•  On Jan, 20, 2023
•  Tutoring Primary

Closing the Gap Aboriginal children in remote parts of Australia are well below the national standards in education. Despite the objectives of “closing the gap” between First Peoples and the greater part of the Australian population over many years, we are failing. Can I say it in a kind way? Can we face the facts […]

•  On Jan, 08, 2023
•  Tutoring Primary

Teacher Shortage 2023 Teacher Shortage 2023 is a problem that has been brewing for many years. Increased student numbers; heavier teacher workloads; more administration and form-filling! The Education Departments around Australia heard but did nothing. There were lots of stats available to them about teachers’ sick leave, burnout, stress levels and resignations. Governments are good […]

•  On Dec, 18, 2022
•  Tutoring Primary

NAPLAN Results 2022 NAPLAN Results 2022 confirm the trend: for ten years literacy results indicate students are not moving forward between Grade 4 and Year 7. Australian schools are good at teaching early literacy. By Year 4, students can >decode the text on the page; >answer questions relating to the chronology of stories; >find explicit […]

•  On Dec, 10, 2022
•  Tutoring Primary

Enquiry Learning Lacks Research Emeritus Professor John Sweller of UNSW questions the continuing extension of enquiry-based learning in the face of recent research findings about how humans learn. In https://www.cis.org.au/publication/why-inquiry-based-approaches-harm-students-learning/  Primary knowledge is what we humans learn through personal investigation. Secondary knowledge is what is passed down to us from earlier generations and through aeons […]

•  On Jul, 17, 2022
•  Tutoring Primary

Teaching Handwriting  Teaching Handwriting can be straight-forward. It’s a matter of learning a few phrases for regular repetition and a few others. It’s like learning to drive. Once you know what you’re doing, it’s easy and automatic. Work on the small letters first, then the capital letters. Many books and classroom methods teach the two […]

•  On Jul, 17, 2022
•  Tutoring Primary

The positive effect of parents’ socio-economic standing (SES) is less than it used to be and the negative effect of staff turnover in larger primary schools is now greater.

•  On Jul, 17, 2022
•  Tutoring Primary

Enquiry Learning Needs Overhaul Enquiry Learning Needs Overhaul as it is not working well. Information needs to be presented to students in an orderly and structured way. Enquiry methods do not allow for this.  Information should be pitched to children’s level of language and maturity. At the moment, the internet pitches whatever information children land on. Much […]

•  On May, 08, 2022
•  Tutoring Primary

Readers can confuse because each publisher uses their own reading level codes. Levels vary between schools depending on the publisher used.

•  On May, 08, 2022
•  Tutoring Primary

You could find that Grade 3 material is being taught as if it is Grade 2. And children are being assessed for Grade 2 on Grade 3 materials.

•  On Mar, 15, 2019
•  Mary Keating

An enquiry task is often given to students with almost no introduction to the topic. That’s often the norm. Kids are learning very little from this method of teaching unless given a lot more support.