Good afternoon, Wentyl.

This week we published data we’ve been chasing for months – a full list of all Australian schools that have had to repay disability funding.

We’re now in a curious situation where more than one in four Aussie kids is deemed to be disabled in terms of their school learning, fuelled by a $5bn scheme. 

Little wonder federal Education Minister Jason Clare has admitted the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD) scheme "is not working as it should".

We were the first ones to draw attention to the program back in 2024, highlighting the huge amount of federal taxpayer funding flowing into private schools to assist kids with additional learning needs.

SCHOOLS REPAYING DISABILITY FUNDING IN YOUR STATE

New South Wales | Victoria | Queensland | South Australia | Tasmania | Northern Territory

While learning support is vital, concerns continue to be raised about the scheme’s compliance guardrails – in particular because funding is mainly determined by teachers, not health professionals. 

We can now reveal more than 300 schools across the nation have had to repay nearly $12m in funds they couldn’t properly account for, prompting concern from parents that their kids may now miss out on classroom help. 

Schools insist they’ve done nothing wrong, with some blaming the forced repayments on the complexity of the scheme and changing needs of their students.

Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?

Other stories of interest this week include an investigation into childcare’s “man problem”, concerns about parents not spending enough time playing with kids and a call to bring back old-school teaching.

We also look at the white lies every parent tells that could actually be harming kids, and the rise of the self-diagnosed generation. As Aaron Langmaid writes, our kids are “scrolling and self-prescribing before they’ve finished their morning toast”. I couldn't agree more. 

Enjoy these and many other great reads from us this week.