students at Shepherdson College in the Northern Territory play Minecraft to help develop their computer skills.

BUILDING SOCIALEMOTIONAL SKILLS The school’s information communications technology coordinator/librarian/digital technologies teacher, Marion Hooper, introduced Minecraft to her students three years ago. It’s become a free lunchtime and after-school activity to help students develop computer skills.

She adapts activities to their levels, interests, and curriculum areas.

“The big revelation has been the social-emotional aspect. When the students enter the computer lab, they can be unregulated, maybe a bit sweary.

But Minecraft completely changes their frame of mind and they’re playing with their friends cooperatively within 10 minutes,” says Hooper. She notices the changes particularly for neurodiverse students, and she is impressed with the level of interaction, communication, cooperation, and peer-led learning.

The current Minecraft version doesn’t allow students to play together in the same ‘world’. Instead, they create the “same standalone world on each of their computers and talk to each other about it”. That’s a huge outcome considering there’s a sizable cohort of neurodiverse students, says Hooper.

“Minecraft has been good for them as a safe world where they don’t have to confront each other face to face.”

GAMIFICATION FOR INCLUSIVE LEARNING Senior lecturer in learning intervention at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education Dr Matthew Harrison says

video games can be a powerful way to improve engagement.

A former teacher, Harrison noticed he could connect with students at risk of becoming disengaged from education by “leaning into my inner geek as a gamer” when he was in his second year of teaching.

“I realised I could use gaming as a space for social inclusion, particularly for kids with disabilities or who were neurodiverse,” says Harrison, who specialises in inclusive education, neurodiversity and digital technologies for teaching and learning.

Harrison cautions that, while video games are an effective tool, their use needs to be carefully planned. “Look at your learning outcome to decide if video games fit your pedagogical strategy,” he says.

“Games can create the conditions for learning, but teachers teach. Ask yourself if students are busy, learning, or both, and support them in their learning. Use explicit instructions to build a foundation of knowledge and help them apply that as you move to more of a coaching role during play,” he says.

Appropriate games aim to let students demonstrate knowledge and practice skills they would not be able to otherwise, he says. For example, they could use virtual reality to simulate a tour of an international space station or explore historical periods through the strategy game Civilization VI. Many video game interfaces offer accessibility options such as subtitles or adaptations for students with fine motor issues, Harrison says.

SUM M E R 20 2 2 // 23

Games are good to incite empathy because they allow players to experience perspectives different to those we have in real life.

Dr Susannah Emery University of South Australia

Game on Improved computer skills have been one positive for many students who struggled with online learning during COVID-19.

Opportunities for the use and creation of video games also increased during the pandemic, reports the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), which runs an annual video game competition for schools through its charitable arm, the ACER Foundation.

The Australian STEM Video Game Challenge, for students in Years 5 to 12, aims to boost engagement with science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and develop new skills.

The competition, now in its ninth year, was held in August and attracted thousands of entries from students across the country.

Students who entered in 2021 showed “incredible resilience and resourcefulness” to complete their games during the disrupted school year, says Australian STEM Video Game Challenge manager Lisa Norris.

“Several teams mentioned in their submissions the challenges they had to overcome to collaboratively design and build a video game during a pandemic,” says Norris.

The theme for the 2022 Challenge was “networks”. This year’s winners interpreted the theme in different ways including; using sewers as escape routes, stopping a nuclear meltdown by connecting a cooling system, defeating a malicious AI program, and stopping the spread of COVID-19.

WIDER BENEFITS Mark Long, a digital technologies teacher at Taroona High School in Hobart, says the competition builds

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students’ skills in communication, collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork, and more.

“The competition has been an excellent learning opportunity for the students because it ticks so many curriculum boxes and offers really rich tasks,” he says.

Long runs a 3D and game design elective for Year 8 students and his class of 24 works in small groups to create functioning e-games.

He says not all students begin with the same skills as there is a “massive variety” in the way feeder primary schools to Taroona High tackle digital technologies – so he focused on ensuring they could all participate.

“We looked at different ways to use freeware or open-source software to make the games, but we had to make it accessible. Some students are fairly confident with coding, but for those who aren’t we use script, event, or sheet-based coding.”

Long’s class starts with four weeks of planning, with groups investigating game engines or programs to select the best fit.

“We do some tutorial work for the ins and outs of how each program works and how students can get it to work for their project. That means designing the algorithms of the game, and this process takes about five weeks,” he says.

For the next six weeks they look at scene setting and developing game characters. They cover pixel art and basic sound design. “Then for the last four weeks, we’re starting to piece it all together now that they have the coding skills under their belt. They’ll then modify and improve the user experience of the game,” says Long.

Among the results is a cavern adventure-style game, one with an underground network of tunnels and another with a blob that gains power as it absorbs parts of its environment.

Long says the video game challenge has changed the way he approaches teaching long-term projects and he hopes his class will be successful in the competition.

