We know the announcement of the federal election is imminent.

As parents education matters. It affects our children's future. We all want children to have access to a quality education.

On top of this, parents have been more involved in our children's education over the past two years than ever before and we are still navigating Covid outbreaks, isolation and testing, while trying to support our kid's continuity of education.

All parents now have a far greater appreciation of what our kids learn at school and the work that teachers do. It will be interesting to see if and how this greater engagement in our children's education is reflected in proposed education policy and discussion in the 2022 election. 

The public and political debates about how to improve education are already gathering steam.

A Grattan Institute article last week focussed on funding all schools to the agreed level, and recognising and rewarding talented teachers.

While the Acting Federal Education Minister Stuart Robert has blamed “dud” public school teachers for dragging down academic results.

In the meantime, stay safe.

Jenni Rickard, former APC President
president@austparents.edu.au

The My School website has recently been updated for 2022 with new data, including the first NAPLAN results and attendance data in 2 years.

It also has a new focus on sharing information about the progress each school is making, rather than simply the raw results. The change is designed to make it clearer for parents to understand how their child's school is performing.

The Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), which runs NAPLAN, said parents could now compare the performance and expected progress of their child's school with other similar schools.

The “Student progress” information on My School includes tables showing the percentage of students at the school whose progress was better than expected, given the school’s average score 2 years ago and the level of community socio-educational advantage.

In 2022, more than 500 Australian schools showed well above the average progress of students with the same starting score and similar backgrounds for at least one domain - 30% of these schools were in regional or remote area.

ACARA chief executive David de Carvalho explained to the ABC, New NAPLAN data on My Schools website to spell the end of 'meaningless league tables', that the focus on progress enables fairer comparisons to be made.

"Too often, media organisations try to conduct crude 'league tables'...based on overall achievement without considering the schools' level of socio-educational advantage or the amount of progress the students have made in the previous two years. Such comparisons are meaningless."

According to a recent survey by ACARA, the most popular reason for parents using My School was 'to see how their child’s school is performing in literacy and numeracy'.

The Grattan Institute identified three things the Federal Government should do to boost student performance in an analysis last week.

It follows it's recent analysis of the 2021 NAPLAN results, which shows the learning gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students more than doubles between year 3 and year 9, using the educational achievement level of parents as a measure of disadvantage.

'In year 3, the reading ability of children whose parents did not finish school lags two years and four months behind that of children whose parents have a bachelor’s degree. By year 9, the learning gap grows to more than five years. That is, the gap grows as children spend longer in school.'

The three areas identified by the Grattan Institute's Jordana Hunter in the most recent analysis, are:

1. to ensure all government schools are on track to reach their full entitlement to needs-based funding based on the schooling resource standard
2. to build a national, high-quality teacher workforce
3. to support the creation of two new positions, instructional specialists and master teachers, paid about $40,000 and $80,000 more respectively than the current top pay levels for classroom teachers.

Are you struggling to know how to talk to your kids about what's going on in Ukraine? It is hard to know what to say about such an inexplicable tragedy as we watch it unfold through news coverage every day.

But there are three reasons we should be talking to our children about it, according to researchers writing in The Conversation recently - 'How to talk to children about the invasion of Ukraine, and why those conversations are important':

1. to help children process difficult emotions that may arise.
2. to combat misinformation.
3. to model and encourage compassionate views towards others.

The researchers share their advice on how to manage conversations with your child or adolescent.

'Start by asking your child what they have heard or what they might know about the conflict in Ukraine. Next, validate and normalize how they are feeling. If they say it’s distressing for them, you can say: “It can be scary to think about a war; most kids and adults feel scared too.” If your child does not know very much or does not seem to be very disconcerted about what is happening, you can keep the discussion brief.

'Regardless of whether they are distressed or not, you can share some factual and developmentally appropriate information. For example, you might look at a map of the world together and share where the conflict is occurring. You can share some basic information about what is happening and why, and where and how they can gather reliable information...'

CRT is offering to provide a gift of $2,000 to 25 chosen Parents and Friends Associations (or comparable primary school associations).

