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PUBLIC EDUCATION VOICE     November 2008

ACSSO NATIONAL CONFERENCE BRINGS EDUCATION BACK TO THE COMMUNITY

The Australian Council of State School Organisations (ACSSO) is delighted with the outcomes of its Brisbane Conference held on October 20th and 21st.

The open Conference drew key players from most parts of the education sector, an ideal environment in which the key strategic questions about family school partnerships and the new national curriculum came under intensive focus.

Queensland Education Minister the Hon Rod Welford opened the Conference by recognizing the value of parents being engaged at a local, state and national level in the discussions about the direction of modern education. He noted the regular meetings and close liaison he enjoyed with ACSSO’s Queensland affiliate QCPCA .

The first session featured presentations and a panel facilitated by Deputy Chair of the National Curriculum Board, Tony Mackay and others who addressed the key issues surrounding a new national curriculum. All noted that curriculum means more than what is taught in the classroom or what is tested for assessment purposes. Schools were more than academic result-producing machines but were in fact communities that also helped socialize and assist the personal development of students.

Speakers in the first session: 

Tony Mackay, Jennifer Branch (ACSSO), Leonie Trimper (Australian Primary Principals Association), Andrew Blair (Australian Secondary Principals Association), Peter Seebacher (The Warren Centre, University of Sydney), Kathe Kirby (Asia Education Foundation), Chris McEvoy (BlueScope Water).

 The workshops followed the theme. Curricula are not set in isolation from the community, from industry, from parents. Learning continues between home and school.

Above all, the theme was preparing students for a changing world and extending the boundaries of schools in a way that is practical and properly resourced.

The day finished with an entertaining debate between students from Calamvale Community College and the Gap High School who debated the question “Right on the Money - Our education is well delivered and prepares us well for the future.”

Day two began with a panel session that examined values education in the curriculum and the role played by chaplains in schools. Again the theme was the need to integrate values education in school life. One of the key expectations that parents had about schools was that their child should be psychologically and physically safe.

The panel consisted of: Angelo Gavrielatos (Australian Education Union), Terry Aulich (ACSSO) Fiona Pitkin (Youth Care Western Australia).

In the second session, the emphasis was on the practical ways that a school could build a communications strategy to ensure that it not only connected with all its targets such as the parents and the community but was able to communicate internally.

Technology was seen as part of the solution such as in the use of mobile phones and other electronic methods such as email. Just as important though was the need to encourage parents to be involved in the life of the school. This was particularly important when it came to indigenous kids and others whose parents were sometimes more wary of connecting with their kids’ schools.

The speakers were: Brian Johnson (Fingerprint Communications) - planning your school’s communication strategy; Brenton Holmes and Denis Muller (Family School and Community Partnerships Bureau) - see below; Liana Gorman (Part-time Online) - helping parents find part-time jobs online; Sue Ferguson (Learning Federation) - helping parents to help their kids online; Michael Duffy (NTCOGSO) - dealing with societal policy and engaging indigenous families; Chris Althaus (Australian Mobile Telecommunications Assn) - using converging technologies to communicate; and Adrian Tatham (Alacrity Technologies) - using mobiles to contact school relief teachers, parents.

 

BUREAU  SHARES IT WORK WITH CONFERENCE DELEGATES

 

The ACSSO Conference provided a timely opportunity for the Family-School and Community Partnerships Bureau to promote its mission and strengthen links with ACSSO affiliates and with other key stakeholders in the education sector.

 

It was also an opportunity to present some of the Bureau’s findings from its research activity around partnerships.

 

Dr Denis Muller, who conducted the initial research into family-school partnerships on behalf of ACSSO and APC in 2005, has been revisiting some of the case study schools involved in the 2005 project.

 

What Our Research was Looking For

 

There are four broad areas of inquiry in the current research effort:

 

  1. How to engage parents in the education of their children
  2. How to sustain a partnership project
  3. Resourcing a partnership project
  4. Evaluating a partnership project

In his interim report, presented at the Conference, Denis highlighted the key features of the picture that has been emerging.

 

Click here to read more about the Bureau's conference presentation.

The Conference themes and findings were summed up by Andrew Blair and Jenny Branch (who, after three years was farewelled as the President of ACSSO but remains on the ACSSO Executive).

Jenny’s summing up also spoke volumes about her own dedication to ensuring that parents and teachers are partners and that our education system has to be constantly assessing how it could meet the needs of young people and then taking the courageous and thoughtful steps in getting there.

More about the Conference will be available soon on the ACSSO website.

NEXT YEAR: 12-13 October 2009

VENUE: Wrest Point, Hobart, Tasmania

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Neil Hawkes

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