As Semester 1 comes to an end, I am appreciative of the work the staff and students have put in, together with the support of parents and carers, to complete our learning intentions for the semester and participating in the many aspects of school life.

Student reports will be published online of Friday. Please take the time to review and reflect with your children how they have gone this year and what they can do to improve in Semester 2. Feel free to contact your children’s teachers for further feedback or clarification around your children’s progress.

This week AITSL (the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership) released a “Spotlight” report entitled Strengthening parent engagement to improve student outcomes. This report highlights the importance of parent involvement in children’s learning and the importance of good parent-school partnerships. Key points from the report are highlighted below, including how you can help your child learn.

Parent Engagement

When teachers and school leaders engage with parents to provide a positive, collaborative environment, this can help parents (and carers) engage with their children’s learning, and help teachers better understand the needs of their students. Parental engagement in learning means parents undertake an active, meaningful, and sustained sharing of their children’s education. Such engagement can provide additional months of academic progress over the course of a year. The impact on learning can be even greater for children with low prior achievement.

In addition to academic progress, parental engagement positively affects children’s classroom behaviour, school attendance, completion and socioemotional development.

Parental engagement involves partnerships between schools and parents, recognising shared responsibilities, and can be divided into two core domains:

• Family‑led learning 
• Family‑school partnerships 

Ideally, strong family-school partnerships will enable family-led learning that includes active, meaningful, and sustained actions and attitudes centred on learning.

What aspects of family engagement matter most for children's outcomes?

            Family-led learning ("at home" engagement)

• Have high expectations/aspirations for your children
• Shared reading (read together)
• Conduct parent/child conversations, especially around learning, social issues, family stories
• Provide homework support that provides an appropriate environment for learning
• Set rules that are consistent with school expectations, that encourage autonomous learning and foster positive parent-child interactions
• Provide a cognitively stimulating environment
• Support your children’s social and emotional wellbeing, peer relationships, teacher relationships
  
  Family-school partnership (“school-based” engagement) 

• Engage in two-way communication your about children’s wellbeing and progress
• Engage in two-way communication about what children are learning and specific information about what families can do to help
• Engage in the school community and promote positive attitudes to school
  
  Short term outcomes for the child of effective parent engagement 

• Belief in the importance of education
• Self-efficacy
• Academic competence/ confidence
• Motivation and engagement in learning
• Persistence
• Skills for learning
• Social and emotional wellbeing 
  
  Longer term outcomes for the child of effective parent engagement 

• Academic achievement
  - literacy
  - numeracy
• Mental health and wellbeing
• Mitigating the impacts of disadvantage on educational outcomes

From a school point of view, we aim to best tailor parent-school communications to encourage positive dialogue about learning, connect learning with home, and build partnerships with parents to enhance their educational roles and impact.

As I said earlier, please take the time to reflect with your children how they have progressed this semester; then set some goals for improvement, with your support and engagement in their learning, in Semester 2.

I wish all a restful and safe break.

God Bless