The CRT Primary Schools Program will assist the work of 'these important P&F volunteer organisations and recognise how they contribute to the success of the next generation as they grow and learn.'

The gifts of $2,000 will be made to 25 chosen Parents and Friends Associations and must support a rural or regional primary school in an area within the CRT store footprint.

The gift is intended for projects or activities that are above and beyond government funding and are deemed a requirement for the school.

For example, the gift could be used to contribute to:

• New or improved infrastructure
• Learning resources
• Sporting equipment
• Technological improvements or upgrades
• Extra-curricular activities
• Cultural enrichment activities
• Excursions.

A new report has revealed a lack of support disadvantage students who are also parents in higher education in Australia.

The report by the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education (NCSCHE) at Curtin University says that while student parents possess a range of valuable qualities that help them succeed in higher education, 'juggling caring responsibilities alongside study requirements places high demands on the time and energy of student parents, many of whom have additional employment commitments.

'The COVID-19 pandemic imposed added pressure on many student parents through disruptions to their own study arrangements, combined with remote learning and increased care requirements for their children.

'Financial constraints create an additional barrier to success, with groups at particular risk of disadvantage including young parents, single parents, and parents from low socio-economic backgrounds. Given these challenges, the traditional nature of higher education study may not adequately accommodate the specific circumstances of student parents.'

The report recommends the development of strategies to better support student parents to access and succeed in higher education.

'Improved processes and support mechanisms could encourage more parents through higher education as a pathway to building knowledge, improving employment prospects, and gaining independence.'

Are you interested in sharing your experience and insights as a parent participant?

There are a number of organisations currently looking for parents to be part of their panels or focus groups looking at online safety issues and issues around the introduction of a Unique Student Identifier (USI) for students in Australia.

Consultation on the USI seeks:

• To understand the value and benefits of the USI for children and families (e.g. social licence)
• Information and data sharing (particularly information provided to a trusted school being on-forwarded)
• Data use, security and storage
• Consent and notifications, opt out and the right to be forgotten

The organisations are especially interested in potential participants who are:

• interested in online child safety issues
• parents from culturally diverse communities
• parents who speak languages other than English
• parents of children with disability 
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parents
• from the different schooling sectors (government, independent and Catholic)
• younger parents
• disadvantaged parents
• concerned about child protection circumstances
• parents of home-schooled children
• LGBTIQ parents and parents of students who identify as LGBTIQ.

Contact us to find our more: president@austparents.edu.au

Come and join out special interest Facebook groups - designed to connect and inform parents and carers, who give their time and energy at their children's school and help build their school community.

COVID has underlined for all of us that connectivity matters, and there has been a whole lot of innovation going on in schools when it comes to parent events, fund raising and community building lately. So we decided to provide some dedicated independent platforms, where members from different schools can share ideas and problem solve.

To ensure these are 'safe spaces' they are 'members only', but we encourage you to send us a request to join if you are interested in connecting with other parents, carers and/or board members.

You can find our more and request to join by following these links:

We're very happy to invite you to become a friend of the Australian Parents Council. You can join us as an individual, a school or an organisation. You don't have to be part of a particular school sector and can come from anywhere in Australia. The single most important qualification for becoming a friend of the APC is that you are passionate about education.

As an organisation, we believe that active and empowered parents and carers can, and do, make a significant difference to children’s achievement.

We have a proud tradition of supporting and advocating for parents going back to 1962. We are not-for-profit, non-denominational and non-party political, funded by parents and supported by government. We are not controlled or appointed by a school sector, although we do work closely with government and education providers. We are fiercely independent, as we believe this enables us to provide an authentic parent voice. 

We provide a genuine parent perspective on education issues, and we are widely consulted.

We advocate at a national level for:

• school choice
• parent voice
• equity in access and funding
• quality education for all students.

Friends will go onto our mailing list to receive all our newsletters, and other publications like media releases and reports. We will also invite our friends to share their insights and feedback on a wide range of issues affecting school parents.