'No mullets, no mohawks, no ‘awkwardly contrasting colours’. Researcher Kayla Mildren looks at disputes over school uniform policies and why they often involve hair. A Queensland dad recently took his four-year-old son out of the Gold Coast’s A.B. Paterson College because the school had ordered the...
Marilyn Campbell and Elizabeth J Edwards looked at all the recent evidence on mobile phone bans in schools – this is what they found. Mobile phones are currently banned in all Australian state schools and many Catholic and independent schools around the country. This is part...
No more BMI, diets or ‘bad’ foods. Vivienne Lewis looks at what is changing. How many of us recall having to calculate our body-mass index (BMI) as children at school, prompting comparisons of our weight with that of our peers? Or perhaps we remember references to...
Researchers Jenny Gore and Drew Miller look at ways to improve teaching by boosting teachers’ morale and lifting student outcomes at the same time. Australian schools are facing unsustainable pressures. There are almost daily reports of too many students falling behind and not enough teachers to...
Sexism, misogyny and gendered violence are now part of Australia’s national conversation, writes Dr Catherine Smith This article contains references to offensive language Recently, several male students from the elite Yarra Valley Grammar in Melbourne’s east were expelled after they put together a spreadsheet rating the attractiveness...
Samantha Schulz reports how her survey reveals a disturbing picture of the way some boys treat their teachers Australia is once again grappling with how we can stop gendered violence in our country. Protests recently show there is enormous community anger over the number of women...
Research by Anabela Malpique, Deborah Pino Pasternak and Susan Ledger, shows children produce better pieces of writing by hand. But they need keyboard skills too Children today are growing up surrounded by technology. So it’s easy to assume they will be able to write effectively using a...
Jane Goodall's youth-led action program inspires generations of conservationists, writes Mahima Kalla. Renowned scientist and conservationist Jane Goodall is touring Australia and New Zealand at the moment. The 90-year-old “woman who redefined man” is best known for her discovery of tool-making in chimpanzees, our closest living relatives. But...
Expelling students for bad behaviour seems like the obvious solution, but is it really a good idea? Researcher Linda J. Graham asks. Two male students have been expelled from a Melbourne private school for their involvement in a list ranking female students. The two were part of...
Many schools say yes, but the answer is not so simple, writes Catherine E. Wood Should my twins be in the same class at school? As a clinical psychologist specialising in twins, this is one of the most frequent questions parents ask me. Many schools continue to separate...
