A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Australia is gradually emerging from an unprecedented lockdown, where we continue to face major threats to our health and economy. Schools have acted as shock absorbers during this period, switching in a short period of time to online learning, and supporting children and their families to learn from home while simultaneously attempting to remotely manage [...]
John Munro, Australian Catholic University How can we concentrate on a particular thing (like studies) without getting distracted? Melvina, aged 14 Thanks for this great question, Melvina! Many students are probably wondering the same thing as end-of-year assessments approach. To concentrate best we need to resist distractions. To do this, it helps if you know [...]
Umesh Sharma & Fiona May COVID-19 has disrupted education systems on a global scale, creating unexpected challenges. Approximately 1.6 billion children around the world have been unable to attend school due to COVID-19 lockdowns, with schools required to make rapid adjustments in the move to online teaching and learning. The pandemic has increased the educational divide [...]
As Victorian schools, teachers and students adapt to the pressures of stage four lockdowns, questions have been raised about how inclusive education can be provided during remote learning. Inclusive education means providing high-quality schooling that's fair and equitable for all students. It means every child is welcomed and valued without exception. However, COVID-19 has created, [...]
Emily Berger, Monash University and Karen Martin, University of Western Australia Mental health issues among children are on the rise due to the impacts of the COVID pandemic, including lockdowns. Recent reports show there has been a 28% spike in calls to the phone counselling service Kids Helpline between March and July 2020 compared with [...]
David Lubans, University of Newcastle and Myrto Mavilidi, University of Newcastle Primary school teachers often provide students with short physical activity breaks to energise kids and minimise classroom disruptions. Our study, published in the journal Educational Psychology Review, found we should be doing this for senior students too. We found a short activity break can [...]
Penny Van Bergen, Macquarie University; Linda J. Graham, Queensland University of Technology, and Naomi Sweller, Macquarie University Most of us can remember a favourite teacher. Some of us can also remember a teacher we didn’t get on with or with whom we always seemed to get in trouble. Relationships between students and teachers at school [...]
Lisa Mundy, Murdoch Children's Research Institute and George Patton, University of Melbourne Children aged 8 and 9 who watched more than two hours of TV a day or spent more than one hour a day on a computer had lower scores than their peers on reading and numeracy at ages 10 and 11, our study [...]
Sarah Whittle, University of Melbourne and Kate Bray, University of Melbourne The negative mental health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are clear, but there is particular concern children will be most affected in the long run. By the end of March school closures were impacting 91% of the world’s student population and are still affecting [...]
Natalie Lander, Deakin University and Jo Salmon, Deakin University Regular physical activity is linked to improvements in physical and mental health including anxiety and depression. It can also improve cognitive functioning such as attention and memory, and academic achievement in children. But only 14% of Australian children get the recommended 60 minutes of physical activity [...]
