PUBLIC EDUCATION VOICE

PUBLIC EDUCATION VOICE

Newsletter of the Australian Council of State School Organisations

No 6 July 2, 2003

PLEASE SHARE THIS PUBLICATION WITH THE PARENTS AND STAFF OF YOUR SCHOOL

CONTENTS

Presidential Viewpoint uuuuuu

A Thought to Share Read

Teacher Quote Read

Editorial Read

Head Lice Policies Challenged Read

NAQS reminder Read

Changing School Hours Read

Tax Time for Schools Read

Contact ACSSO Here

ACSSO Affiliates Information

“I learned most, not from those who taught me but from those who talked with me.” – St Augustine

A Thought To Share

My neighbor recently purchased a $400 sandbox for his young children. How can anyone spend $400 dollars on a sandbox, you might wonder. Simple. It's a state-of-the-art sandbox with a swing set and slide attached to it. It's high quality through and through. With all due respect to my neighbor (who loves his children and has the best of intentions when making major purchases for them, I am sure), children do not need a $400 sandbox. What they do need is the experience of going out to the backyard with their parents and building a sandbox. They need to hold boards together while we hammer, and do the hammering while we take a turn holding the boards together. They need to get a splinter and have it removed and bandaged. They need to help us sand the boards so splinters are kept to a minimum. They need to rub shoulders with us, sweat with us, smell us, see us, touch us, and hear us. They need the experience of building a sandbox much more than they need the sandbox. So the number one rule for parents is this: When investing in your children, invest in experiences, not in things.

Adapted courtesy Chick Moorman, Response-Able Parenting Newsletter No 17.

Chick Moorman is the author of "Parent Talk: How To Talk To Your Child In Language That Builds Self-Esteem and Encourages Responsibility," and "Spirit Whisperers: Teachers Who Nourish A Child's Spirit." (Personal Power Press Intl + 1 989 643 5059.) He publishes FREE E-newsletters for parents and educators. Contact him at ipp57@aol.com to get your free subscription to one or both newsletters.

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DARE TO LEAD

Has your school joined the coalition?

Presidential Viewpoint

Federal Schools Budget

As expected, the Federal Budget did little for public schooling. Whilst it delivered an increase of 5.5% to public schools, the non - government sector was treated to a generous 10% increase; or $284 per private student on average compared to $51 per government student. In its determination to subsidise the nation's wealthiest schools, this government takes no account of their other substantial sources of income, nor of the many public schools around the country left to languish. ACSSO trusts that at the July meeting of MCEETYA in Perth when considering the work of the Schools Resourcing Taskforce, all education ministers will make a commitment to start addressing these funding inequities.

Higher Education

Currently the focus of considerable contestation at the political level, and with a Senate Inquiry being established, it is difficult for this organisation to make any judgement on the merits of the package. What does seem clear is that PM Howard has an agenda to engineer long term social change. Instead of looking at the short term, usually based on an election cycle, we need to look ten or twenty years ahead. The government needs to be able to satisfy the Australian people that the 2003 changes are not the first step in its continuing privatisation agenda, already well advanced in primary and secondary education and indeed the health system. Will the ratio of government funded to fee paying places be the same in 20 years time, or will future generations of young Australians be forced into the full fee paying option and associated loan schemes, or be denied high cost higher education altogether?

Ministerial/DEST Briefing

ACSSO Executive attended a briefing at Parliament House Canberra on 16 June to hear about various Commonwealth initiatives, from Minister Nelson and senior Department of Education, Science and Training officers. We are indebted to the Minister for hosting this day, which was extremely useful for parents who are sometimes left out of high level information loops. Most of the state parent organisations listed at the end of this Newsletter had a representative in attendance who could provide further information about this day.

Research Officer Funding

Minister Nelson has announced that the government will increase ACSSO's funding to include an enhanced research capacity from next financial year. This is excellent news that will further assist our ability to keep parents and schools abreast of national educational trends and developments.

Judith Bundy, President

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"The importance of the role of the teacher as an agent of change, promoting understanding and tolerance, has never been more obvious today. It is likely to become even more critical in the twenty-first century"

Jacques Delors, Chairman UNESCO

Quote courtesy Nic Abbey ▲

EDITORIAL

Since the last edition of this newsletter, ACSSO has been busy on a number of fronts working for public education.

Every primary school, pre-school and child care centre in the country recently received an invitation from Minister Nelson to order copies of the pamphlet, "Literacy, Parents Make the World of Difference". The response has been staggering, with over half a million of the English Language version being ordered and heavy orders for the other ten language versions. The Minister has agreed to a re-print and the orders will be serviced as soon as possible. Any school which missed seeing this should contact the ACSSO Office on Freecall 1 800 183 066. It can also be downloaded from our website at http://www.acsso.org.au/.

Following our article on the "Dare to Lead" indigenous education initiative in the last newsletter, ACSSO has joined the Coalition as an institutional member. We urge all schools to consider joining. Check out the website at http://www.apapdc.edu.au/, or email Andrea Harms, the Dare to Lead Professional Officer at andrea@apapdc.edu.au

At the recent briefing at Parliament House, the Commonwealth Minister indicated that he was about to take steps to ensure greater consistency across Australia's school systems. He intends to discuss this shortly with state ministers at the Perth MCEETYA meeting. In a doorstop interview on 26 June he said:

"I would just like to announce that the Commonwealth Government and I as the Federal Minister for Education will be starting a process which we envisage will take six or seven years our target being 2010 to drive Australia’s eight different educational jurisdictions to one education system for Australia. While in the past there have been people who have had this kind of ambition we need to recognise as parents of children whom we love, that we want to see that we live in a world where we have one nationally consistent education system in Australia which prepares them to be world citizens".

