DEPUTY PRINCIPAL REPORT

Why Teacher Student Parent Partnerships Count

It is truly exciting times as The Riverina Anglican College moves to be a K-12 school. I cut my teeth working in a K-12 school, where I first learnt the joys of being exposed to young learners on a daily basis. I still remember doing bus duty as a Year 2 boy walked past singing ‘We are a Family’ by Sister Sledge, except he changed the words to ‘We are a family, Mr Heffer and Me’. It was pretty cute and something you will only see amongst the unfiltered, optimistically wondrous world view of a small person-and this unbridled joy at the end of the school day! 

No doubt prospective parents are already part of our newsletter audience, so increasingly my messages in this space will be directed at parents and students of all ages. In so many ways the messages are similar regardless of age:

• Learning is our core business
• Parents and caregivers are a vital part of the learning team
• Physical and mental wellbeing is closely aligned with academic wellbeing

My newsletters this term will focus on the range of ways in which parents can be a vital component in all three of these vital elements of college life. The Gonski Institute has developed a range of resources for parents around how they can play a vital role in encouraging learning. In a guide from their website called ‘Being your child’s first and forever teacher: How to be an effective partner in your child’s learning’, several key points bear repeating here:

What does the research tell us?

• Parents are a child’s first and most influential teachers. ‘Parental engagement’ means being positively involved and active in your child’s learning process. It is one of the simplest ways to help your child be successful.
• Parents are particularly well-placed to interact with their children. The reciprocal, spontaneous conversations, language-rich interactions, shared customs, routines and play experiences that are facilitated by many parents help to build a healthy and responsive brain and well-supported child.
• Parental engagement promotes shared responsibility for education and a partnership between families and schools. In recent research, 93 per cent of parents saw the role of a child’s education as a shared responsibility between them and teachers.
• Children’s outcomes across a whole range of areas are improved when parents are engaged in the learning journey. These include improved readiness for school, enhanced cognitive ability and improved academic achievement, prosocial behaviour, positive approaches to learning, greater engagement and participation in learning activities, improved student behaviour, self-regulation and confidence, increased motivation to learn, better attendance and retention in school and participation in higher education.
• For some parents, it is hard to know where to start if they have not experienced positive examples themselves or struggled at school. Research has shown that the benefits of parent engagement at home is a bigger predictor of a child’s success at school than family income.

Our next newsletter will provide some useful tools parents can apply to support their child’s learning. 

I love talking about learning. If you have any queries around learning and your child I am always happy to answer your queries. Anthony.heffer@trac.nsw.edu.au

Anthony Heffer | Deputy Principal - Teaching, Learning and Innovation