Dr.Denis Muller (Saulwick-Muller)
Family School Partnerships
Some teachers and principals say they are too busy to do family school partnerships but smart, focused and strategic use of family school partnership principles can actually lighten the work load and achieve better results.

Senator Nick Sherry - Paying for our Schools
This session looked at public-private partnerships and superannuation as sources of funding for future schools. A critical issue that must be addressed if our schools are to be appropriately funded. This session analysed the myths, misconceptions that can surround the voucher system and charter schools.

Bob Heath ( Principal Eastern Fleurieu School) - Homework Policies
How do we ensure that students are able to learn at home and in their communities through self-directed and family friendly activities. How do we avoid the same old homework treadmill? Bob challenged traditional views about homework and its worth.

Nick Abbey (Education Consultant) - Governance-The Power and the Glory
This session dealt with future schools and governance directions that will need to be addressed.

President Jenny Branch was delighted with the Conference, especially the turn-out of the key stakeholders from parents, government, education unions, principals and some academics. Her welcome address and her later comments did challenge that small but stubborn group in the education sector who believed that they, and they alone, held all the answers and didn’t need to consult with parents and parent organisations.
“When a self elected elite of experts try to run the whole show, they risk a backlash from parents and the community who want to be part of their children’s education. Their language is full of jargon, their concepts about learning can become eccentric and irrelevant and eventually, those so-called experts are sidelined,” she said.
On the other hand, Jenny Branch says, parent organisations have an obligation to be professional, open-minded, inclusive and rational. This will involve training in matters like school governance and understanding how government processes and the media works. It also involves learning to communicate better in a world where the internet, work hours and job requirements and electronic communications has made society more individualistic and segmented.
She said ACSSO and its affiliates were already pursuing that strategy to improve professionalism .
“Our emphasis will be on research, especially action research that uses our strong national networks and our capacity to speak in plain language direct to parents, kids and the community,”she said.
Increasingly ACSSO was being seen as an independent broker and think tank for ideas about education’s role. That role was to maintain an effective civil society, a fairer society and build a competitive Australian economy that draws on all the talent of all our young people.”
Jenny Branch had a clear message for slow learners in government and academia. “ACSSO is going to be a major player in the education sector so do not take us for granted,” she said.

ACSSO is acknowledged as one of Australia’s leading education think tanks. Independence and practicality drive what we do. That is why we have spent the last two years working on the emerging blue print of tomorrow’s schools. The 2006 National Conference was the next major step.
Representative-You bet!
The National Conference in October 2006 debated what should be the key components of that blue print. The input came from parent groups, teachers, principals, guidance officers, subject associations, education administrators, academics and other key stakeholders; the Conference was the perfect place to build a blue print that had vision and practicality. That is why a number of Ministers and heads of education departments have already asked for copies when the high level draft becomes available at the end of February 2007.

What Shape Will the Blue Print Take?
It will be a readable high level document that will have meaning to the community. We will try to avoid jargon and turgid prose so beloved of education experts. This is a blue print that is intended for everyone who has to make education relevant and involving for all students ( and their parents and teachers)

Hon. Terry Aulich
Executive Director

If Education Ministers are determined to make a difference and bring our schools into the 21st century, the National Conference Blueprint stand-out issues are:

• Training and professional development for teachers and parent representatives
• Family school partnerships and communication between school, parents and community
• Curriculum and teaching methods including effective use of new technologies, learning at home and in the community
• School design and funding
• Practising and learning values at school and at home
• School governance

ACSSO will regularly report on the key issues that are likely to appear in the Blueprint. This week’s issue is training and professional development for teachers and parent representatives. The précis is brief, but we hope focussed, so that you can come straight to the point. Give us your feedback.

The Conference and other forums run by ACSSO have clearly defined this as the key issue to be addressed. It is interesting that the need to better prepare teachers for the world in which they work is the stand-out requirement. However, if teachers are requiring and asking for better training and professional development, it is also obvious that parent organisation representatives are looking for the same opportunity to obtain training for the roles they are asked to play.

The key deficiencies identified so far include;

• A significant dearth of training opportunities at pre-service or continuing service about family school partnerships and how to make them work. Only one university has any significant course on this and teachers continue to feel uneasy about relationships with parents. Similarly, training of parents already on school councils is limited and the mentoring of a pool of parent representatives is restricted to one or two states which do it well.
• Teachers are often asked to teach outside their subject area of formal training and this and other factors such as changing curricula and the need to develop lesson material emphasizes catch-up training at the expense of planned proactive professional development.
• There are shortages of trained teachers in areas such as maths, science, technology and languages (especially Asian languages) and in terms of teaching tools, teachers feel that they are under-utilising the benefits of information technology due to inadequate pre-service or continuing service training; principals also require at least high level managerial advice and training about the potential of improving performances through smarter, more strategic use of technology.
• In an age of low unemployment and longer working hours, the role of volunteer organisations is undergoing significant changes yet their responsibilities have risen; in many cases, parent organisations use their networks and operations to bolster or sharpen the delivery of government services at a cheaper cost and often in a way that is more acceptable to target groups, due to trust issues, mode of discourse and family friendly processes. Training and mentoring is vital, not only for those that are already on boards or school councils but for those who should be forming a pool of supporting parent members. This is a training area that requires a national drive. Part of the training is about recruiting and involving other parents in their school, working effectively with school personnel and making schools genuine community assets.

ACSSO NOWS LEAVES IT OPEN FOR YOU TO RESPOND. YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS AND COMMENTS ARE VERY WELCOME

A number of speakers presented original research, much of it specially commissioned by ACSSO for the Conference. The Conference was opened by Victorian Education Minister the Hon Lynne Kosky with Senator Mitch Fifield representing the Australian Education Minister, Julie Bishop. Federal Opposition Leader Kim Beazley gave a key note address in which he released details of Labor’s new policy on rewarding teachers for mentoring and other exceptional professionalism.

Professor Terry Lovat ( Newcastle Uni) - Values and Student Achievement
Where there is mutual respect, all aspects of school and student performances improve. A simple but vital theme that can be lost in a world of measurement and evaluation.

Dr.Richard Denniss ( Greens Policy Advisor) - How Schools Communicate
Richard surprised us all with a survey of government school websites which were poor advertisements for public schooling. Are we still failing to communicate, even at that basic level? Are teachers and schools doing enough to communicate a welcoming and informative picture of their school.

Andrew Macintoch - Vouchers-Paying for It
This session analysed the myths, misconceptions that can surround the voucher system and charter schools.