Family Engagement

This week we held our first Community Conversation. 

A Community Conversation is an opportunity for families to meet with educators, and engage in dialogue about what is of importance to them. This enables us to gather voices and perspectives, and work towards bridging the gap between families and St John’s.

We leaned into our Horizon, drawing out the values that would underpin our conversation, such as ‘relationships’, and ‘dialogue’, then used the protocol ‘What’s Working Well (WWW)?’/ ‘Even Better If (EBI)’ to identify key themes, ideas and priorities. 

There was a wide representation of families across all Hubs; some new to the school and others with years of experience at St John’s. Each sharing their own story about their St John’s experience. It was a real privilege to hear the diversity of opinions, experiences and perspectives!

Ten parents RSVP’d to the Community Conversation, and 16 responded to the survey.

Below is a summary of the findings from the Family Engagement survey:

• Communication: Families that responded prefer face-to-face chats, SeeSaw, Newsletter and community portal as the most effective means of connecting them with the school, followed by social media and hub emails
• Newsletter: Families that responded said samples of children’s learning, resources to support wellbeing of children and snapshot of learning were the most useful information presented in the newsletter
• SeeSaw: There was equal preference for children and educators posting material about learning. Families that responded value receiving snapshots of learning along with a description of the learning goal and where to next via SeeSaw
• Social media: families that responded value seeing posts with snapshots of learning, events and experiences of faith on both platforms, Facebook and Instagram.
• The following are the top 5 preferred ways for families to engage with our school:
  • Videos of learning in action
  • Family events e.g. trivia nights
  • Learning walks
  • Community conversations
  • Learning demonstrations (live)

Below is a combined response from the survey and Community Conversation:

What’s working well at St John’s?

• School Assembly offers opportunities for connection for families
• Clear, prompt and timely communication and queries from the school
• Newsletter and social media are effective tools for engaging with the school
• Seesaw
  • Posts are well organised, fun and insightful
  • Provides a window into a child's learning/world, in real time
  • Supports families to connect with child as they share their learning
• Strong parent community, and strong commitment to the school and the children
• Access to farm outside of school hours 
• Small school; this offers opportunity for greater connection. School is reflective of the diversity of the local community
• Staff
  • Know and care about children, as individuals 
  • Treat children with kindness, care and compassion
  • Greet children by name each morning
  • Friendly and open disposition 
  • Readily available for impromptu chats
  • Demonstrated care during lockdowns i.e. video 
  • Value the wellbeing of every child
  • Nurturing towards children 
  • Committed to children’s growth
• Welcome picnic provided a great opportunity for connection and relationship building; brought the community together 
• Three-way conversations are impactful 
• Value the opportunity to provide feedback through Community Conversation and survey 
• Children are talking about their learning more frequently at home 
• St John’s sets children up for a positive high school experience in the way education is moving
• Children love discovery
• Opportunities for families to join in at excursions
• School has transformed from many years ago, for the better
• Great sense of love/passion for the school from community

Even better if:

• A parent advisory group / committee could be established
• Streamlining communication; greater understanding of purpose around each mode
• Feedback and engagement about child's progress and learning to be more regular; including knowing children’s learning goals for target teaching and ways this can be supported at home
• More regular updates on areas of children’s learning / targeted teaching as a means of increasing child’s engagement through dialogue at home, not just at reporting time 
• Reports to be more clear and include measurable information about child’s learning
• More opportunities for children’s learning to be shared with community 
• More outside of school hours / opportunities for connection for families / parent meet ups
• Opportunity to get to know new leaders
• Opportunity to build a shared vision for our community, and / or understanding of the strategic vision of learning format for the school, building improvements, activities etc.
• Transparency around decisions made regarding specialist programs 
• Greater transparency around status and use of the farm (feeling uncertain about its future). Incorporating farm into learning (i.e. as used to be with ‘engaging with place’)
• Building understanding around philosophy and theoretical underpinning of Discovery and Dispositional learning. 
• Supporting families to have conversations with children about their learning at home i.e. beyond ‘How was your day?’ ‘What did you do/learn at school today?’ so that conversations do not remain at surface / task level 
• Opportunities for families to be more involved in classroom e.g. supporting with projects
• Desire for the school to feel more inviting; a place for families to gather and mingle
• Address traffic congestion before and after school 
• Opportunities for authentic learning about Wurundjeri and First Nations’ people
• Desire for strong and vibrant relationship with the parish as well as greater parent involvement in parish community 
• Acknowledge and celebrate the diversity of family dynamics 

We acknowledge that this will be an ongoing conversation and will reflect upon this data as a school. It will greatly support us to make decisions and design future opportunities for family engagement.

Thank you immensely for the time you took to share your perspectives and raise your voice; whether in person or via survey.

Stay tuned for future Community Conversations,  as well as other opportunities to raise your voice!

If you have any ideas or queries about Family Engagement, please feel free to contact Dani!

Daniela De Luca

Family Engagement Leader

ddeluca@sjfootscray.catholic.edu.au