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Key Resources

• Guiding principles (31kb)
• Key elements and approaches that inform good practice (37kb)

Engage: Parents

• The National Framework for Values Education in Australian Schools identifies partnerships within the school community as a key element in the delivery of planned and systematic values education. See Guiding principles. Schools are urged to consult parents and carers about the values to be fostered in the school and the approaches to be adopted in values education. Schools could also encourage students, staff and parents to explore their own values and could involve parents in implementing and monitoring values education programs. See Key elements (B).
• Schools are a community of all staff (teaching and ancillary) students and parents. In a values-centred school the task of providing for the education of the whole child is a shared undertaking of the key people in a student's life. The aim is for schools and families to work as collaborative partners in the values education of the whole child, and to foster a positive coherence and consistency in the learning and application of values during their formative school years. Parents are clearly an integral part of the equation of developing a whole-school values culture.
• In the first instance the single most important factor in the development of the child's values and ethical framework are the parents and the family. It is also widely recognised that parents most often choose schools for their children that will most effectively reinforce the moral, ethical and values frameworks preferred and used in the home.
• Fostering a school–parent partnership across all aspects of a school culture creates an environment in which students get a clear and consistent message about the underpinning values of school and parents. This in turn leads to coherent expectations of behaviour, a shared language of values between school and home, and a promotion of reflective thinking about where and how values fit in the development of students as whole people.
• Engaging parents meaningfully as equal partners in a dialogue about the values within the school deepens the core relationships within the school. The experience of values-centred schools is that it is the quality of the relationships that have marked impacts on student wellbeing, student connectedness and ultimately student learning outcomes.