Exciting new news coming out of Queensland this week with the Department of Education announcing that the mortal enemy of every school student – homework – won’t have to be done by students at home any more.
Announced at least 10 to 60 years too late for most homework harassed students in the country, the State’s Premier has won the hearts of every struggling schoolkid by arranging things so they can do their homework at their school.
The Premier said it all.
“Homework is a very important part of every child’s education, but it can be a challenge for busy families at the end of the day,” she said, winning them over forever.
“Our new free homework centres will provide a supportive, supervised environment for students to complete their homework before they go home for the day,” she declared, ensuring she will be among the most popular politicians in the country.
According to the now Premier-for-life, 120 of the State’s schools are to be given free after school ‘homework centres’ starting next term.
It does raise one very important and big question though:
Why didn’t MY school teachers think of this?
Leaping motorists
Off to the national capital now where the wise old saying ‘To err is human, but to really stuff something up you need a computer” came true for the local speed camera operators who managed to miss that last year (2020) was a leap year and that 29 February was likely to yield a speedster or two despite it not being programmed into the cameras.
According to the Agency that didn’t know what day it was, 10 cameras snapped away at speeding motorists for 16 days before it was found out that every notice accusing every driver of breaking the rules said he or she did so on a the wrong date, one day ahead of the actual day of the misdemeanor.
The Agency said that while the day might not have been correct on the 600-plus infringement notices snapped erroneously all the other measures stamped on the photographs were correct including the speed.
Eighteen months later and more than 10 per cent of the out-of-date motorists continue to dispute their charges, the Agency has taken steps to see it doesn’t happen again.
The Agency said it has: “Engaged with the system vendor to ensure that the ‘leap year’ system error from 2020 will not reoccur in the future.”
PS-sssst! is full of sympathy for the Agency which was only trying to keep the city roads safe for motorists but we’re pretty sure everyone is safe from it happening again.
We’re prepared to agree with the Agency that the “error from 2020 will not reoccur in the future.”
Over dated?
Still in Canberra, PS News was most impressed last week, picking up a little newsletter published by the local government notifying its good citizens of the latest information about the Territory and other items of interest to conscientious residents.
Titled ourCBR, the little 4-pager is generally a simple newsletter but its online edition for June broke through all natural and supernatural barriers, accurately and boldly reporting in detail a story that had not happened yet!
The date was last Tuesday (22 June) when PS News assistant editor Ysabel visited the ourCBD website to polish up her familiarity with the local community – as good journalists do – only to stumble across the extraordinary achievement.
To her excitement Ysabel found ourCBR’s story of a local politician urging the community to nominate members for the Australian of the Year Awards but doing so on 25 June – in three days’ time!
While PS-sssst! is a very busy column and doesn’t have time to spend looking into the future, it plans to keep a close eye on ourCBR from now on in case it publishes next week’s race results, the weekend’s Lotto numbers or other supernatural realities before they happen that a mere publication like PS News finds it impossible to do!
Minding the wellbeing!
To Rama Gaind’s all-go giveaway now in which three lucky winners stand the chance to win copies of the highly regarded guidance towards holistic health for mental wellness, Lisa Parkinson Roberts’ acclaimed book A Well Mind.
To become another member of Rama’s Army of winners, all we had to do was identify the academic degree Dr Parkinson Robert has been decorated with, the answer to which is a PhD in Nutrition Science.
And the first three correct winners to do so and have their entries burst out of the PS News Barrel of Booty were Mandi M from the Services Australia, James D from the Department of Defence and Jennifer B from the Queensland Department of Education.
Congratulations to all three winners and thanks to everyone who took part in the contest. The winners will receive their prizes very soon.
For another weekly chance to try our luck on Rama’s regular roundabout of rivalry simply visit one or both of her present giveaways of this DVD Windrider at this PS News link and/or her other DVD Occupation: Rainfall at this link.
Good luck to all who do!
Growing up in Canberra
And finally, once again in the ACT, possible proof from a Canberra school that the national capital’s kids grow up and develop much faster than the rest of the nation.
Officially announcing that a local school was to be extended to include a senior students’ learning area, the ACT Minister for Education and Youth Affairs went straight to the evidence that made it clear that the senior students were somewhat more senior than their interstate equals.
“Gold Creek School’s expansion has kicked off with a smoking ceremony,” the Minister declared.
Honour off!
And finally finally, thanks are in often in order to the sharp-eyed readers who keep PS News and PS-sssst! complete and accurate, particularly when we miss worthy winners in our twice-yearly coverage of the Queens’ honours lists.
To this end, our thanks to Kathryn V of the Victorian Department of justice and Community Safety for getting in touch to point out that our list of Victorian public servants honoured by the Queen failed to include Lynne Killeen who received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to the Indigenous community and to women.
“Aunty Lynne has worked as an Aboriginal Wellbeing Officer (employed by the Department of Justice And Community Safety) at Dame Phyllis Frost Centre for about 25 years,” Kathryn wrote.
Expect a PS-sssst! Pack to be on its way as a token of our thanks, Kathryn.
Until next week…..
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