Parents and community members play an important role in their children's education and a strong partnership between parents and schools enriches the learning experience.
There are many both formal and informal opportunities for parents to find out about their children's progress at school:
Reports on student performance
All schools provide parents with a written report on their child's performance at least twice a year.
School annual reports
All schools publish an annual report on the school's website by the 30th June each year for the previous year. The information includes:
- distinctive curriculum offerings
- extracurricular activities
- characteristics of the student body
- total number of enrolments
- Year levels offered
- staff development priorities
- social climate of the school, including pastoral care programs
- parent, teacher and student satisfaction with the school
- strategies used for involving parents in their child's education
- staff composition and qualifications of teachers
- expenditure on professional development
- average staff attendance.
Newsletters
Many schools produce regular newsletters to inform parents, caregivers and the community about school activities, developments and initiatives.
Letters
Schools often communicate about specific issues by way of a personal letter, usually sent home with the student.
Personal appointments
Parents are encouraged to meet with any staff member at a mutually convenient time at their child's school to discuss relevant issues and concerns. Every school offers parent-teacher interviews each semester.
Parent-teacher nights
Schools often hold parent-teacher nights at the start of the year to discuss class or year programs with parents. There are also other opportunities, such as parent-teacher interviews to talk about issues or concerns, and to ask how children are performing and progressing at school.
My School
Is an Australian Government website profiling almost 10,000 schools throughout the country. It features statistical and contextual information, as well as NAPLAN results that can be compared with those of statistically similar schools across Australia. It provides a snapshot of a school using nationally consistent indicators. Schools can be searched by location, sector or name.
For more information visit MySchool website.