“I’ve had to put a lot of structure and scaffolding in place to help the students maintain focus on something that can be a long way away. That’s hard for Year 8 students who can be a bit ‘flighty’.

It’s been a huge motivator to them, knowing there’s a possibility their game can be played by other people.”

BIG PICTURE THINKING Another school that took part in the challenge was Pentland Primary School in Bacchus Marsh, north-west of Melbourne. Sam Bowman, a Year 3-4 teacher and the school’s STEM coordinator, mentored his group of four Year 5-6 students at lunchtime to create their entry. Initially, the students wanted to create an ambitious Mario-style multilevel game, but Bowman has helped rein in their ideas.

Video games

Resources

ACMI (formerly the Australian Centre for the Moving Image) has a free library of video game-based lessons aligned with the Australian curriculum. tinyurl.com/27whdjf4 (left) The Australian STEM Video Game Challenge aims to boost engagement with science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and develop new skills.

“I make them think how it fits into the big picture: do we have enough time to do that, will it look as good as we want it to look? They have to crawl before they can walk.

“Results aside, it’s still a learning process, and the game is a tangible end-product to show for the time and effort they’ve put in. It’s also about building anticipation among the Year 3 and 4 students to have a go at building a game in future years.”

Bowman’s upskilling in STEM, too, through professional development, following up suggestions from other teachers about the most useful courses, and he attended the EduTECH conference in Melbourne in August.

Both his group and the students at Taroona High are using the Godot engine to create their game entries.

STEPPING UP TO A CHALLENGE Norris says the challenge supports STEM teachers by giving them the opportunity to become mentors.

“This results in the students trying to figure it out themselves. They watch YouTube and read coding blogs. That’s the sort of enquiry-based learning that this competition invites,” she says.

The ACER Foundation has mentor handbooks on its website and for the challenge, but that doesn’t stop students contacting them with questions.

“Students email us and ask if their game character is allowed to shoot a gun. We say, yes, but any violence must be mild and unrealistic. It’s a game for kids, it has to be on their level,” Norris says.

Kerbal, a simulation game for students to build and test rockets in space. kerbalspaceprogram.com Minecraft for the autism community. autcraft.com

LEARNING AND SOCIAL CHANGE Game and narrative designer Dr Susannah Emery, who lectures at the University of South Australia, is one of 500 International Women in Games Ambassadors. Emery’s research looks at the use of video games and digital media for learning and to promote social change.

She cites recent research findings that reveal girls weren’t encouraged or felt supported to play video games and were pushed to play different types of games, or not play them at all.

“This is a huge problem for the [games development] industry. Teachers have an important role in ensuring students are exposed to games, learn from, see themselves developing them and, if it’s in their interests, encourage them to take up a STEM career,” Emery says.

Games offer opportunities for “stealth assessments” hidden inside their mechanics. They include checking player competency – if you fail at a level, you’ll return to its start and think about how to approach it differently, says Emery.

She recommends teachers play games themselves to check their potential, even if there is no educational label on the box.

“My students liked it when I learned a game with them, and they saw me fail.

They said, ‘Oh, let’s show you how to do it’.

“Games are good to incite empathy because they allow players to experience perspectives different to those we have in real life,” says Emery.

“Even with commercial games ... where you play characters you design, and go around the world completing quests – you’re applying written comprehension skills, undertaking a series of actions through scaled difficulty, balancing your resources, navigating maps. That’s a whole

Teachers have an important role in ensuring students are exposed to games, learn from, see themselves developing them and, if it’s in their interests, encourage them to take up a STEM career.

Dr Susannah Emery University of South Australia

bunch of different skills that align with the Australian curriculum.”

Minecraft has merit in the classroom, Emery says. “Teachers can lead that game a lot. We can determine the goals depending on the lesson plan – opting for survival, fight-and-action, or classbuild mode. There’s a lot of room to work creatively and collaboratively.”

She acknowledges that games aren’t for everyone but says there’s much research to tap into about the ability of games to engage neurodivergent students. The goal is to make learning content accessible for all learners, Emery says.

Margaret Paton is a freelance writer and casual K-12 teacher.

SUM M E R 20 2 2 // 25

Language

Learning with First Nations’ languages

BY L E AN N E T O L RA

T

here’s a groundswell of support for teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages across the country, but career pathways and communitybased teacher training opportunities are vital to ensure strong student outcomes and preserve language.

Anangu is a Pitjantjatjara word meaning “people” and aptly describes the collective, community-based approach to language and learning Kenmore Park Anangu School in Yunyarinyi, in the APY (Anangu, Pitjantjatjara, Yankuntjatjara) Lands 1400 kilometres north of Adelaide.

The school’s 12 Aboriginal students take daily lessons in language and culture from Pitjantjatjara Elder Marianne Fraser, her niece Mary Fraser and nephew Aaron Fraser, who spend time on Country as part of their learning each week.

