38
CASE J
Raise-raising Achievement in Schools (E)
The project consists of training volunteer parents in basic classroom skills and in
special literacy and numeracy Programs, then rostering them into classrooms where
they work alongside teachers in block teaching of these core subjects.
Background
This Catholic primary school of 408 students in an old inner suburb of Perth serves an
area that is being rejuvenated by a steady influx of young professional and middle-
class families. The school has a highly stable population, 80% of which are considered
to identify themselves clearly as Catholic. Only about 7% of households qualify for a
health card.
The school is growing steadily as it progressively introduces a second stream of
students. This will take the enrolments from 400 to about 600.
Over at least the past decade, the school has developed a culture in which parents have
been actively encouraged to participate in the delivery of education in partnership with
the teachers. There was a positive intention to try to bring parents into the classroom
as part of this.
About four years previously, a teacher of a Year 1 class was approached by a number
of parents wanting to assist in the classroom. She ran a workshop for as many of
her parents as wanted to come, and from those who attended she drew volunteers to
assist her as required. This is essentially the model that is now being expanded across
the school in the specific curriculum areas of literacy and numeracy. The former Year 1
teacher is now an Assistant Principal.
At the request of the teaching staff, the P&F resolved to provide additional resources
in the specific areas of literacy and numeracy. When the new resources had been
purchased, the teaching staff gave demonstrations to the P&F to show them what had
been bought and how it would be used.
The school now wanted to take this one step further and provide workshops to show
parents how to use these resources at home. The objective was to have consistency
between the teaching techniques used at home and those used at the school in literacy
and numeracy.
The present Principal inherited this culture of parent partnerships and, according to
the teaching staff and to the parent leadership group, has been responsible for both
placing sensible boundaries around it and deepening it. His message to parents is,
"This is your school".
Engaging parents
This school has been engaging its parents for a decade or more. The culture of
openness to parents is well-established. The parents had been specifically invited by
the two key teachers in this project to come and talk about curriculum materials for use
in the classroom.
This well-educated parent community, accustomed to being part of the decision-
making in the school, responded enthusiastically and were then asked if they
would like to learn to use the materials themselves with a view to helping out in the
Summary :
38 CASE J Raise-raising Achievement in Schools (E) The project consists of training volunteer parents in basic classroom skills and in special literacy and numeracy Programs, then rostering them into classrooms where they work alongside teachers in block teaching of these core subjects. The present Principal inherited this culture of parent partnerships and, according to the teaching staff and to the parent leadership group, has been responsible for both placing sensible boundaries around it and deepening it.
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been,teaching,literacy,numeracy,classroom,now,use,had,staff,being,resources,teachers,culture