"Kid-friendly news that keeps them up to date without all the nasties."
About Squiz Kids
Squiz parents and teachers have spoken… And what they want is a news podcast for kids.
And so, in January 2020, we launched our weekday news podcast, Squiz Kids Today.
And in July 2021, we expanded our offering with Squiz Kids Classroom.
Brought to you by the same team behind The Squiz Today and Squiz Shortcuts podcasts and newsletters, Squiz Kids is out at 7am each weekday during school term with an easy-to-digest snapshot of the news - designed specifically for 8-12yos.
In just a few minutes, it’ll give Squiz Kids the rundown on the big news events unfurling around them. And while we won’t shy away from hard news stories, we’ll also make sure there’s plenty of kid-friendly content from the worlds they inhabit too.
Over at Squiz Kids Classroom, we give educators daily, differentiated literacy activities that connect to the podcast, as well as weekly Shortcuts for kids, Squiz the World episodes, and our Newshounds media literacy curriculum. Everything we do is designed by teachers, aligned to the Australian curriculum, and focused on keeping kids engaged and informed.
And it's all delivered in The Squiz’s signature style - with positivity, humour and opinion-free.
MEET THE SQUIZ KIDS TEAM
BRYCE CORBETT
Squiz Kids Host - journalist, author and father-of-two.
Bryce has been a journalist for over 25 years, written four books, and worked in newsrooms in Sydney, London, and Paris. He started Squiz Kids in 2020 because he wanted all Aussie kids, including his own, to be curious about the world around them, while learning to be critical consumers of media. In an age in which more and more of us are getting our news from our social media feeds – and those feeds are becoming narrower by the day as algorithms make judgments about our interests – he’s pretty sure that children who have a well-rounded, informed view of the world will be better prepared to succeed in it.
CHRISTIE KIJURINA
Squiz Kids educator extraordinaire - teacher, wearer of many hats, and parent-of-two.
Christie Kijurina is an educator who is passionate about supporting learners to develop skills to be confident, critical and creative individuals, equipped to play an active and informed role in society. She has taught in both primary and high schools in Queensland, coming to education after careers in fashion retailing, hospitality and the automotive industries. Christie and her kids were avid daily listeners of the Squiz Kids News podcast before she joined the Squiz Kids team last year. She is living up to her mantra of being a lifelong learner, taking yet another new career twist in her mid-forties and loving it!
AMANDA BOWER
Squiz Kids educator extraordinaire - teacher, former journalist, and mother-of-two.
Originally from Perth, Amanda traveled the world as a journalist, then got slightly stuck in the US for 21 years. She was a correspondent for Time magazine in New York and then San Francisco, but finally saw the light and became a primary teacher while in California. Imagine her good fortune, on moving the family to Sydney years later, to discover her old buddy Bryce was looking for a teacher with experience in journalism! Trained by Columbia Teachers College’s Reading and Writing project, as well as the Buck Institute for Education, Amanda will talk to you for hours about the importance of authentic, engaging learning tasks… and why guiding young people to be critical consumers and producers of media is one of the most pressing issues of our time.
How do children tell if online news is fake? Here’s a slip, slop, slap-up idea.
In an opinion piece for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Bryce Corbett stresses the urgent need for media literacy education to combat misinformation. Drawing from childhood safety campaigns, Corbett argues for a national effort to teach kids critical thinking skills before they dive into social media. Highlighting parental concerns and the success of the Newshounds program, he calls for Australia to follow countries like Finland in integrating media literacy into the primary school curriculum to protect the future of democracy.
Read the article here (paywall protected)
Download the article as a PDF here.
Should media literacy join reading and writing on the school syllabus?
Bryce chars with Radio National's 'Life Matters' program, along with along with Tanya Notley, on our favourite topic: the need for mandatory media literacy education in our schools. Have a listen via the link below.
We teach our kids road safety rules before sending them to the corner shop for milk. We make sure they've had swimming lessons before letting them loose at the beach. Why are we so complacent when it comes to preparing them for the digital world?
Reading, writing and … disinformation: should schoolchildren be taught media literacy like maths?
“I don’t think it is overblown to say that we are sleepwalking our way into a dystopian future."
So reads one of my quotes in this excellent Guardian Australia article on the urgency of teaching our kids to be media literate.
There's a lot of talk around at the moment about social media and age-verification and whether we have the technology to achieve it. But what's been missing in the conversation - until this article - is the vital role that education at an early age has to play in teaching our kids how to recognise misinformation when they come across it online.
And with more than 2,600 teachers around the country having signed up already to Squiz Kids' free media literacy program, Newshounds - it's safe to say we're not alone in this belief.
Read the article on The Guardian website.
Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers jumps into the Squiz Kids Q+A hot seat just prior to the 2024 Federal Budget. Hear how he answers Felix's question about how he feels about being Vice Captain to the Prime Minister on the ABC's News Breakfast.
Op-Ed by Bryce: Why media literacy has never been more important.
There is an urgent need for media literacy to combat the rapid spread of misinformation and disinformation on social media, as highlighted by recent disturbing events in Sydney and Wakeley.
Bryce advocates for mandatory media literacy education globally and as a Churchill Fellow, plans to study international approaches to bolster defenses against digital falsehoods, stressing the importance of action to preserve democracy.
Read and download the article here.
Bryce Corbett — formerly a journalist for 60 Minutes, the Australian Financial Review, and the Australian Woman’s Weekly — also runs a school-based initiative that he says has taught thousands of Australian kids how to think critically when they consume online media.
As Newshounds launches in New Zealand, Bryce chats to NZ Herald journalist, Alex Spence.
Read the article on the NZ Herald website.
or
Download the PDF version here.
Bryce is in Aotearoa New Zealand, launching Newshounds there - our free media literacy resource for primary school kids. Listen to an interview he did with Radio New Zealand's Jesse Mulligan on the importance of teaching Kiwi kids to become critical consumers of media.
View the transcript here.
Bryce chats Newshounds with Tonya Turner of QWeekend and VWeekend.
“Increasingly they were coming to the dinner table and regurgitating things they’d picked up online while watching YouTube or flicking through TikTok or Instagram. I was constantly saying to them, ‘you know you can’t believe everything you read or see online’.’
Discover Bryce's top tips for teaching kids to sort fact from fiction.
Click here for the PDF version
Bryce talks about Newshounds with Lisa Millar and Michael Rowland on ABC News Breakfast.