Principal Wilbur Klein (known to locals as Charlie) says the school has a community agreement that it will promote reading, writing and literacy in both Pitjantjatjara and English, with Pitjantjatjara as the dominant language and a strong focus on Country, led by the community.

This focus on local language and community connection improves student engagement, and their ability to learn.

“Our belief and experience are that when kids learn their own language it improves their ability to learn English, and it supports their identity and wellbeing,” Klein says.

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IN SHORT // A number of schools around Australia have implemented innovative Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language and culture programs to enhance student learning. // Language programs offer many benefits – not only supporting students' identity and wellbeing, but also preserving languages for future generations.

“We can see that it makes kids happy; and in watching Marianne and Aaron and Mary, we can see that not only are students learning to read competently in Pitjantjatjara, but that their confidence and success are transferring to their ability to read and learn English.”

LEGACY OF LANGUAGE The other major benefit of teaching local languages is being able to preserve language for future generations.

“Pitjantjatjara is one of only 12 languages considered to still be intact across the country and these languages are predominantly in central Australia and the NT. Our group of schools are working towards the retention and development of those languages,” Klein says.

As a child growing up in the 1970s Fraser was taught English in school and learned Pitjantjatjara by listening to her father. Her immersive culture and language program includes a phonics program that teaches Pitjantjatjara sounds based on character representations, which she developed based on English-language phonics education methods. “A lot of it is simply reading, writing and talking with me and Aaron and Mary,” she says.

Klein says the results of the program, – which is based on the Two-way Science model developed by the CSIRO, which supports bilingual education, lessons on Country, and formative assessment – are overwhelmingly positive.

“The Two-way Science model uses Anangu knowledge on Country to start the teaching of science and excite the students. They become connected and gain confidence and interest in learning. We then use that on-Country science to teach more science back in the classroom and it becomes part of a whole-curriculum approach.

“While subjects like reading English and learning maths are not left behind across our group of schools, there is an emphasis on teaching our students both ways of learning,” Klein says.

Our agreement with the local Aboriginal community quite clearly states that the number-one values are Country, culture and language.”

PHOTOGRAPHY EIDSVOLD P-12 STATE SCHOOL

Regions are leading the way with community-driven language programs, and the federal government has committed to $14 million to employ Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educators, but it must be done in partnership with communities.

Eidsvold P-12 State School in east-central Queensland has been running its Wakka Wakka Yumbin language reclamation program for almost six years.

SUM M E R 20 2 2 // 27

Language

(from left) Lachlan McKenzie, Cassie Opperman, Geoffrey Price, Corey Appo and Preston Parter from Eidsvold P-12 State School; (below) Eidsvold's student numbers are growing as a result of the Wakka Wakka language and culture program.

Our student numbers are growing and that’s directly because of our offering of the Wakka Wakka language and culture program.

Preston Parter Eidsvold P-12 State School

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LOSS AND REVIVAL Language revival and teacher qualifications are key at Eidsvold P-12 State School in east-central Queensland, where the program is a model in the region.

Principal Preston Parter, from the Birri Gubba language group, says the school’s Wakka Wakka Yumbin language reclamation program has been running for almost six years. Despite being from a different language group, Parter has returned to the classroom to support the school’s dance and language teacher aide Corey Appo from the local Wakka Wakka language group.

Yumbin means “all of us” or “everyone” in Wakka Wakka and Appo and the 117 students at Eidsvold School are working in partnership with a local language advisory group to develop their language program. Sixty-five per cent of students identify as Aboriginal, and 35 per cent hail from the local community and surrounding properties.

“Aunty Doris (Wakka Wakka Elder Doris Beezley) plays a massive part in the community work through meetings and consultation,” says Parter.

“We are beginning to more confidently put sentences and grammatical structure

PHOTOGRAPHY EIDSVOLD P-12 STATE SCHOOL; ANTHONY MCKEE

“We know that when kids are on Country they’re happier. And when I go into the classroom and Marianne is teaching with Mary and Aaron, I can see that the kids are engaged and their learning is exceptional.

“It’s a different dynamic to when they are learning English and it connects them.

There’s a group who have become more advanced in their writing and are further along with their phonics and vocabulary and they want to learn more.”

(right) Jannette McCormack heads up the Arrernte Secondary Project at Alice Springs Language Centre.

together, which is an important step forward in the revival of Wakka Wakka and this has been possible because of the extensive support from (linguist) Daniel Majchrzak as there are no fluent speakers left.

“Families are telling us that is why they want their children to attend our school,” says Parter. “Our student numbers are growing and that’s directly because of our offering of the Wakka Wakka language and culture program.”

PATHWAYS AND OPPORTUNITIES The Arrernte Secondary Project at Alice Springs Language Centre in the Northern Territory is creating pathways for Aboriginal language teachers during their secondary school education. Its programs teach students the Arrernte language and other local dialects and support them to apply for language-based work.

