Warriors' victory
What an extraordinary and quite unexpected win by the Warriors on Saturday. Sports writers are floundering about to find an explanation for such an outstanding performance and convincing result.
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But as is often the case with experts they have perhaps overlooked the obvious.
Surely, the wonderful support and hospitality the Warriors have received from the friendly Tamworth community helped to make them feel invincible. And they played accordingly.
That's my view anyway as a non-expert in the sports arena.
Russell Armitage, Hamilton, NZ
Smith Family Winter Appeal
Children's education charity The Smith Family has launched its 2020 Winter Appeal with a warning that thousands of young Australians experiencing disadvantage are at a heightened risk of disengaging from their education, amid the challenges posed by COVID-19.
The appeal aims to raise $4.2 million by 30 June to deliver life-changing learning and mentoring programs to students in need.
With one in six Australian children and young people already living below the poverty line before the outbreak of COVID-19, and the entire nation now facing unprecedented challenges as a result of the pandemic, the organisation says young people need additional support now, more than ever.
Since March, we have seen the biggest disruption to education ever posed to Australian children.
As communities, schools and families continue to face difficult times, The Smith Family is deeply concerned that children who were already living in disadvantage before COVID-19, will face additional hardship, and risk slipping further behind in their education.
Not only has their education been disrupted, but their families may not have been in the best position to support their children's home learning.
This may be due to a lack of access to digital technology, having inadequate learning spaces at home, or parents' own schooling experiences potentially limiting the educational support they can offer their children.
The cost of lost learning threatens to fall hardest on those most in need of education. When students fall behind in their learning they can become unmotivated.
This in turn affects their desire to go school, and our research shows that when attendance slips, so does educational achievement.
The last thing we want is for the thousands of children we support to fall further behind with their learning as a result of the COVID-19 crisis and its ongoing effects.
That's why we're calling on the Australian public to help us reach children in need, to ensure at-risk students are given the right support, at this critical time, so they can catch up and keep up in their learning.
For more than 30 years, The Smith Family - with the support of the Australian community - has been able to help tens of thousands of children thrive in their education through a range of targeted programs that begin in the early years of schooling and continue to tertiary level.
In the last year alone, Smith Family programs reached almost 170,000 Australian students experiencing disadvantage.
The Smith Family's CEO Dr Lisa O'Brien
