Page 655 - Week 02 - Thursday, 20 March 2014
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In our census of last year close on 70,00 students were enrolled across our schools from preschool to year 12 with that split being about 41,000 in the public education system and 14,000 across the independents and the Catholic education system.
I have visited many government and non-government schools alike, and I have made a commitment to visit all the schools through the ACT, again across all those sectors. It is a great privilege to meet the future leaders when we go into these schools and to see the enthusiasm of youth and the dedication of the teachers as they move through and try to do their best. I see great things from students such as those at Malkara primary who raised over $2,000 for the Boundless playground park. That is students stepping up and doing the right thing for the broader community. This week I am going to Trinity school for the opening of their new children’s services hub, and St Jude’s has a new early learning centre because of the support this government has provided them.
As I said before, I firmly believe—and I think Mr Gentleman touched on it yesterday —the divide between government and non-government schools is over. But I will go back to some of the commentary yesterday in the debate where we on this side tried to put forward our commitment to Gonski, and, unfortunately, there was some fence-raising again between those sectors, and that was disappointing.
Mrs Jones made comment today around the NAPLAN results. I agree with you; I think it is a most unfortunate and very blunt tool to have our 86 government, non-government and Catholic schools in a simple league table. The Canberra Times continues to do that. I have had discussions with the independent schools and the Catholic schools and have worked to try and have a more informative debate about the information that is held on My School. Parents go to that; it is a good source of information, but it does not ever replace the conversation between parents and the principals and leaders of the schools. That is absolutely fundamental.
Part of choice and being involved in your school is parental engagement, and I took a question from my colleagues today on the ARACY project. I am very proud and pleased to be spearheading that project. ARACY themselves are calling it an Australian first to help parents get more involved. I absolutely want to see more parents, sons and daughters, the families of our community, in genuine partnerships with their schools so they are central to the decision-making and absolutely reflect the schools as being the centre of their local communities.
As I have said earlier today, the ARACY project will be not only in government schools but in Catholic and independent schools alike. It will be delivered in two phases; we will start very shortly by just getting a sense of the definition and a common understanding. People talk about parental engagement, but as I have the conversations with various teachers and principals and parent organisations, it seems to mean different things to different people. Therefore, in a jurisdiction of our size that allows us to do so, I think it is important that we have a very clear understanding about what that is, to do some surveys across our schools to see what strategies work, and to bring that back and empower the parents and empower the teachers about what that engagement looks like.
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