Jannette McCormack, from the Arrernte language group and an educator who has spent more than 30 years teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in Alice Springs public schools, heads the innovative program, which has helped students to become more engaged with school and increased attendance rates. It also offers opportunities for students to incorporate their own language in further study and employment. The students are encouraged to pursue Certificate II and III in Applied Language in Arrernte or their own language and some have gone on to complete Stage 2 Australian Languages.

“Over the years, I’ve found Aboriginal students are natural language learners because they grow up learning to speak both their mother tongue and English,” McCormack says. “Our students want to learn their language because they

can see that it will offer them jobs in the future. Then they want to share what they have learned with the younger ones.”

McCormack has supported five schoolbased trainees to become Arrernte educators and they now work in Alice Springs schools. She has also supported a Pertame student (Southern Arrernte) to begin working as an apprentice at Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education in the Northern Territory. Some of the trainees are also completing formal teacher training while working in the school’s language program.

LANGUAGE INTO THE FUTURE Beau Williams, the chief executive officer of First Languages Australia, who is from the Murrawarri language group in north-west New South Wales, says the federal government’s commitment to spend $14 million to employ 60 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educators and expand first languages’ education in primary schools across the country reflects an increased community awareness of the value and place of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture.

“For many years community language teachers have worked hard to share their language and culture with younger generations, despite inadequate pay and conditions. We are now seeing greater recognition of the importance of our languages,” he says.

“For our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, learning language is a

source of pride and connection to their culture. For non-Indigenous children, it’s a fantastic introduction to the richness of Australia’s linguistic and cultural history. Teaching language in schools will increase understanding and respect.”

Williams says that while language teaching is an integral part of the truth and reconciliation process, schools must be mindful of history and remain constantly aware that generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were denied the right to speak their languages.

“That’s why language teaching needs to be community driven, and community led. Because if a school starts teaching language and the community aren’t ready for it, it will cause upset and further trauma,” he says.

Williams says the government’s commitment to hire more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educators is “a great step in the right direction”. However, he says appropriate career pathways and training opportunities are needed for success.

“There is no one-size-fits-all solution here. The best results will be achieved through multiple education and training pathways.”

Leanne Tolra is a freelance writer and Australian Educator’s sub-editor.

SUM M E R 20 2 2 // 29

Crunch time Teachers are suffering alarming levels of stress, depression and anxiety in the wake of excessive workloads and crippling staff shortages.

M

ore than 50 per cent of Australian teachers suffer from anxiety, and nearly one-fifth from depression, according to Mental Health Foundation Australia. Many are so burned out they’re simply giving up, leaving schools with significant shortages.

An UniSA survey of 1600 teachers released in November found 50 per cent of South Australian teachers plan to leave the profession in the next five years. A national study from Monash University released in October found only three in 10 teachers planned to stay in the profession.

“A considerable majority of teachers reported that their workloads were 3 0 // SUMME R 2 0 2 2

IN SHORT // Teacher workloads and staff shortages are causing burnout and a major mental health crisis. // Experts say teacher mental health and wellbeing is critical to student learning outcomes. // Tools that build resilience can help, but addressing workloads must be part of the solution.

unmanageable, and a quarter of teachers reported feeling unsafe in their workplace,” the Monash report says. Respondents highlighted the increasing burden of administration and data collection tasks and limited support from school and system leadership as key issues that led to coping and mental health concerns for teachers, including stress and anxiety, feeling overwhelmed, pressure and fatigue.

“Teachers go to great lengths to do their best, but there’s a line at which you no longer have the time or resources to do it,” says Sallyann Geale, who teaches English and history at Riverside High School in Launceston, Tasmania.

“Every day I see teachers of all ages and

ILLUSTRATION IKON IMAGES (SILVIA STECHER)

BY C Y N D I T E B B E L

Mental Health

The concept of recess and lunchtime doesn’t exist anymore for teachers or anyone who works in a school … The workload is excessive and the system is broken.

Sallyann Geale Riverside High School, TAS

levels of experience walking around eating their lunch at the end of the day because they’ve been on the phone to parents, in meetings with other teachers and students, or trying to get to the photocopier.

“The concept of recess and lunchtime doesn’t exist anymore for teachers or anyone who works in a school,” she says.

“The workload is excessive and the system is broken.”

high levels of stress, vicarious trauma, burnout, low levels of motivation and poor career satisfaction.”

“If we really want to support teachers, these issues must be taken seriously.”

Dabrowski says that despite widespread acknowledgement of the lack of support for teacher wellbeing, there are few programs or practices that successfully address the issue.

SYSTEMIC SUPPORT NEEDED Teacher mental health is a mounting concern for system and school leaders, says Dr Anna Dabrowski, a senior research fellow at Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER).

In an article on ACER’s website, Dabrowski writes: “Teachers in our studies also reported having to choose between caring for their own children and caring for the children they teach. Teachers described

If we really want to support teachers, these issues must be taken seriously.

Dr Anna Dabrowski Australian Council for Educational Research

“More investment is needed in support structures and practices that ensure the wellbeing – and job satisfaction – of teachers is enabled, particularly during times of crisis,” she says.

