I have heard lots of stories recently about students in some schools spending days in ‘doubled up’ classrooms working on the floor and doing ‘busy work’ because schools don’t replace absent teachers. I have also heard very disturbing stories about students afraid too come to school because of the volatile or aggressive environment in their…

As a reward to the children for achieving their Premier’s Reading Challenge targets for 2016 we visited Collins Books in Ballarat and the school bought the kids a book each of their choice. They all selected very challenging books from the terrific children’s book range that they have. (We are actually spoilt for great bookshops…

I’m sure there are some other schools where 100% of the students attending successfully reach their reading challenge target but there wouldn’t be very many (I’m betting they’re small rural schools like us) and we have done it on consecutive years. We will pop into Ballarat as a treat this week and select a book…