I’ve never done it as a teacher, my current and previous colleagues have never done it, I never experienced it and nor have any other people I have asked. So yes, it may happen but not to the extent you claim. Also, fitness testing results are never ranked publicly or even kept. Fitness testing is done as a way of teaching components of fitness in late high school elective PE and sport science subjects, as they are taught in Certificate 3 and 4 in Fitness for PT’s and in sport science subjects in university. So, essential learning for those industries. That’s all. Students learn how to use the data to inform coaching programs. It is not about testing the students themselves. I never said ANY results were made public!
@rush I have been a PE teacher in the ACT since 2008 and can confirm that weighing students does not happen here. I have never, ever done this and this has never happened at any school I’ve ever taught at. Fitness testing, yes (although I have only done that when teaching Year 10 and above as part of teaching components of fitness) but Year 7, no.
@cat I have been a PE teacher in the ACT since 2008 and can confirm this does not happen here. I have never, ever done this and this has never happened at any school I’ve ever taught at.
What?!! I’ve been a teacher for 13 years and this has never happened at any school I’ve ever worked at?!!! I’ve never HEARD of this!!! AT WHAT SCHOOLS IS THIS GOING ON?!!
Author - FYI, the people of Afghanistan are Afghans, not Afghanis. The Afghani is the currency. Please amend!
THANK YOU for writing this article that articulates my thoughts and feelings EXACTLY. It’s like you took the exact thoughts from my own head.
Mamamia, just for clarification, Couzens was not a police office - he was a diplomatic protection officer, like our protective service officers here in Australia. They are not sworn police officers. They are basically like security guards - they guard diplomatic buildings and those on Commonwealth grounds here but have no police powers at all. Not trying to sound nitpicky but the distinction here must be made.
This article is fantastic. Thanks for putting so eloquently what we’re all thinking. What horrendously arrogant, entitled jerks.
Just FYI, all pre and post-natal fitness specialists, as well as women’s health physiotherapists, agree that the 6 week check up performed by GPs is INSUFFICIENT for ascertaining if a woman is ready to return to exercise. I can tell you that both of mine after the birth of my two children were abysmal. Women’s health physiotherapists (led by Lyz Evans) are currently seeking signatures for their petition asking the government to add a visit to a women’s health physio to Medicare for all women in the country who have had a vaginal birth. The sheer amount of women thinking that their pelvic floor dysfunction and prolapse issues just have to be lived with is testament to the fact that women’s bodies are NOT being sufficiently cared for post-birth, starting from their 6 week check.
AMEN to ALL of this. My baby has had hand foot and mouth disease all week, so no daycare for him, even though that’s where he got it! But of course, I still pay $145 per day, even if he doesn’t attend. I have had to take days off work because my husband ‘can’t take time off right now,’ and regardless, his employer wouldn’t support him doing it to look after a sick kid anyway. So I’ll go back to work next week (I’m a teacher) and feel helpless under a pile of work I’ve missed. My students will be behind and I’ll no doubt have parent emails asking me to give their kids assignment extensions as I’ve “been absent for many days.” Honestly, there is no way we can win.
“Payne has been the Minister for Women since 2019 and Minister for Defence since 2018. Prior to that, she held the defence and human services portfolios” fact-check: Payne has been Minister for Women since 2021, and the Minister for FOREIGN AFFAIRS since 2018. She WAS Minister for Defence, from 2015-2018.