Michael Sciffer, a school counsellor in the Armidale region of New South Wales, can’t remember ever working in a team with a full complement of staff. “I’ve been here since 2017 and we’re meant to have seven permanent positions, but we usually have only around four, and we cover towns across the district,” he says.

This year he’s seen experienced, permanent staff members resign due to stress.

“The intensity and complexity of our workload has heightened so significantly we can no longer do what we’re required to do as teachers,” says Sciffer.

He believes the key failure is that departmental and political decision-makers don’t understand the link between teachers’

Peer support A pilot program in three Victorian schools uses a peer support model of “reflective circles” to give teachers an opportunity to share their struggles in a non-judgemental forum that aims to help avoid burnout and better support students.

Fiona Gardner, associate professor at La Trobe Rural Health School and Anne Southall from the School of Education say teachers can talk about anything that’s bothering them.

Before they join the reflective circle, participants are encouraged to devote some structured time to thinking about the issues they find challenging, puzzling or frustrating, and how they have responded to them.

Then, says Gardner, they generally

discover “an incredibly strong sense of relief that they’re not the only person who’s struggling”.

They also feel a sense of validation that their feelings and actions are often viewed as perfectly reasonable and gain a sense that there may be better ways to understand people and situations. This opens new possibilities and empowers them, she says.

Groups of a maximum of six meet for between 60 and 90 minutes twice a term.

Principals, teachers and education support people meet in separate groups, so people aren’t intimidated by their superiors.

Each person has around 10-15 minutes to talk about their experience and how they’re

feeling, with other participants taking turns to add suggestions or possible solutions.

Gardner says there are often “ah-ha” moments when problems are viewed through a different lens.

“One teacher’s father was a strict disciplinarian, and when she talked about her experience with children in her classroom who had complex trauma, she realised her assumptions about discipline and following the rules were the wrong approach, and that maybe flexibility and responsiveness, the building of relationships, was more important.

“She recognised that her own values and assumptions were getting in the way of being able to work effectively,” Gardner says.

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Mental Health

If teachers are not mentally well, their capacity to teach and support children is reduced.

Teacher capacity for innovation is critical to building resilient education systems.

Dr Anna Dabrowski Australian Council for Educational Research

Managing mental health Beyond Blue, a mental health and wellbeing support organisation, aims to make it easier for teachers to access the tools they need to manage both their own and their students’ mental health.

The organisation’s Be You education initiative, a collaboration with Early Childhood Australia and Headspace, offers free, comprehensive tools and resources designed for individual teachers, schools and school communities aimed at educating teachers and students in mental health literacy and providing schools with teaching resources.

The initiative has run since November 2018, and has around 13,000 learning communities registered nationally, covering 70 per cent (7237) of schools.

It’s a “whole-of-setting approach to educator wellbeing”, says Geri Sumpter, head of Be You delivery.

“We provide structured support for schools. They can access our Be You consultant workforce to assist with targeting what they need to help individuals and the learning community.”

Be You also delivers regular sessions and events for teachers, giving them platforms to explore what other individuals and groups are doing.

A recent independent survey of participants so far suggests that engaged learning communities are starting to see the benefits of increasing their mental health literacy.

“Educators say they feel more confident and more capable of having

conversations about mental health and wellbeing, as well as the support they can offer to children and young people, and one another,” says Sumpter.

Be You has also launched a policy platform to help address systemlevel challenges.

“We’re operating across the spectrum,

We’re trying to shift to a holistic view of wellbeing so it doesn’t all fall back on the individual who may already be overwhelmed

Geri Sumpter Beyond Blue

working with state, territory and federal education and health stakeholders.

“We’re trying to shift to a holistic view of wellbeing so it doesn’t all fall back on the individual who may already be overwhelmed,” she says.

To learn more about the Be You initiative: beyou.edu.au/resources/ educator-wellbeing

working conditions and students’ learning conditions. “They don’t get it, or they’re turning a blind eye to it,” he says.

The teacher shortages that have been evident for years have only intensified since COVID-19, which has put even more pressure on teachers as students and staff work through the pandemic.

Both Geale and Sciffer are fed up with hearing about what they can do to address workplace wellbeing and selfcare. They say it ignores the underlying causes of teachers’ stress: non-core administrative tasks, no time to collaborate with colleagues, a severe undersupply of teachers.

“You’re never able to plan your days so there’s no sense of control over your job and that adds to the stress,” says Sciffer.

“Why do we have to be accessing more support when the solution is to reduce the workload?,” adds Geale.

SUPPORTING TEACHERS SUPPORTS STUDENTS In her article for ACER's website, Dabrowski writes that because teachers play such a critical role in the learning achievements of students, their mental health and wellbeing is equally as important as the students they teach.

“If teachers are not mentally well, their capacity to teach and support children is reduced. Teacher capacity for innovation is critical to building resilient education systems,” she says.

