Latest news with #Budgewoi
News.com.au
7 days ago
- Business
- News.com.au
Sydney's cheapest coastal suburbs revealed
They're the off the radar suburbs where home seekers can snap up beach homes for as little as $720,000 - and winter conditions mean it's possible to get better bargains than over the rest of the year. PropTrack research has revealed multiple coastal suburbs across Greater Sydney where median prices remain under $1 million - about $500,000 cheaper than the typical price of a house across the city as a whole - with some properties in these areas listed for well below that. It comes as experts pointed to sales data showing July was peak beach house bargain-hunting season. Part of the reason was that cold conditions meant beach living was rarely on people's minds, creating a seasonal dip in demand at just the time when a greater number of desperate sellers were putting their homes up for sale. Ray White Group chief economist Nerida Conisbee said beach house hunters could get better deals and more favourable negotiation terms in winter. 'Selling in winter in a beachside location is generally not something people do,' she said. 'If they are selling, they are potentially a highly motivated seller and that's where you could get a bargain. 'While you'll have greater choices in summer, it's in winter that buyers will have a higher chance to save money.' In the Greater Sydney area, PropTrack's data showed The Central Coast offered the most budget-friendly coastal homes, with all 10 of the cheapest locations to buy a house located in the region. Budgewoi took top spot as the most affordable coastal suburb in Greater Sydney, with a median house sale price of $760,000. Fellow Central Coast suburb Chittaway Bay, further south and on the shores of Tuggerah Lake, has a median house price of $880,000. Nearby suburb The Entrance was the most affordable place to buy a beachside unit at a median sales price of $675,000. Outside of the Central Coast, suburbs south of the Sydney CBD, such as Brighton-Le-Sands and Monterey made the list of the most affordable places to buy a beachside unit, with median prices of $800,000 and $900,000, respectively. Back up the Central Coast, in Umina Beach, where house prices are typically $1.15m, residents John and Jenny Gavin said the cheaper prices were worth the longer commute into work each week. 'I travelled to Sydney for work, but I was normally at work in about an hour and 10 minutes,' he said, commenting on the location 80km north of the Sydney CBD. The payoff was a location four minutes' from the beach, he said. 'Once you get back here on the weekend, it's all worth it,' Mr Gavin said. 'When the kids grew up here they all played with their friends at the beach. It was a good lifestyle.' The couple's home, which they built for $300,000 14 years ago, is now up for sale with a price guide of $1.6 million to $1.7 million as they attempt to downsize. Ray White Umina Beach sales associate Amy Sherrin said Central Coast homes offered beachside living at a fraction of the price of those closer to the city. 'It's very much a close-knit family location where everyone goes down to the beach with their dogs on the weekend,' she said. 'If you were down in Bondi, you'd be paying five times the price for the same kind of lifestyle.' According to Ms Sherrin, buyer interest in the area comes from families making the move up north from the Northern Beaches and The Hills. CHEAPEST BEACHSIDE SUBURBS (GREATER SYDNEY) Houses: Suburb Median sale price Budgewoi $760,000 Noraville $870,000 Chittaway Bay $888,000 The Entrance $990,000 Empire Bay $1,108,000 Bateau Bay $1,150,000 Umina Beach $1,150,000 Ettalong Beach $1,240,000 Forresters Beach $1,430,000 Terrigal $1,583,000 Units: Suburb Median sale price The Entrance $675,000 Brighton-Le-Sands $800,000 Elizabeth Bay $850,000 Umina Beach $870,000 Monterey $900,000 Ettalong Beach $900,000 Dee Why $975,000 Cronulla $1,040,000 San Souci $1,085,000 Ramsgate Beach $1,100,000
Buzz Feed
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
Nostalgia Alert: Short Stack Brings Back The 2000s
It was MySpace that helped Short Stack explode onto the music scene, with the three Budgewoi boys — Shaun, Bradie, and Andy — gaining a solid following on the social media site and capturing the hearts of many Aussie teens with their pop-punk aesthetic, good looks, and catch tunes. We walked down memory lane with Bradie Webb, Short Stack's drummer — who had a chat with BuzzFeed the day before the tour officially kicked off. 'I'm so old now,' Bradie laughed, when talking about revisiting playing the songs from 2009's Stack Is The New Black. 'We wrote these songs, I want to say 18 or 19 years ago, maybe even more. So there's a real nostalgia. It's part of our DNA from when we were kids, so I guess it's a little emotional to play these songs.' Reflecting on Short Stack's meteoric rise of fame in Australia, Bradie said looking back it was wild to think of how young they were when they achieved mainstream success. 'I say this to my wife all the time, that I was a bit like a child star,' he said. 'I think we all did become who we are because of that experience at such a young age. And I didn't realise it at the time, but we were so young to go through something so weird, but I think the one thing I've observed is that the three of us are pretty unique. After the band first broke up in 2012, Bradie said the hardest thing was actually just finding a normal job. Now the three Short Stack lads are all dads, with normal jobs, but have reunited numerous times over the years to get back on stage. But if it's one thing that keeps them humble as they play sold out shows across Australia again, it's their kids. 'I think our kids were just a bit confused, but my son now asks questions. He's nearly seven, and he can't understand if we're at Metallica level or just a few people in our city know who we are,' Bradie laughed. 'He's like, 'So how many millions of people are coming down? Like, no, not millions! They're starting to get it that we obviously have been successful, but they also don't care. It doesn't matter, your kids never care about how cool you might be to someone else!"
