The NSW Department of Education has recently released a new community engagement resource that we think is a valuable addition to the suite of NSW resources. To preview go to:
http://www.lowsesschools.nsw.edu.au/section/126,315-leading-learning/professional-learning.aspx
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Have we aligned 21st Century schooling goals with parent and community engagement?
While schools are striving to prepare our students for the 21st century, many are doing so without aligned parent and community engagement practices. What can we do to tackle this challenge?
A recent US Department of Education forum discussed this issue by looking at a range of related questions:
1. What does the future of family and community engagement look like?
2. How can federal, state, and local policies work together to create systemic family engagement?
3. How can student performance data be used to connect families and schools in a significant way?
4. What roles can families play in transforming low-performing schools?
Discussed at length were the policy levers that can be tapped to encourage and sustain meaningful partnerships with parents and communities to support student learning. These levers included: training and professional development for school staff; capacity building to help entities develop, implement, and evaluate initiatives; encouraging the blending of resources in creative ways; sharing best practices via learning communities; scaling effective practices; and using the federal government’s leadership role to develop a common family engagement framework and accountability system to ensure that state and local family engagement goals are being met.
See full blog post here:
http://www.ed.gov/blog/2010/11/national-policy-forum-for-family-school-and-community-engagement-event-recap/
A recent US Department of Education forum discussed this issue by looking at a range of related questions:
1. What does the future of family and community engagement look like?
2. How can federal, state, and local policies work together to create systemic family engagement?
3. How can student performance data be used to connect families and schools in a significant way?
4. What roles can families play in transforming low-performing schools?
Discussed at length were the policy levers that can be tapped to encourage and sustain meaningful partnerships with parents and communities to support student learning. These levers included: training and professional development for school staff; capacity building to help entities develop, implement, and evaluate initiatives; encouraging the blending of resources in creative ways; sharing best practices via learning communities; scaling effective practices; and using the federal government’s leadership role to develop a common family engagement framework and accountability system to ensure that state and local family engagement goals are being met.
See full blog post here:
http://www.ed.gov/blog/2010/11/national-policy-forum-for-family-school-and-community-engagement-event-recap/
Parent-School Engagement in NSW Project- a Chance for parents to be involved
This exciting study is being conducted by the Australian Catholic University on behalf of the Council of Catholic School Parents and the other peak parent associations in NSW. The study will seek views from parents and caregivers of children in primary and secondary schools across the range of public, independent and Catholic school sectors in NSW. We need your help in participating in focus groups. For details on how to participate read below:
Dear Parents and Caregivers
Over the coming months, parents and caregivers of primary and secondary school children in NSW will be invited to participate in focus group interviews for a research project entitled Parent-School Engagement in NSW. This study aims to learn more about the factors that influence parent-school engagement.
The study will seek views from parents and caregivers of children in primary and secondary schools across the range of public, independent and Catholic school sectors in NSW. This research is being conducted by Dr. Sue Saltmarsh, Associate Professor of Educational Studies at the Australian Catholic University. The study is sponsored by the NSW Parents’ Council, NSW & ACT Council of Catholic Schools Parents, and the NSW Federation of Parents’ and Citizens’ Associations, who have commissioned Dr. Saltmarsh to develop teacher professional development programs and pre-service teacher education materials that will be used to prepare educators for engaging effectively with parents, caregivers and families.
If you would like to know more about this research, or would like to consider participating in a focus group interview, please contact the project Research Officer, Dr. Jenny Barr, at jenny.barr@acu.edu.au for further details.
Sincerely,
Danielle Cronin
Sunday, October 24, 2010
“Securing success for each student in each setting”
On 10 September, the Council of Catholic School Parents hosted a Master Class in Parent Engagement in Low SES Communities for 100 educators and parent leaders from across NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania.
Professor Harris is Pro-Director (Leadership) at the Institute of Education, London and Director of London Centre for Leadership in Learning.
Professor Harris’ research has mostly focused on organisational change and development. She is internationally known for her work on school improvement, focusing particularly on improving schools in challenging circumstances. Her more recent work has focussed on parent engagement with schooling. She is a co-author of Do Parents Know they Matter?Raising Achievement Through Parental Engagement.
Professor Harris’ workshop looked at the relationship between disadvantage and underachievement of young people and challenged participants to work towards success for every child everywhere. Prof. Harris also offered an assessment of some of the solutions and argued that many have ultimately failed to hit the mark and have been inadequate, not because they or bad or faulty projects but because they are focusing on the wrong things. Finally she argued that we need a new story for disadvantaged schools one that focused on building community and social capital rather than the old story of top down intervention.