“We need to respect and support teachers as part of transforming education. Let’s start with prioritising initiatives that allow teachers to recover, to be heard, and to be positioned as equal decision-makers in educational reform efforts.”

Cyndi Tebbel is a freelance writer.

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Transforming education A United Nations summit has created a plan to improve equity and inclusion, quality and relevance in education by 2030.

IN SHORT // The UN is working to establish the Global Commission on the Teaching Profession to address an international crisis in education. // Education International says teachers and unions must be heard as part of the process. // The UN's Transforming Education Summit generated commitments by 133 countries to prioritise education.

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“The commission is an opportunity to systematically bring together all the disparate strands of research and actions and weave them into a reinvigorated and clear social contract.”

Edwards says the new initiative is a step in the right direction to ensure “that every learner has access to a professional, trained, and well supported teacher and that every teacher has access to the tools, time, and trust necessary to reach, teach, and inspire the generations and communities they have been entrusted to serve”.

EI president Susan Hopgood told the summit that to transform education governments must include teachers and their unions as partners in the process.

“We share the same goal, ensuring that every single learner enjoys everything promised under SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) 4,” she said. SDG 4 requires countries to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

“Our partnership can enable truly resistant quality education systems. Our partnership can be the transformation,” she says.

PHOTOGRAPHY UNICEF/RINDRA RAMASOMANANA

T

he Transforming Education Summit, convened by the United Nations (UN) in September in response to a global crisis in education, has initiated a new international body to consider the future of teachers and teaching.

The UN is working with UNESCO and the International Labour Organization to decide how best to establish the Global Commission on the Teaching Profession.

Teachers feel deeply disrespected and overwhelmed because they are seen as tools rather than partners, says David Edwards, general secretary of Education International (EI), which represents more than 32-million teachers and education support personnel worldwide.

“A Global Commission on the Teaching Profession could illuminate solutions, many of which come from our profession itself, and match those with the political will and commitment required to meet this moment,” says Edwards.

World view

We share the same goal, ensuring that every single learner enjoys everything promised under SDG … Our partnership can enable truly resistant quality education systems. Our partnership can be the transformation. (left) A teacher working with a student at Beabo Primary School in Ambovombe, Madagascar. EI president Susan Hopgood says we need rethink education financing to fulfil every child’s right to be taught by a qualified teacher.

CONVICTION, IMAGINATION, SOLIDARITY UN secretary-general António Guterres called on the international community to give the education crisis the attention it deserves.

“We must respond decisively with conviction, imagination and in solidarity to transform education,” he said in a vision statement following the summit.

“Education is the great enabler, but today, in many cases, it is also the great divider.

“Studies show that up to 70 per cent of children in poorer countries are unable to read a basic text by age 10. In a world that is experiencing a fourth industrial revolution, nearly half of all students do not complete secondary school and 700 million adults are illiterate, the majority of whom are women,” Guterres says.

The impacts are greatest on those who are already marginalised or disadvantaged, particularly adolescent girls and people with disabilities.

But the crisis runs deeper with “study after study, poll after poll” concluding that education systems are no longer fit for purpose, he says.

Guterres promises that change is possible.

“There can be no going back to the education models of the past,” he says.

We must reimagine education systems and raise the status of education. We must ensure that learning empowers individuals and societies to both reshape the present and lead us to a more just, sustainable, resilient, and peaceful future.”

He says “truly transformative” education should build on what communities, families, parents, and children treasure most, and respond to local, national, and global needs, cultures, and capacities.

Susan Hopgood Education International president

How to transform education Seven global initiatives launched at the Transforming Education Summit:

Get every learner climate ready

Connect every child and young person to digital solutions

Address the crisis in foundational learning among young learners

Transform education systems to enable all crisis-affected children and youth to access inclusive, quality, safe learning opportunities

Advance gender equality and girls’ and women’s empowerment

Transform the financing of education by investing more, more equitably, more efficiently, more innovatively

Empower young people to be effective leaders in reshaping education

“It should promote the holistic development of all learners throughout their lives, supporting them to realise their aspirations and to contribute their families, communities, and societies,” he says.

Guterres says education transformation needs the commitment and action of “visionary” political leaders, parents, students, teachers and the public.

WARNING ON DIGITAL REFORMS The summit generated commitments by 133 countries, including Australia, to prioritise education.

Hopgood says most countries included plans for digital learning and public-private partnerships with technology providers, an area that requires careful consideration and strong governance.

“Involving teachers in the governance of education technology is imperative to ensure that these new tools truly benefit all students,” she says.

“Technology does not equal innovation.

The source of effective innovation in education is the teaching profession itself. This was demonstrated during the pandemic,” Hopgood says.

“In this race to spread technology as the solution to the education crisis, shockingly absent were commitments to increase investment in the teaching profession.

Measures to address the alarming teacher shortages were almost entirely lacking.

