Page 640 - Week 02 - Thursday, 20 March 2014
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MR GENTLEMAN: Minister, why is it important that schools encourage parents to be involved in their school community?
MS BURCH: The benefits of positive parental and carer engagement with school communities are well established, particularly in helping children to learn and in supporting school learning in the home. A growing body of research shows that building effective partnerships between parents, families and schools to support children’s learning leads to better learning outcomes. The whole school community benefits when parental engagement is an integral part of school planning and improvement processes.
All children need access to a quality education which welcomes parents and carers as true partners. Better engagement of parents in teaching in the home has also been shown in international literature to lead to positive school results, including higher grades and test scores, enrolment in higher level programs and advanced classes, higher successful completion of classes, lower dropout rates, higher graduation rates, and a greater likelihood of commencing post-secondary education.
Beyond educational achievement, parental engagement in learning is associated with various indicators of school development, such as more regular school attendance, better social skills, improved behaviour, better adaptation to school, increased social capital, and a greater sense of personal competence.
I refer to a report on the ARACY website, and I will read from the executive summary:
Considered broadly, parental engagement consists of partnerships between families, schools and communities …
A reference from a researcher, Muller, states:
Family-school and community—
(Time expired.)
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Ms Porter.
MS PORTER: Minister, what have education stakeholders said about this project?
MS BURCH: I thank Ms Porter for her interest in this. All stakeholders I have spoken to have welcomed this project and indeed are very excited about the opportunity that it will provide. Government and non-government school parent bodies in the ACT have provided strong support for this project. I quote the APFACTS president in this morning’s paper:
… it is fantastic to see the ACT’s Education Minister Joy Burch doing the heavy lifting on a national reform that will end up showing that parental engagement is the missing link in education.
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