Professor Harris highlighted that while some of the reasons for performance lie within the control of the school, the most significant influences of the family context and peer group are not. Schools harnessing parental engagement strategies, she argued, is more important than ever.
Parental engagement in ‘supporting learning in the home’ is the single most important factor in student achievement.
Schools, she says need to ask how they:
- communicate to parents how much they matter
- are helping parents to be co-educators
- make it a genuine two-way relationship.
If parental engagement is to make a real difference to the achievement of pupils, Harris’ research has found that it must be a holistic (and embedded) engagement, rather than one which takes place around certain isolated issues.
Parent Engagement
Professor Harris stressed that parental presence at school DOES NOT EQUAL engagement. School-based involvement such as P&Fs, in canteen, on school boards etc has limited impact on students’ achievement and outcomes. What happens in the home has a much greater effect on achievement than these more traditional school-based activities.
The key difference between involvement and engagement is that engagement is intentionally linked to learning.
Engagement, as Harris sees it, can be defined as supporting student learning at home.
She believes schools must see it as part of their remit to assist parents in this endeavour. Greater parent engagement with learning she argues is needed more than ever before - especially if we are to close the gaps for more disadvantaged students and schools.
What are the key barriers to parental engagement?
Parents, Harris says, cite their own experience of school as one of the most significant barriers to greater parental engagement with school and their child’s learning. This is followed by practical issues (18%), their own perceived lack of skills (15%) and teacher attitudes towards them and greater engagement (13%).
Schools can use this sort of data (based on their own communities) to tailor their parent engagement strategies to best effect.Parents, Harris says, cite their own experience of school as one of the most significant barriers to greater parental engagement with school and their child’s learning. This is followed by practical issues (18%), their own perceived lack of skills (15%) and teacher attitudes towards them and greater engagement (13%).
Building Community - For Equity and Diversity
“For me equity and diversity can be realised if each child succeeds in each setting – some say this is unrealistic but the converse is unpalatable - some children in some settings? Whose children - yours or mine? I firmly believe in securing success for each child in each setting. There is no greater challenge but no higher moral purpose”. - Alma Harris
Professor Harris contends that issues of equity and diversity will only be addressed by building a strong infrastructure of localised and context-specific support between teachers, parents and other professional groups. Building strong communities with schools at the centre will ensure that all young people have the same opportunities and life chances, wherever they happen to live.
Schools are more likely to be effective if they draw their community into their work, for example by engaging parents in school life and engaging local employers and public agencies.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Australian Family School Partnership Framework
The Framework provides an agreed national approach to guide schools and families to build effective partnerships to support student learning. The Framework is premised on research which demonstrates that effective schools have high levels of parental and community involvement and that this involvement is strongly related to improved student learning, attendance and behaviour.
The Framework suggests a number of supporting structures necessary for strong and sustainable partnerships with parents:
It also identifies seven key dimensions of effective partnerships:
1. Recognising the role of families
2. Connecting home and school learning
3. Communicating effectively
4. Participating in a wide variety of ways
5. Consultative decision-making
6. Collaborating beyond the school
7. Building community and identity
The Framework suggests a number of supporting structures necessary for strong and sustainable partnerships with parents:
- Written policies and administrative support
- Accountability to the community to report on outcomes & drive improvement
- Support networks to share ideas
- Parent/Staff Action Teams for Partnership
It also identifies seven key dimensions of effective partnerships:
1. Recognising the role of families
2. Connecting home and school learning
3. Communicating effectively
4. Participating in a wide variety of ways
5. Consultative decision-making
6. Collaborating beyond the school
7. Building community and identity
Parents and Student Achievement
Leading educationalists such as Michael Fullan, Andy Hargreaves, Alma Harris and John Hattie
(among others) are frequent visitors to Australia presenting at conferences, lecturing and providing
professional learning for school administrators and classroom teachers. Each of these researchers
has an interest in the evidence supporting school improvement strategies and the effects on student achievement and other outcomes.
Much of the focus has been placed on what these researchers say about the importance of quality teaching and this, without a doubt, is critical. Less attention, however, has been given to what they say about out-of-school influences and/or strategies to support student achievement, for example the home environment.
The evidence is clear that quality teaching and leadership, while vitally important, are best seen as part of repertoire of important strategies to support student achievement. These researchers cite the urgent need for both the culture of schooling (including how parents are perceived) and parents’ perceptions of themselves in relation to their role in their children’s education to evolve and change.
Hargreaves and Shirley
Andy Hargreaves is an influential academic in the area of educational change. He is the Thomas More Brennan Chair at the Lynch School of Education, Boston College. Together with Dennis Shirley he has authored The Fourth Way: The Inspiring Future for Educational Change.
