Education
All-girls Catholic school bans same-sex couples from attending formal
A petition calling for the Sydney school to allow same-sex couples to attend its year 12 formal has garnered thousands of signatures.
- by Lucy Carroll and Christopher Harris
Latest
‘Selfish elitism and separatism’: No easy answer to public v private education debate
The polices of the Howard government have led to today’s inequity in education.
Opinion
Unisex school toilets aren’t the bogeyman you think they are
Instead of the classic boys and girls bathrooms, a Victorian primary school has opted for unisex toilets. But is this the education hill we should die on?
- by Adam Voigt
Former manager happy to deliver mail after ‘sham redundancy’, court told
Jasmine Chambers is suing the Bureau of Meteorology alleging she was fired after taking two days of leave in Paris.
- by Georgina Mitchell
Exclusive
Education boss calls for doubling down on explicit teaching in schools
NSW Education Department secretary Murat Dizdar wants teachers to return to giving students step-by-step and clear instructions instead of student-led learning.
- by Lucy Carroll
Exclusive
Sick Sydney University academic sacked after return-to-office decree
The university agrees Niko Tiliopoulos’ respiratory and autoimmune conditions stop him from being on campus. But it won’t allow him to keep working from home.
- by Daniella White
Exclusive
Major change looms for top-level HSC English course
The highest-level HSC English course is set to undergo its biggest shakeup in more than 25 years.
- by Christopher Harris
Markets, chess club, TV shows: How much your school makes by renting its facilities
Some public schools are generating almost half a million dollars a year in extra income by hiring facilities to host weekend markets, kids activities and even TV shows.
- by Mary Ward
New national ad campaign aims to prevent child sexual abuse
The 'One Talk at a Time' campaign aims to promote awareness in adults about how to have conversation with young people about abuse.
How century-old Sydney boys’ school is preparing to go co-ed
Cranbrook is among at least half a dozen private and Catholic schools in NSW to switch to co-education in the past decade.
- by Lucy Carroll
![“The more orderly the environment, the more conducive it is to learning,” notes one school principal. “[Teachers] play a role. You can’t just be Ms Happy-Go-Lucky … there’s no room for ‘cool’ teachers.”](https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_0.09156976744186046%2C$multiply_0.6243%2C$ratio_1.5%2C$width_756%2C$x_0%2C$y_0/t_crop_custom/q_62%2Cf_auto/4e12892f5faefe3d839a3b371dc8d59b2f92ac51)
Anxiety, ADHD, ‘snowplough parents’: Behind our worsening school discipline crisis
Australian classrooms are more disorderly than ever – prompting an intensifying debate about how to control bad behaviour.
- by Jordan Baker
The biggest economic issue facing students wasn’t asked about in the HSC exam
More than 5000 students across NSW sat the test on Thursday, having spent the past two years memorising formulas, debating macroeconomic issues and interrogating the merits of fiscal stimulus.
- by Christopher Harris
Exclusive
Private schools face tighter rules on using $1.5b in public funds
The NSW government wants greater clarity for how the independent schools spend state funding each year after a series of embarrassing breaches.
- by Lucy Carroll
Sydney Uni academic quits ‘dysfunctional’ union branch amid pro-Palestinian campaigns
Fiona Gill says the union’s committee members are refusing to condemn war crimes publicly, amid pro-Palestinian campaigning.
- by Daniella White
‘Not seen a question like it’: The most difficult problem in this year’s HSC
About 3300 students attempted the gruelling three-hour maths extension 2 paper. Many flipped straight to the last page to weigh up the toughest problem.
- by Lucy Carroll
Watch student Vivian Xu solve one of the hardest HSC maths questions
More than 3000 NSW maths students sat the 2023 extension 2 paper this week
Three words in HSC maths question sowed confusion among students
Some believed they had to respond to a question in sentence form in Monday’s exam, sparking debate among students and teachers.
- by Christopher Harris
Students learn closer to home after schools crack down on out-of-area enrolments
New figures reveal 23 per cent of students attending public high schools live outside the catchment zone, down from almost a third four years ago.
- by Lucy Carroll
Exclusive
The co-ed change that will affect students at almost 90 Sydney primary schools
High school intake areas from Dulwich Hill to Bankstown and Kogarah have been expanded to unlock access to co-ed public high schools for children starting year 7 in 2025.
- by Lucy Carroll
68,000 students sat HSC English exams. The girls picked up on this one imbalance
Of 105 possible authors, poets and film directors whose work is currently mandated for study by HSC students in English, just 39 per cent are women.
- by Christopher Harris
HSC students stumped by apricots in first English exam
Students have welcomed a very general essay question but were left stumped by stone fruit in the first HSC exam which began on Wednesday.
- by Christopher Harris
The HSC exam change putting pens and paper on notice
Year 12 student Maadi Prasad is sitting one of his exams using a laptop computer. But what does this mean for the future of handwriting?
- by Christopher Harris and Lucy Carroll
The high school mobile phone ban starts this week. This is how it will work
A blanket ban on mobile phones in NSW public high schools will be rolled out from Monday, but the nation’s peak mental health research organisation has raised concern about the decision.
- by Christopher Harris and Mary Ward
Opinion
In our competitive school culture, students with a disability take second place
The disability royal commission education wishlist is honourable, but without a major cultural shift towards real inclusivity, little will change.
