Engage
The Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians and the National Framework for Values Education in Australian Schools both highlight the collective responsibility of effective schooling. They explicitly urge schools to develop collaborative partnerships within their communities to achieve the best education outcomes for our young people. Such collaboration is essential for the creation of values-centred schools. The strong personal, family and societal dimensions of values demand that schools must engage all elements of the community – the teaching and non-teaching staff, the students, the parents and carers – in a partnership to achieve a planned and systematic approach to values education. Engagement is the first step to this partnership, the underlying prerequisite for the entire process. Engagement in an explicit dialogue about the values, engagement in decision making, engagement in implementation and engagement in monitoring.