Hargreaves and Shirley describe the waves of educational reform over the period from World War II to the present. In looking to the future they have devised a set of principles and directions that constitute a new Fourth Way forward. The Fourth Way is characterised by what they term Inspiration, Innovation, Social Justice and Sustainability and driven by a renewed sense of teacher professionalism and active participatory democracy involving parents and the broader community in schooling.
While Hargreaves and Shirley emphasis that schools need to recognise the the role of parents and that often the “greater proportion of effects on student achievement comes from outside the school” (2009a, p30; 2009b, p79) they also argue that parents need to take more responsibility for their role in their children’s education. Governments and policy-makers too, they argue, need to challenge parents (not just schools) about their practices and responsibilities for their children’s learning and development.
They also argue that in the coming decade we will need to “learn and commit to the idea that the strongest and most effective schools are the schools that work with and affect the communities that affect them...This will signal the end to the misdirected assumption that all responsibility for improvement falls exclusively on the shoulders of teachers and their schools” (2009a, p30).
In the Fourth Way parents and the broader public are involved as “highly engaged partners” with schools (2009b, p107) and teachers’ autonomy from them is therefore reduced.
Some Key Messages:
John Hattie is Professor of Education and Director of the Visible Learning Labs, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Hattie’s most recent book Visible Learning provides a analysis of over 800 studies relating to student achievement. In order to determine the relative effectiveness of different influences (teaching methods, school reforms etc) on student achievement he has developed a ‘barometer of influence’ and each influence is given an ‘effect size’ rating. For example, the typical effects of teachers alone on student achievement fall within a range of 0.15 to 0.40 on a scale of -0.02 to 1.20. On this barometer 0.40 becomes the ‘hinge point’ at which all other influences are compared. He is particularly interested in those influences above or below the hinge-point, that is those influences that have greater or lesser impact than typical or normal teacher influences.
His argument is that around 95% of the things we do (or can do) to children have a positive affect on achievement but some things have more of an effect than others. With limited time and resources it is useful then to pay particular attention to those things that are likely to have the greatest effect - that is those influences with an effect size of above at least 0.40 on the barometer.
In relation to the types of influences on achievement he has grouped them into six key areas: the child; the home; the school; the curricula; the teacher; and the approaches to teaching. The two key influences from the home on student learning include:
- parental expectations and aspirations for their child
- parental knowledge of the language of schooling
The home can be a nurturing place for the achievement of children or it can have an undermining effect on achievement through low expectations and lack of encouragement. Hattie acknowledges that most parents begin with high aspirations but his own research has shown that these aspirations can decline as the child progresses through school (see Clinton, Hattie & Dixon: 2007) as the parent becomes more disconnected from the learning process as schools take over and language barriers are erected.
Schools, according to Hattie have “an important role in helping parents to learn the language of schooling so that parents can provide every possible assistance to their children in terms of developing the child’s learning and love of learning, and in creating the highest possible shared expectations for learning” (2009, p 33).
Socioeconomic Status (SES) - Parental Backgrounds
SES, in the context of education, often relates to the resources available in the home to support children. Resources such as parental income, parental education and parental occupation are the three main indicators of SES. The focus of policy is often on supporting children and families in low SES circumstances.
The effect of SES on an individual student’s outcomes is significant (0.57) but the combination of children’s SES at the school level is even more important (0.73). A key implication of this, according to Hattie, relates to how schools are funded to support greater equity and ameliorate some the negative effects of low SES. He suggests that supporting families to bridge the divide between home and school, to understand the culture and language of schooling and building parent capacity and self-learning can be important innovations to overcome the effects of poverty on children’s learning outcomes (2009, p 61-63).
Home Environment
The home environment refers to such things as the thoughts, feelings, attitudes and behaviours of parents towards to learning and school and the intellectual stimulation that they offer their children. Hattie’s research highlights that the home environment parents create has an important effect on children’s achievement at school ( 0.57). Some researchers have found that it has a greater effect on achievement than a family’s SES profile - that is low SES families’ attitudes, expectations and encouragement of their children can have a greater positive effect on their children than access to material resources alone. The things that seem to make the most difference to achievement are mothers’ involvement, variety and play materials in the home learning environment (2009, p 67).
Parental Involvement in Learning
The type of parental involvement in learning matters. There are negative or lower positive effects associated with some types of involvement such as surveillance approaches to parenting and homework, controlling and disciplining parenting styles, external rewards, negative control and restrictions for unsatisfactory achievement at school. The most positive types of involvement related to supportive parenting, having high aspirations for children and active participation in children’s learning (2009, p69-70)
Some Key Messages
Professor Alma Harris is Pro-Director (Leadership) and Professor of Educational Leadership London Centre for Leadership in Learning, Institute of Education, University of London.
