Thursday, 22 August, 2024
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Thawing Frozen
Students awarded
Cannon fires on the big stage
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SPORT
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Student cultures on stage
Open to a virtual brave new world The virtual reality section was a hit during Federation University’s Open Day at Berwick Campus, where participants took a seat for a peek into the direction of modern media. Participants settled into seats, slotted the headpieces on and dove into an interactive 3D world not much different from our own. Story page 12
From left to right: Carlie and Nadeesha trying the virtual reality area. (Gary Sissons: 425484)
Reform calls grow By Ethan Benedicto The most recent NAPLAN results have sparked significant discussions within the local education community, with a local principal voicing the need for comprehensive education reform. A recent release by the Media Centre for Education Research revealed that one in three Australian students are below literacy and numeracy benchmarks. While another report by the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority stated that the 2024 results were stable compared to 2023, the same statistics also revealed some ongoing demographic disparities, with students in remote areas, low socioeconomic status and Indigenous backgrounds at a disadvantage.
Henry Grossek, principal of Berwick Lodge Primary said that these statistics are part of a “tired old argument”, but also the most important factor when it comes to education. “We need to fund public schools to a hundred per cent of their student resource standard,” Mr Grossek said. “Now if money didn’t matter, which is one of the arguments that some people use, then why are the non-government schools funded at 100 per cent or more of their SRS (schooling resource standard)? “Because clearly they believe that money matters, well so do we.” A lack of proper and extensive funding is what is lacking, according to Grossek, and the usual
shift of blame to teaching methods, classroom discipline and or disengagement is not entirely accurate. According to the ACARA report, overall national scores had 67 per cent of students achieving ‘Exceeding’ and ‘Strong Levels’ with performance increasing from Year 3 and 66.3 per cent to Year 5 with 71.4 per cent; this however drops in Year 7 with 67.3 per cent and Year 9 with 63 per cent. As for the disparities between remote and urban students, only 24 per cent of students from very remote areas achieved ‘Strong’ and ‘Exceeding’ levels in reading, compared to 70.7 per cent of students from metropolitan schools. Numeracy was in the same situation, with 22.4 per cent from very remote schools achieving
‘Strong’ and ‘Exceeding’ levels but 69.3 per cent from urban schools. “A substantial part of the reason is that public schools are trying to do the job with not enough money, resources,” Mr Grossek said. “And by money, you buy programs, you buy training, so that’s clearly a number one issue. “If we don’t do the funding properly, it doesn’t matter how much you train the teachers or how much you train the programs, you’re always going to be doing it under-resourced.” The broader education community echoes the same sentiments from Grossek, with the MCERA release describing the situation as “deeply disheartening”. Continued page 3
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