For a complete transcript of this interview visit http://www.dest.gov.au/ministers/nelson/jun_03/transcript_260603.htm

On June 6 at the Liberal Women's Conference, PM Howard also weighed in to the education debate with a call to change school hours so that they fitted in more realistically with working mothers. Apparently this is an issue the PM re-visits from time to time, the last being in January 2000. Then ACSSO President, Ian Morgan, dismissed the suggestion as not being serious. This time, it seems to work directly against the various initiatives designed to improve the status of teachers. Nor is there any indication of it being properly thought through in terms of funding implications. Ian Morgan's response in 2000 remains relevant, when he said:

"A serious national initiative for extended school hours, which offered supervised child care and home-work and support for students at risk, and which was appropriately resourced and staffed, would be of benefit to many parents and students. It is a proposition worth talking about"

ACSSO is happy to talk with the PM in relation to a proposal along these lines. In the meantime we have included an article from our Tasmanian affiliate which has recent experience with an attempt in Tasmania to alter school hours.

Also is this edition we report on an article from the British Medical Journal which challenges conventional wisdom about head lice. ACSSO does not recommend any change to existing policies and practice, but we do consider that the latest research should be considered when policies are updated.

Rob McConchie

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British Medical Journal Challenges Head Lice Policies

What Does The Research Really Show?

Well known to parents and educators are the little parasites known as head lice, which infect the scalps of school age children. A typical mature louse is the size of a sesame seed and uses hooks on its six legs to tightly grasp a hair strand. It will lay 5 or 6 eggs a day. When the eggs hatch, the empty shells are called 'nits'. There are a range of effective chemical treatments, but in a recent article the British Medical Journal reports that there are also a number of misconceptions about head lice, including:

a. wet combing with conditioner is a doubtful treatment method

b. there is no evidence to support the cleaning of sheets and clothing, or treating earphones, baseball helmets and furniture with insecticide sprays

c. infection is spread only through relatively prolonged head to head contact

d. lice on chairs, pillows and hats are dead, sick or elderly or cast skins, and cannot infect a person

e. school based no nits policies do not make sense - less than 20% of children with nits go on to develop an infestation

f. Nits are not a sign of active infestation and treatment should only start if live lice are found

g. cutting hair or tying it back may make the infestation worse

Read the entire report ......

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National Awards for Quality Schooling

One million dollars in prize money will reward Australian schools, teachers and school leaders for outstanding contributions to schooling!

Applications close July 31

For last minute help contact the NAQS Project Coordinator

Freecall 1800 131323 NAQS@austcolled.com.au

http://www.nqsf.edu.au/

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CHANGING SCHOOL HOURS

The Tasmanian Experience

Two years ago the Tasmanian Education Minister, Paula Wriedt, established a Working Group to set Guidelines allowing schools to alter their student attendance hours for the purpose of ongoing teacher professional development.

While schools have the freedom to decide if and how their hours are changed, subject to departmental guidelines, any changes must have final ministerial approval. Changes can vary from student free afternoons once per fortnight, 9-day fortnights where a whole day is student free and or other proposals where students are released from regular school hours for the purpose of facilitating teacher learning programs.

Because Tas Council had received a number of calls from concerned parents an On-Line poll was established through the website http://www.parentsandfriendstasmania.asn.au/. Parents were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with alteration to school hours and were asked to submit comments, especially if their school had changed attendance hours.

Responses to the poll overwhelmingly backed up anecdotal evidence that the debate on the pros and cons of changes to school hours has not just parents, but teachers concerned and confused. and is far from over.

Tas Council was especially interested in how the process of proposing, balloting and introducing changes has been conducted at different schools. The Guidelines state that in order for changes to occur, a school must undertake a survey of the entire school community. There must be a 75% response rate and of that 75% must vote yes to the proposed changes. The proposal then has to go to the minister for approval. Once the changes are made, there must be a further survey conducted every two years to ensure the school community is still happy with the arrangements.

Of the 143 people who responded most indicated they were not in favour of any changes, or if changes had occurred at their school they were unhappy with aspects of those changes.

Reasons given included:

Concerns over childcare and lack of supervision when students were not in class during the day;

The feeling that Professional Development for teachers should be carried out during school holidays;

A lack of faith in the process undertaken to gain parental approval for changes at various schools.

Responses were from a wide cross section of parents from around the state and with children in both primary and secondary schools. Names and E-mail addresses were given, but in order to protect respondents privacy will not be made public.

Yulia Onsman, Tas Council

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TAX TIME

ACSSO has been advised by the Taxation Office that if schools are having difficulty in meeting their BAS reporting requirements because of school holidays, they should ring 131142 to obtain an extension of time

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Contact ACSSO

The ACSSO Secretariat is located in offices at Hughes Primary School in Canberra. Our mailing address is:

ACSSO

PO Box 323

Curtin ACT 2615

Telephone (02) 6282 5150

Fax (02) 6285 1351

Email:

lmailto:Letters@acsso.org.au for contributions or comments on the content of this newsletter.

executive.officer@acsso.org.au on professional matters, and

admin@acsso.org.au for administrative matters.

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ACSSO Affiliates

ACT Council of P&C Associations

Contact ACT P&C *

Federation of P&C Associations of NSW

Contact NSW Fed *

NT Council of Government School Organisations

Contact NTCOGSO *

Queensland Council of P&C Associations

Contact QCPCA *

SA Association of School Parents' Clubs

Contact SAASPC *

SA Association of State School Organisations