Alma Harris is one of the authors of an influential research project commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills (2007) in England - Engaging Parents in Raising Achievement: Do Parents Know They Matter? [Harris, A., Goodal, J. (2007) Final Report DCSF RW004] and the more recent book Do Parents Know They Matter?: Raising Achievement Through Parental Engagement (2009) with Kirtsy Andrew-Power and Janet Goodall.
The initial research project focused on the relationship between parental engagement and raising achievement. A particular focus of the research was the issue of engaging ‘hard to reach’ parents. The data showed that there was a positive relationship between increased parental engagement, particularly in the case of ‘hard to reach parents’, and positive learning outcomes.
Some Key Messages
(among others) are frequent visitors to Australia presenting at conferences, lecturing and providing
professional learning for school administrators and classroom teachers. Each of these researchers
has an interest in the evidence supporting school improvement strategies and the effects on student achievement and other outcomes.
Much of the focus has been placed on what these researchers say about the importance of quality teaching and this, without a doubt, is critical. Less attention, however, has been given to what they say about out-of-school influences and/or strategies to support student achievement, for example the home environment.
The evidence is clear that quality teaching and leadership, while vitally important, are best seen as part of repertoire of important strategies to support student achievement. These researchers cite the urgent need for both the culture of schooling (including how parents are perceived) and parents’ perceptions of themselves in relation to their role in their children’s education to evolve and change.
Hargreaves and Shirley
Andy Hargreaves is an influential academic in the area of educational change. He is the Thomas More Brennan Chair at the Lynch School of Education, Boston College. Together with Dennis Shirley he has authored The Fourth Way: The Inspiring Future for Educational Change.
Hargreaves and Shirley describe the waves of educational reform over the period from World War II to the present. In looking to the future they have devised a set of principles and directions that constitute a new Fourth Way forward. The Fourth Way is characterised by what they term Inspiration, Innovation, Social Justice and Sustainability and driven by a renewed sense of teacher professionalism and active participatory democracy involving parents and the broader community in schooling.
While Hargreaves and Shirley emphasis that schools need to recognise the the role of parents and that often the “greater proportion of effects on student achievement comes from outside the school” (2009a, p30; 2009b, p79) they also argue that parents need to take more responsibility for their role in their children’s education. Governments and policy-makers too, they argue, need to challenge parents (not just schools) about their practices and responsibilities for their children’s learning and development.
They also argue that in the coming decade we will need to “learn and commit to the idea that the strongest and most effective schools are the schools that work with and affect the communities that affect them...This will signal the end to the misdirected assumption that all responsibility for improvement falls exclusively on the shoulders of teachers and their schools” (2009a, p30).
In the Fourth Way parents and the broader public are involved as “highly engaged partners” with schools (2009b, p107) and teachers’ autonomy from them is therefore reduced.
Some Key Messages:
- Schools do make an important difference to the outcomes of children - just not all the difference (2009b, p79).
- Parents must take greater responsibility and ‘step up to the plate’ to be more actively involved in their children’s learning and development. Many parents are already know this, yet others will need be be supported in this role.
- Policy must be holistic in the sense that it supports children in their families and communities as well as in their schools
- Schools must be become more open to and engaged with parents and communities.
- Teachers must learn to engage with and benefit from the active involvement of parents as a “core part of their professional calling and identity” (2009b, p78).
John Hattie is Professor of Education and Director of the Visible Learning Labs, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Hattie’s most recent book Visible Learning provides a analysis of over 800 studies relating to student achievement. In order to determine the relative effectiveness of different influences (teaching methods, school reforms etc) on student achievement he has developed a ‘barometer of influence’ and each influence is given an ‘effect size’ rating. For example, the typical effects of teachers alone on student achievement fall within a range of 0.15 to 0.40 on a scale of -0.02 to 1.20. On this barometer 0.40 becomes the ‘hinge point’ at which all other influences are compared. He is particularly interested in those influences above or below the hinge-point, that is those influences that have greater or lesser impact than typical or normal teacher influences.
His argument is that around 95% of the things we do (or can do) to children have a positive affect on achievement but some things have more of an effect than others. With limited time and resources it is useful then to pay particular attention to those things that are likely to have the greatest effect - that is those influences with an effect size of above at least 0.40 on the barometer.