“We will never truly transform education if education financing is steered towards edtech companies in the misguided hope that new technologies will provide a ‘magic solution’ to quality education, rather than invested in teachers, to fulfil every child’s right to be taught by a trained and qualified teacher,” Hopgood says.

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Steps in a learning disorder journey A comprehensive handbook offers teachers strategies to support children with dyslexia and dyscalculia.

BY L E AN N E T O L RA

Teachers should know that children with an affected first-degree relative are up to four times more likely to develop dyslexia/dyscalculia themselves.

Michael Skeide Editor The Cambridge Handbook of Dyslexia and Dyscalculia is published by Cambridge University Press.

E

arly signs of dyslexia can be discovered as children acquire language, making timely risk assessment a critical first step in their learning journey, says Michael Skeide, the editor of a new handbook by leading international researchers.

The Cambridge Handbook of Dyslexia and Dyscalculia answers fundamental questions about dyslexia and dyscalculia based on authoritative reviews of scientific literature. These learning disorders are often diagnosed in children who show persistent serious difficulties, despite having no general learning problems.

Difficulties specific to reading and/ or spelling are termed developmental dyslexia, while difficulties related to arithmetic skills can indicate developmental dyscalculia. “Both are defined as neuro-developmental disorders, implying a specific causal deficit in brain development during early childhood,” the handbook says.

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Assessments should consider familial predispositions, social-environmental backgrounds and cross-cultural differences. Diagnosis should be based around a minimum performance principle, measured through repeated testing and continuous remediation, the authors write.

Skeide says predispositions that are genetic and combined with environmental factors, can negatively influence early brain development.

“Teachers should know that children with an affected first-degree relative are up to four times more likely to develop dyslexia/dyscalculia themselves,” he says.

“Another key fact is that the quality and quantity of learning opportunities at home may influence learning outcomes.”

Skeide says children who develop dyslexia may find it more difficult to understand speech, build a vocabulary or use grammar correctly before they begin primary school.

“Later, they may be slow to say aloud the word corresponding to a picture in a picture book. Or they may overhear rhymes in songs,” he says. “Children who go on to develop dyscalculia may be slower or less efficient when playing puzzles, blocks, and board games in which they have to compare numbers or count.

“But none of these signs are necessary or sufficient. A comprehensive but also sensitive early risk assessment is really important.”

GLOBAL BEST PRACTICE The handbook provides an overview from the foundations of understanding these learning disorders and discusses best practice in school and educational policy, through a global lens.

Skeide says teachers will be aware that children who have learning difficulties often show avoidance behaviour when attempting reading, writing, numerical and arithmetic tasks. Social anxiety and withdrawal behaviour are also common.

Toolkit

Negative learning experiences over years of schooling can have serious mental health consequences, even severe anxiety or depression.

Michael Skeide Editor

“In dyslexia, reading and writing is comparably slow and inaccurate (deletions, typos, scrambled letters).

“Dyscalculia is characterised by slow/inaccurate understanding of non-symbolic numbers, counting, calculation, number ordering, transcoding of number words into numerals, verbal retrieval of number and arithmetic facts,” he says.

“When trying to solve maths problems these students are often less attentive and have a hard time keeping numerical information in working memory.”

Collaboration with a qualified therapist is recommended to provide a comprehensive early risk assessment for children in early learning environments.

The handbook says screening should be scientifically validated by early predictors that are individualised, adaptive and based around small groups of students.

It outlines the need for diagnostics of learning disorders based on stateof-the-art approaches that consider neurobiological origin and individual differences including gender and personality traits.

EXPERT HELP ESSENTIAL In early childhood settings, collaboration with qualified therapists is key. In primary school settings, Skeide recommends teachers also collaborate with therapists, school psychologists or other available resources.

Skeide says most parents and policymakers expect teachers to be able to identify a child at risk and recommend expert help, and this places the burden of additional workload on teachers.

Dyslexia and dyscalculia awareness training, in which teachers develop identification checklists, could become a useful resource and could become a wider part of teacher education, Skeide says.

“Another solution could be that each teacher serves as a dyslexia and a dyscalculia teacher for three months and then passes this responsibility on to another colleague.

“Dyslexia and dyscalculia teachers would have the responsibility to receive identifications of children at risk and recommend external expert support to their parents,” he says.

“This continuous responsibility may help teachers share the burden of discovering children at risk,” he says.

Skeide says this immersion in the learning problem could provide teachers with a sharper lens through which to view children with these learning disorders and develop individual solutions. Adopting a wider, whole-of-school approach would also create a strong, supportive environment for teachers and students.

PLAN TO FOLLOW UP The authors write that students “are often treated once (by therapists) and are not expected to return”. “Particularly in dyscalculia, in the course of some developmental trajectories and during certain learning periods an intervention may help to overcome one specific hurdle, but when the next hurdle appears the child may once again have problems,” they write.

“Generally, process diagnosis and follow-up diagnostics are necessary to see whether the learning problems have actually been resolved by the intervention

or whether additional support for newly emerging problems is required.”

