I would have thought that the best way to get the parents to listen, understand and adhere to the importance of a good education would be to cut family allowances from parents that don’t ensure that their children attend school.

Taking weekend sports away from the children is only hurting the children, it’s not making the parents accountable for their responsibility. This idea just makes no sense to me and it breaks my heart to think that a majority of these children who’s only thing to look forward to is team sport will be taken from them because their parents are irresponsible.

Julia, when you have a child in the education system, then maybe you would have the right to offer advise, but you don’t and really have no idea about what is needed.

CHILDREN who do not attend school will be prevented from playing sport if Labor is re-elected on August 21.

Julia Gillard unveiled a No School No Play initiative that will involve major sporting codes implementing a policy of not playing kids who wag school.

The Prime Minister said the initiative would be voluntary but was confident sporting clubs would back the proposal.

“We will work with our great sporting codes so that when kids play sport on the weekend, one of the questions for them, one of the things that the sporting organisations is seeking to achieve so that kids have been in school,” Ms Gillard said.

“I want kids to get the skills they need for life and work, kids can only get those skills if they are at school.”

Ms Gillard also announced a boost to the school chaplaincy program, extending it to an extra 1000 schools.

Ms Gillard said the 2700 schools already participating in the program would also have their funding guaranteed until the end of 2014.

The religion issue has been a sleeper in Queensland, and the program extension will be welcomed by some Queensland MPs attempting to appeal to religious sections of their electorates.

Schools to have more control over budgets, staffing, under new Labor policy

Source: From: The Australian

SCHOOLS will get greater control over their budgets, selecting and employing teachers and identifying funding priorities, under a new Labor policy. Julia Gillard, campaigning in the western Sydney seat of Lindsay, announced the empowering local schools program, which she said would give principals and parents in participating schools a bigger say in how they are run. The Prime Minister said the new policy, to begin in 2012 with 1000 schools participating, would allow some schools to hire specialist teachers and support officers for areas of need identified by the local school community. The program will initially be targeted at government schools but will be rolled out nationally by 2018 at a cost of $484 million. The initial trial will cost $71 million over the next four years. “A key element of this reform is empowering local school communities to make decisions about what is best for their schools and their students rather than a centralised system run by state bureaucracies dictating staffing mix and resource allocations,” Ms Gillard said. Start of sidebar.  Ms Gillard said the government would also work with non-government school authorities to identify how they could improve school performance through local decision-making. Under the new program, new school governance arrangements would be set up including giving school councils or boards responsibility for strategic planning and overseeing school operations and finances. Principals in participating schools would also be able to determine their appropriate staffing mix. Schools will be provided with between $40,000 and $50,000 to help them transition to a more independent model and state school systems would also be provided with funding to change their systems to support the greater independence for the participating schools. Ms Gillard said the cost of the program would be fully offset over the forward estimates. Today’s announcement by Ms Gillard follows frustration voiced by school principals about their lack of control over projects under the Building the Education Revolution stimulus program

The 14-year-old took his life on July 25, 2008 at his family’s home at Goonellabah, near Lismore, after being beaten and bullied by other pupils at Kadina High School.

Following an inquest into his death in Ballina earlier this month, Deputy State Coroner Malcolm MacPherson made a series of recommendations. On Wednesday, Education Minister Verity Firth signalled that many of these, including an enrolment policy for students who transfer, will be put in place.

In his findings, Mr MacPherson said Alex had not been seen by a school counsellor, who worked part time and was not at Kadina on the days leading up to the boy’s death.

His teachers did not know of the bullying and had not been told about previous incidents at his former Sydney school.

Alex, described as a “highly intelligent and sensitive young man”, endured attacks and threats at Ingleburn High School in 2007 and the bullying started again when he moved to Kadina.

He was assaulted several times and taunted and threatened by other pupils on the internet, the inquest heard.

Ms Firth said a review of school counselling services in public schools was already under way. The Education Department would also trial at several schools a dedicated email address to which students can report bullying.

She has also instructed the department to compile a concise brochure about bullying, after Mr MacPherson recommended that information given to schools about the practice be simplified.

“There will never be a one-size-fits-all response,” she said in a statement.

“It is important that we still allow school communities to develop their own policies, but at the same time make sure that everyone has access to basic and clear information.”

In his findings, Mr MacPherson concluded that although he could not pinpoint a single factor that led to Alex’s suicide, bullying contributed.

Two days before his mother found him dead in the garage of the family home, he had been hit on the face and head during an attack at the school, which was filmed on a mobile phone.