Education

Your child's education

Australian children attend school from around 5 years of age for approximately 12 years, depending on which State or Territory you live in.

Shush, folks, we're trying to read

Anna Patty Children with language difficulties could make big improvements if their parents changed how they read to them, study finds.

Back-to-basics approach for Australia's classrooms

Michael Bachelard and Jill Stark Australia's national school curriculum will return history, grammar, literature and phonetics to the classroom.

Teaching kids to get organised

Sonja Walker Parents and teachers commonly complain about kids’ inability to plan and execute even the simplest of tasks.

Parent power wins top spot on My School

Phillip Coorey and Brian Robins The federal government has confronted concerns that information on its My School website is too limited by promising to expand the site's content to include details such as the level of bullying and...

How to beat the first-day blues

Ann-Maree Moodie It's your little one's first day of school. She's standing beside you at the school gate wearing a uniform that makes her look so grown up. Her backpack is almost as big as she is.

Technology in the classroom

Keeli Cambourne Forget the chalk dust, the dog eared textbooks, even the more modern DVD player. Today's school students are downloading homework on iTunes, listening to lessons via podcasts, communicating with...

Summer activities for the kids (Victoria)

Annalisa Giudici Theatre, shows, films and games, workshops - getting out and about in Melbourne, Victoria this summer.

A world of their own

Jim Kellar Welcome to the world of autism, a lifelong developmental disability that affects one of every 160 people in the general Australian population.

The parent trap

Annabel Stafford Are today’s parents more permissive of bad behaviour? As Annabel Stafford reports, there has been a quantum shift in the way parents parent, where parents today feel like they have to please their...

Children come first at new ABC, owners vow

Adele Horin Parents have been promised stability and higher quality care after a consortium of four charities won the bidding war for 678 ABC Learning Centres in a contest with a private equity firm.

School readiness: Points to consider

Amber Robinson With 2010 just around the corner many parents are wondering if they've made the right decision to enroll, or hold back, their child from school.

The really big guide to holiday activities for kids

There's no excuse for cries of "I'm bored" this school holidays with myriad things to do across the country.

Home alone: term break no holiday for children

Keeli Cambourne One-third of children aged five to 15 will be left at home alone during the school holidays while their parents have to work.

Life after school: all homework, no play

Ainslie MacGibbon The children arrive home from school, you offer them a snack while asking about their day before sending them off to play until dark. Hardly.

Children with better educated mothers watch the least TV

Adele Horin Almost 15 per cent of Australian children aged three to four have television in their bedrooms and, by the age of seven to eight, the proportion has risen to one in five, a new study shows, raising...

Blind eye to driveway danger

Rachel Browne About a dozen children are killed in Australian driveways each year and hundreds more are severely injured, child safety experts say.

Let's demonstrate a little class and give every child a fair go

Adele Horin Australians pride themselves on belonging to a classless society, and when it comes to equality of manners - how we treat the people who clean our houses or mow the lawns.

One in eight at risk of learning difficulties

Adele Horin One in eight children are so behind in their development by the time they start school that they are at serious risk of learning difficulties and social problems, the first national snapshot of...