The handbook cites the Munich Longitudinal Study of the Genesis of Individual Competencies (LOGIC), a project that started with a sample of 200 kindergarten children in 1984 and ended in 2009 when the participants were young adults.

The study found that kindergarten measures did predict performance at the beginning of primary school. However, analyses focusing on further reading and spelling development revealed that the impact of early phonological information processing and letter knowledge was only important for the initial literacy acquisition period, and its effect diminished over time.

Skeide says the broader impacts of undiagnosed dyslexia and dyscalculia can have longer-term effects on children who go through their schooling without support.

“Negative learning experiences over years of schooling can have serious mental health consequences, even severe anxiety or depression,” says Skeide.

“One future vision currently being tested is to develop and introduce apps as they are very common nowadays and appeal to many families, regardless of their socio-economic backgrounds.

“But digital identification resources require practical tips and supervision, which may go beyond teacher responsibility,” Skeide says.

Leanne Tolra is a freelance writer and Australian Educator’s sub-editor.

SUM M E R 20 2 2 // 37

Recess

A brighter outlook The teacher shortage makes it tough to stay positive, but educators can see change on the horizon.

BY MARG ARE T PAT O N

Why do you teach?

We want to hear your tips for engaging young minds.

Email: educator@hardiegrant.com if you have something to share.

You can provide a written piece or we’d love to interview you.

S

arah Warren, a primary school teacher for two decades, says she has a “renewed sense of optimism” about the teaching profession. She’s a Year 4 teacher at the preschool-to-Year 10 Kingsford Smith School in the Australian Capital Territory.

“It’s an exciting time with a new federal government. And we actually have people with immense public platforms interested in talking to, rather than compartmentalising, teachers,” she says.

However, Warren’s bright outlook is balanced by the “crippling operational challenges of teacher shortages”.

The shortages mean it is difficult to maintain students’ right to a high-quality education, she says.

“It’s tough to build optimism into every day when we have split and collapsed classes. While we no longer have pandemic shutdowns, we still can’t take kids out on excursions and camps because we don’t have enough staff to do that and safely staff the school site,” says Warren.

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POWER THROUGH ADVOCACY Warren, the AEU vice-president for her school sector, says she looks to the Australian Education Union for hope as it negotiates enterprise bargaining agreements for teachers, school assistants, and TAFE staff in the ACT. “I’m a proud union member because together, we are stronger. Our union champions the voice of the profession, but it’s sad that we don’t get paid very much compared to other professions. We can’t put a cost on goodwill,” says Warren.

The union’s success in negotiating for ACT public school teachers to have several pupil-free planning days has boosted morale at her school.

“It’s given us breathing space from the manic pace to allow the joy of learning to emerge, so when school’s back to normal, we have time to visit a co-worker’s classroom and learn from their practices.”

The pressure has eased, too, because the national curriculum that was to take effect this year in the ACT has been delayed for another year.

“When you don’t have enough time to plan and prepare successfully, then you know the outcomes for children won’t be great.”

MAKING LEARNING JOYFUL Warren’s school embraces positive behaviour for learning (PBL) and HERO (harmony, excellence, respect, and optimism) philosophies. She says this helps students “have a sense of optimism about their lives and the future”. Optimism is one of the central tenets of the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Declaration, released in December 2019.

Warren is in her second year of a fiveyear stint at Kingsford Smith School. In her jurisdiction, public school teachers move workplaces every five years. Her school has 841 students, a third of whom have a language background other than English.

It has an Index of Community, SocioEducational Advantage (ICSEA) value of 989 – just below the national average of 1000 – and 77 teaching staff.

“I love my job, my Year 4 student cohort, and the shared culture I have at my current school,” says Warren, who obtained degrees in finance and art history before moving into teaching.

“My mum migrated from Latvia, so her mother spoke many languages but not English well. When grandma visited us for a few months each year, us kids would spend lots of time translating or explaining – that’s how I learnt patience, which I use every day in my classroom.

“As a primary school educator, I have so many different areas to teach, so I’ll always be able to catch the joy of learning success each student has. Learning is exciting – it’s never done.”

Margaret Paton is a freelance writer and casual K-12 teacher.

Climate justice starts with workers

Help those on the frontlines of the climate crisis

38-year-old Bimala Magar is a waste-picker in Nepal. Each morning she starts the day sweeping the road, collecting waste and taking it to the waste dump site. Many women in Nepal earn a few rupees daily like this.

Recently, she has found that the extreme heat and the torrential rainshave made it difficult for her to work outdoors like this. The impact of climate change means there are an increasing number of days that she wont be able to work.

Climate change is union business Union Aid Abroad APHEDA is working with our partner organisations in Nepal, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and India to help unions and labour organisations to educate workers and union leaders on how climate change affects their daily lives, support union organisers to advocate for climate solutions, and ensure unions are involved in the climate planning at the workplace, regional and national level.

Help us put workers at the centre of climate justice by donating to Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA’s climate justice appeal today.

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