- by Chris Bonnor
Our classrooms are among the world’s worst. The UK’s ‘behaviour tsar’ might have the answer
High-profile British adviser Tom Bennett says one of the first things Australian schools need is more time explicitly teaching students how to conduct themselves.
- by Christopher Harris
Government willing to name and shame childcare gougers
Education Minister Jason Clare says the idea of calling out childcare providers that are making over-the-top profits “makes a lot of sense to me”.
- by Matthew Knott
‘They drive past 20 schools’: Where the next top athletes go to class
James Badolato and Maronay Smuts are among a growing number of students who travel several hours a day to attend one of the state’s seven sports high schools.
- by Andrew Taylor and Lucy Carroll
Being seen: Braille books for children to appear in stores, classrooms
Braille education can start before age one, with books that teach a child’s fingers to look for textures and shapes on a page.
- by Mary Ward
Competition watchdog finds childcare less affordable than most OECD countries
The ACCC found families were spending as much as 16 per cent of their income on centre-based full-time daycare, and called on government to consider changes to policies such as the Child Care Subsidy.
- by Lisa Visentin
Lili thrived at special schools. The royal commission is split on a plan to phase them out
The disability royal commissioners – and the community at large – are divided over the future of special schools in Australia, which some see as segregation.
- by Sherryn Groch
The big HSC shift: the subjects students are deserting in droves
More students are studying subjects such as PDHPE while fewer are studying physics due to pressure from schools, analysts say.
- by Christopher Harris
Exclusive
Disability royal commission split over future of special schools
The disability royal commission is divided over the future of special schools, with some commissioners to recommend they be phased out completely over the long term.
- by Jewel Topsfield
Opinion
Randwick Girls, stop defaming Randwick Boys and welcome the merger
This former Randwick Girls student – and the mother of sons from Randwick Boys – is appalled by the backlash against the decision to move to co-education.
- by Phyllis Foundis
‘Just be kind’: The three-word message from one boy to the royal commission
A 2020 video of Quaden Bayles weeping about school bullies touched hearts across the world. Now his experiences have informed the findings of Australia’s long-awaited royal commission into disability.
- by Jewel Topsfield
Top Australian universities slide down world rankings
A fall in international student numbers is being blamed for the nation’s top-performing universities dropping down a prestigious academic league table.
- by Christopher Harris
Meet the year 12 student who spent two years crunching HSC data
Baulkham Hills student Syed Ahmad spent years gathering data from hundreds of annual reports to analyse HSC scaling and average scores. Then he sent the Herald an email.
- by Lucy Carroll
Opinion
Why HSC restrictions hide the truths we all need to see
Restricting HSC information for more than two decades has warped our view of success and hidden the stars of public schooling for far too long.
- by The Herald's View
HSC subjects: where your school ranks on our lists
Whether it is science, maths or business studies, we have analysed subject average data for selective and comprehensive schools to reveal which schools excel in particular fields in the HSC.
- by Lucy Carroll, Nigel Gladstone and Syed Ahmad
‘I have never seen so many students cry in the hall’
The decision to merge two single-sex high schools in Randwick from 2025 has sparked a backlash from the girls’ campus.
- by Christopher Harris and Lucy Carroll
Exclusive
We re-ranked schools based on HSC averages. Here’s what you didn’t know
James Ruse is the highest achieving school in the state no matter what data you use. Search the top 150 public schools to see which excel across the whole cohort rather than just band six results.
- by Lucy Carroll, Nigel Gladstone and Syed Ahmad
TAFE students offered ‘degree apprenticeships’ to tackle skills gap
The federal government’s new jobs plan will include “degree apprenticeship qualifications” that aim to help stop a broad decline in people signing up for trades.
- by David Crowe
An Australian uni headhunted them from Oxford, Cambridge and Yale. Now they face redundancy
Two years ago, ACU was a Cinderella story in research success, rocketing up world rankings. Now, it’s closing institutes to fix a ballooning $30 million deficit.
- by Sherryn Groch
Six years ago they chose a high school. Now it’s over, was it the right decision?
For 68,689 students, 13 years of schooling came to an end this week. We asked four of them at public, private and Catholic schools for their thoughts.
- by Christopher Harris
Exclusive
Eastern suburbs single-sex schools to merge into new co-ed campus
Students living in Sydney’s southern and eastern suburbs will have access to new co-educational high schools from 2025.
- by Lucy Carroll
Exclusive
Sydney was promised its first new selective school in 25 years. Now it’s just one class
The state government allocated $3.5 billion for new and upgraded schools in its budget. Here’s where they will be built.
- by Lucy Carroll and Nigel Gladstone
The university degrees getting harder – and easier – to get into
The ATAR cut-off for most nursing degrees has become lower over the past five years, after a spike in 2021 and 2022. And that’s not all that has changed.
- by Daniella White
Everything we already know about the NSW budget
Here’s what we know so far about Treasurer Daniel Mookhey’s first state budget, to be delivered on Tuesday.
- by Anthony Segaert
Editorial
Cheating students undermine their qualification and their university
Cheating in exams has been a constant of university student life, but after institutions largely abandoned pen and paper tests during the COVID-19 pandemic years, some NSW universities are reporting unprecedented attempts to rort the system.
- The Herald's View