Mark Latham proposes ‘explicit teaching’ on student behaviour in NSW public schools

Firebrand politician Mark Latham has called for “explicit” instruction on acceptable student behaviour across all NSW public schools in a bid to clamp down on unruly kids and free up more time for worn-out teachers.

The controversial independent issued the bold idea at a budget estimates education and early learning hearing on Tuesday. He fronted up to NSW Education Minister Prue Car and argued that uniform and “explicit teaching” on behaviour should mirror explicit teaching methods on literacy and numeracy now embedded in the state education system.

Referencing successes at Marsden Road Public School in Liverpool in Sydney’s southwest, Mr Latham said a “boot camp” approach should be replicated everywhere across NSW.

He said keeping kids in line freed up more time for teachers by reducing their administrative burdens, with fewer kids lining up outside the principal’s office for suspensions.

Ms Car, in her response, said Mr Latham’s proposal was not “unconventional” and she suspected most teachers agreed with the need for clearly taught expectations on appropriate behaviour.

“We’re in agreement in that,” she said.

“We do need to ensure we are explicitly very clear about expected behaviour in the classroom.”

Ms Car said the government had “amped up” NSW’s behaviour policy since coming to power, including making it easier for schools to suspend misbehaving students.

“We gave back the power to principals and deputy principals to act on persistent misbehaviour,” she said.

“We made it a little bit easier for schools to do that.”

Mr Latham also pressed the minister on how the government was reducing teacher workloads outside of classroom teaching, a key complaint roiling the state’s massive public education system.

Ms Car said the government had streamlined mandatory training so teachers did not have to sit through the same hours of training at the beginning of every year.

She also said AI had begun to help teachers with workload.

In one example, she said the system’s EduChat AI could “spit out” risk assessments for school excursions in seconds, instead of teachers spending hours mapping out their own assessments before an excursion.

“Teachers want to teach and we want to support them,” Ms Car said.

Call for clarity on child sex abuse crisis

Earlier in the hearing, NSW Greens member Abigail Boyd pushed Ms Car for the release of documents detailing the full scale of child abuse across the state’s childcare and early education centres.

Ms Boyd said she had “really struggled to get any form of transparency” from the government despite shocking revelations of severe and extended child sex abuse across centres in NSW and Queensland.

In one example, pedophile childcare worker Ashley Paul Griffith abused dozens of children over some 15 years.

He was sentenced to life in prison last year for 307 sexual offences against 73 victims.

Ms Boyd told the committee that she had seen privileged documents, or information held by the NSW Department of Education that has not been released to the public, on child safety that were “horrifying”.

She pressed Ms Car on whether the government would release documents to the public detailing the crisis.

Ms Car responded she shared Ms Boyd’s shock and anger and wanted to be “as transparent as possible”.

Ms Car has instructed the department to conduct an independent review into child safety across the sector, but she stopped short of promising to release documents on the matter, saying an independent legal arbiter was still deciding whether the information could be released to the public.

In November last year, Ms Boyd submitted a special request for papers, called a standing order 52, to compel the government to release all documents on “emergency action notices, prohibition notices, suspension notices, compliance notices, show cause notices or other notices or directions served on or regarding early childhood education and care providers”.

It also requests any documents detailing “notifications to parents of children enrolled at an education and care service about the suspension or cancellation of provider approval, all documents relating to enforceable undertakings regarding early childhood education and care, all documents relating to suspected, alleged or actual criminal conduct, reportable incidents or allegation or risk of significant harm incidents”.

But so far only a tranche of documents has been provided to members of parliament on a privileged basis.

NewsWire understands a legal ruling on their release is imminent.

Ms Boyd pushed Ms Car on whether she would release the documents “straight away” if the arbiter ruled in favour of the request.

Ms Car said she would be obliged to follow the arbiter’s decision.

“I totally acknowledge that you are being respectful in this,” Ms Car said.

“My advice is the arbiter has not handed down a decision.”