ABC News
12-06-2025
- General
- ABC News
A systematic maths approach could unlock stronger results across primary schools
When Nathan Forbes took on the role of principal at Budgewoi Public School in 2020, he recognised an opportunity to enhance the school's maths program. The school had room for improvement in maths results, with Nathan observing a diverse range of teaching approaches among staff, including discovery and games-based teaching strategies. Fast-forward five short years and a lot has changed. Teachers take a systematic approach to teaching maths, following a common lesson sequence from Foundation to Year 6 and explicitly teaching new content to students. Now, there's no guess work about what maths topics to teach or how, and lessons are fast-paced as kids have no time to waste. It's paying off. While there's still plenty left to work on, students and teachers have made great strides. Budgewoi's 2024 NAPLAN numeracy results improved from 2023, with Year 3 students performing well above students in similar schools. The question is: what's holding other schools back from doing the same thing? Budgewoi's journey shows us how challenging it is to lead school improvement, and why state governments need to invest in the kind of shoulder-to-shoulder support principals need. The challenge of school improvement Budgewoi serves a community with many families experiencing socio-economic disadvantage, including many Indigenous households. When Nathan arrived in 2020, he found a school deeply committed to student wellbeing but lacking focus on learning outcomes. 'I gained the sense that student learning outcomes were not the focus,' Nathan told us when we visited the school as part of the research for our report, How to implement great maths teaching in primary schools: a guide for principals. 'I developed the view that if we raised expectations of ourselves and our students, we were capable of much better results,' Nathan said. The transition wasn't easy. Some teachers initially resisted the shift to a systematic maths approach, where content was sequenced lesson by lesson and new content was taught explicitly — that is, in small chunks, with teachers providing whole-class explanations, lots of opportunities for practice and immediate feedback, before students work independently. Some teachers regarded it as 'really regimented, like the army'. Nathan said he had to build understanding about the cognitive science behind the approach, so staff understood that 'we're not doing it because other schools do. We're doing it because it's based on science and helps students to learn. Once teachers have the why, you can get into the what and how.' A turning point came when Nathan recruited two experienced maths leaders with expertise in explicit instruction — a decision he described as the best he ever made. These specialists helped refocus the school's approach, introducing structured training sessions and establishing observation and coaching cycles. They also implemented a new assessment schedule in maths, with quarterly 'data weeks' where staff analysed students' results to understand the impact of their teaching methods. Leaning on other schools for help Amy Haywood is the deputy program director of the education program at the Grattan Institute and co-author of the The Maths Guarantee report. ( Supplied: Amy Haywood ) Budgewoi didn't do this work alone. Its instructional vision was inspired by visits to three nearby Hunter Region public schools — Blue Haven, Charlestown South and The Entrance (which was just one year ahead in its implementation journey) — where systematic maths teaching had proven effective. These schools teamed up, developing a common set of sequenced and detailed lessons plans, which Budgewoi has now adopted. Nathan said the materials supported high-quality teaching while alleviating much of teachers' workload burden. The results speak volumes: accelerated learning, improved NAPLAN results and teachers developing significant maths curriculum expertise. Perhaps most importantly, the principal notes, 'Budgewoi's experience shows that good-quality teaching looks the same in the most disadvantaged and most advantaged schools, and all kids can learn maths if we teach the right way.' The case for Maths Hubs What if we could systematise this approach across Australia? This is where Maths Hubs come in. Drawing on England's Hubs model, Australia should establish 50 Maths Hubs as demonstration schools that showcase best practice and provide intensive support to about 150 other primary schools in their area. These hubs, established at existing high-performing schools, would bridge the gap between research evidence, education policy and classroom practice. With about $930,000 in additional funding per year, each hub school could employ a lead coordinator, a lead mathematics specialist and the equivalent of three full-time maths coaches. These specialists, who may also work part-time teaching at the school, would provide training to teachers across their region, including hosting school visits; conducting or unpacking demonstration lessons; and delivering topic-specific training. 'Maths Hubs' are demonstration schools that showcase best practice and provide intensive support to other schools in their area. ( Supplied: Budgewoi Public School ) Hubs would offer intensive, two-year partnerships to schools, starting with those most in need — those with low performance, inexperienced staff or a combination of both. These schools would get shoulder-to-shoulder support from hub coaches, including practical help improving their curriculum and assessment schedule. Within about 10 years, Maths Hubs could provide intensive partnership training to all primary schools in Australia. The evidence from England suggests this approach works. Its Maths Hubs program has been credited by the national school inspectorate with helping create 'a resounding, positive shift in mathematics education'. Australia should learn from Budgewoi Public School Budgewoi's experience shows that improving primary maths teaching is hard work. Without the right support, even the most dedicated school leaders will struggle to make systemic changes stick. But by establishing Maths Hubs, Australian governments can provide the on-the-ground support school leaders need. The stakes couldn't be higher. As Budgewoi's principal told us: 'I've made a lot of mistakes, and we moved quickly — maybe too quickly — but we've also made a lot of progress.' With Maths Hubs, more schools could make that progress, and make it faster. Our students deserve nothing less. Amy Haywood is the deputy program director of the education program at the Grattan Institute and co-author of the new guide for principals on How to implement great maths teaching in primary schools.