In relation to the types of influences on achievement he has grouped them into six key areas: the child; the home; the school; the curricula; the teacher; and the approaches to teaching. The two key influences from the home on student learning include:
- parental expectations and aspirations for their child
- parental knowledge of the language of schooling
The home can be a nurturing place for the achievement of children or it can have an undermining effect on achievement through low expectations and lack of encouragement. Hattie acknowledges that most parents begin with high aspirations but his own research has shown that these aspirations can decline as the child progresses through school (see Clinton, Hattie & Dixon: 2007) as the parent becomes more disconnected from the learning process as schools take over and language barriers are erected.
Schools, according to Hattie have “an important role in helping parents to learn the language of schooling so that parents can provide every possible assistance to their children in terms of developing the child’s learning and love of learning, and in creating the highest possible shared expectations for learning” (2009, p 33).
Socioeconomic Status (SES) - Parental Backgrounds
SES, in the context of education, often relates to the resources available in the home to support children. Resources such as parental income, parental education and parental occupation are the three main indicators of SES. The focus of policy is often on supporting children and families in low SES circumstances.
The effect of SES on an individual student’s outcomes is significant (0.57) but the combination of children’s SES at the school level is even more important (0.73). A key implication of this, according to Hattie, relates to how schools are funded to support greater equity and ameliorate some the negative effects of low SES. He suggests that supporting families to bridge the divide between home and school, to understand the culture and language of schooling and building parent capacity and self-learning can be important innovations to overcome the effects of poverty on children’s learning outcomes (2009, p 61-63).
Home Environment
The home environment refers to such things as the thoughts, feelings, attitudes and behaviours of parents towards to learning and school and the intellectual stimulation that they offer their children. Hattie’s research highlights that the home environment parents create has an important effect on children’s achievement at school ( 0.57). Some researchers have found that it has a greater effect on achievement than a family’s SES profile - that is low SES families’ attitudes, expectations and encouragement of their children can have a greater positive effect on their children than access to material resources alone. The things that seem to make the most difference to achievement are mothers’ involvement, variety and play materials in the home learning environment (2009, p 67).
Parental Involvement in Learning
The type of parental involvement in learning matters. There are negative or lower positive effects associated with some types of involvement such as surveillance approaches to parenting and homework, controlling and disciplining parenting styles, external rewards, negative control and restrictions for unsatisfactory achievement at school. The most positive types of involvement related to supportive parenting, having high aspirations for children and active participation in children’s learning (2009, p69-70)
Some Key Messages
- Parents have major effects in terms of the encouragement and expectations that they transmit to their children (p70).
- Parents’ positive attitudes and beliefs about learning and their aspirations and hopes for their children matter immensely when it comes to fostering positive attitudes to learning in their children
- Many parents need support to learn the culture and language of learning and school. Children whose parents are alienated from school life are disadvantaged by this.
- Schools need to work in partnership with parents to develop shared high expectations of young people and a shared language of learning.
Professor Alma Harris is Pro-Director (Leadership) and Professor of Educational Leadership London Centre for Leadership in Learning, Institute of Education, University of London.
Alma Harris is one of the authors of an influential research project commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills (2007) in England - Engaging Parents in Raising Achievement: Do Parents Know They Matter? [Harris, A., Goodal, J. (2007) Final Report DCSF RW004] and the more recent book Do Parents Know They Matter?: Raising Achievement Through Parental Engagement (2009) with Kirtsy Andrew-Power and Janet Goodall.
The initial research project focused on the relationship between parental engagement and raising achievement. A particular focus of the research was the issue of engaging ‘hard to reach’ parents. The data showed that there was a positive relationship between increased parental engagement, particularly in the case of ‘hard to reach parents’, and positive learning outcomes.
Some Key Messages
- Many parents continue to be unaware of the importance they play in their child’s education and have a limited understanding of their role in their children’s learning.
- Parents are a “crucial and vital component in reversing the pervasive influence of SES on achievement” (2009)
- Schools that succeed in engaging diverse families share three key practices:
- focus on building trusting collaborative relationships and teachers, families and communities
- recognize, respect and address families’ needs as well as class and cultural difference
- embrace a philosophy of partnership where power and responsibility are shared.
- School communication with parents should focus on student successes (not just problems and behaviour issues) and ways families can help their children become more effective learners.
Partners4Learning Launches 30 August 2010
Partners4Learning (P4L) is a new web portal through which teachers, school administrators and parents can access research, case studies, advice, a bank of practical resources and professional development to support enhanced parent, family and community partnerships within and between Catholic school communities In NSW/ACT.
Go to: www.partners4learning.edu.au
Go to: www.partners4learning.edu.au
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