Initiatives
1. SACSC
The phrase Schools As Core Social Centres was first used by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in its publication Schooling for tomorrow: what schools for the futures?
“The central organising point in our society at the neighbourhood level is the school... because school’ lovation patterns are pervasive and residence-based, and because socialbility is made easier through children’s connections, school could become the platform for a variety of neighbourhood issues."(OECD 2001)
Since that time, the CEOM has worked in partnership with VicHealth to explore how schools could be core centres in their communities, playing a central role in promoting education and health messages more broadly, building social capital and strengthening schools capacity to form effective partnerships for learning to enhance outcomes for young people.
The Schools As Core Social Centres (SACSC) initiative is built on a model that brings clusters of schools across the Archdiocese of Melbourne together to focus on how they can best engage parents and the broader community. It promotes a ‘whole school – whole community’ approach to wellbeing. Principles underpinning the SACSC approach provide schools with a basis from which to enhance relationships with the community, and recognise the roles of parents, volunteers, businesses and other professionals, and the part they are able to play in enhancing learning.
Working in clusters helps schools to broaden their resource base, and enhance their capacity to expand knowledge, and share ideas about effective partnership building strategies. A cluster of schools may for example, fund a professional speaker to focus on a topical issue, and invite not just the families but the broader community. They may focus on a project targeting a specific need, or share information, resources or facilities. Clusters meet regularly and are supported in their work by the CEOM.
2. Family School Partnerships
The CEOM’s work in developing Parents as Partners has been assisted by funding under the Smarter Schools National Partnerships Initiative.
What are the Smarter Schools National Partnerships?
The Smarter Schools National Partnerships (NP) are a set of agreements between the Commonwealth Government and all States and Territories which aim to improve the quality of Australian schooling and student outcomes.
The partnerships direct investment and resources to where they are most needed, to improve the quality of education and student performance in Victorian’s Catholic, independent and government schools.
The Smarter Schools National Partnerships will focus on three key areas:
- The Literacy and Numeracy NP will deliver sustained improvement in literacy and numeracy outcomes for all students, especially those who are falling behind.
- The Low Socio-economic Status School Communities NP aims to address the diverse educational needs of students in Low SES School communities and to support sustained improvement in their educational outcomes.
- The Teacher Quality NP will deliver system-wide reforms to attract, train and develop, and retain quality teachers and school leaders.
Key Platforms relating to the Family School Partnership initiative under the Low SES NP:
- VIP Initiative 10: Enable and enhance the capacity of families to be engaged in learning.
- VIP Initiative 11: Enable and strengthen school-community/business partnerships to maximise learning opportunities and outcomes and to extend schools.
Family School Partnerships
The aim of the FSP initiative is for participating schools to implement a strategic approach to family school partnerships whereby the role of families and community in enhancing student learning becomes core to school improvement.
The Family-School Partnership Model entails:
- the appointment of Family-School Partnership Convenors (FSPC) to work with a cluster of primary and secondary schools
- professional learning grants to schools (to help build capacity of school staff, parents and community members)
- brokerage grants to schools (to enable schools to fund additional services provided by community agencies), and
- additional literacy and numeracy funding for schools.
13 Family School Partnership Convenors (FSPCs) have been appointed to work in 13 clusters across the 35 participating CEOM schools. The FSPC’s work with low SES school clusters to:
- promote enhanced school/ parent relationships
- identify shared local needs and issues
- plan a range of collaborative responses to address the identified needs which reflect local school priorities aligned to the school improvement agenda; and
- support the development and brokering of partnership arrangements with business and not for profit sector across schools and the system to enhance engagement and learning.
The following key themes have emerged in the FSP initiative:
- The shift from family involvement in schooling (eg parents helping at school events), to family engagement in learning. This strategic theme has been strongly influenced by the work of Alma Harris (2009).
- Early learning and issues related to school readiness, including pre-school and play group activities that engage families in learning, both at school and home. In some schools this led to partnerships being developed with Local Government Authorities (LGAs), universities and community agencies.
- Broadening understandings of learning beyond the school, to include ‘learning at home’. This work is underpinned by the work of Joyce Epstein (2002). Towards the end of 2010, this theme extended to include ‘the language of schooling/learning’ as this has been identified as a possible barrier for families to engage in learning both at school and at home (inspired by the work of John Hattie, 2009).
- Cultural considerations associated with many of the participating school communities having a large number of refugee families, including a significant number of new arrivals. These school communities are focused on improving communication strategies, creating opportunities to strengthen connectedness and engaging families in schooling and their child’s learning. Much of this work was undertaken in partnership with community organisations such as the Centre for Multicultural Youth (CMY) and Foundation House.
- The FSP initiative involved schools exploring their wider communities and creating opportunities to either develop new, or strengthen existing school community partnerships.
3. Outward Facing Schools
Outward facing schools refers to the notion that schools are well placed to open their doors to the community in which they operate to enhance learning for young people, and to strengthen connectedness and belonging. The term recognises the particularly important role of parents in the education of their children, and supports the notion that the broader community further contributes to this.
The CEOM recognises Partnerships as one of the five key areas for action in 2011-2015 Directions for Catholic Education in the Archdiocese of Melbourne (CEOM 2011). The objectives set for schools include:
- increasing the active engagement of parents in their child’s learning
- developing Catholic schools as core community centres
- promoting and developing collaborative networks.
In June 2011, the CEOM hosted Australia’s inaugural ‘Outward Facing Schools’ conference “Look Out 2011”. Experts from England, and the United States outlined current thinking and challenges about this concept. Delegates participated in keynote sessions, workshops, conversations about how schools can re-form the way they work with families and community within the context of twenty-first century learning environments.
The CEOM worked in partnership with VicHealth, Melbourne University, Australian Catholic University and Catholic Care to develop a Charter for promoting outward facing school communities. This Charter was presented at the conference for delegates to discuss and contribute to. The Charter provides the context, concepts and principles of outward facing school communities and is a call to action.