Manning Gardens Public School
Key features
Developing home, school and community partnerships: involvement of parents and community in school planning.
School context
Manning Gardens Public School is a Priority School with 255 students and is supported by Priority Schools Funding Program (PSFP) and Priority Action Schools (PAS) program funding. The school site includes a preschool, early intervention, 4 classes in a support unit and 8 mainstream classes.
Planning
In April 2004, as part of the Priority Schools Programs (PSP) initiatives the PSP consultant and PSP partnership officer conducted a series of workshops with parents/community and all staff. The workshops were designed around the PSP Developing home, school and community partnerships(HSCP) working paper. These workshops identified a number of strategies aimed at improving HSCP. The Community Liaison Officer (CLO) was employed to look at ways of implementing these strategies.
In November 2005, a follow up parent and community workshop was conducted by the PSP partnership officer and the CLO. This workshop looked at the strategies that had been successful, those that needed to be continued and those that may need to be addressed on a longer term. This workshop also evaluated the success of the strategies that had been implemented and prioritised strategies for 2006. The matrix was revisited and the results are shown on the following graph.
Objectives
To improve home, school and community partnerships and to give parents more
input into school planning.
Targets
To see growth through all seven strands of the HSCP matrix of at least 1 level.
Strategies
A number of strategies were identified by both the parent and community meeting and the staff meeting. A combined meeting further refined these strategies to create a shared set of strategies for each strand. Strategies identified included: revamp of Newsletter in design and distribution, introduction of music/art tutors, notice board updates, 3 way interviews, SRC/student participation, consistency of homework across all classes, provision of childcare for special events, such as end of year presentation.
Resources used
In 2004, the PSP consultant, PSP partnership officer and the school CLO were involved. In 2005 the PSP partnership officer and the school CLO were involved. Other resources included the PSP HSCP Working Paper, PSP Operational Guidelines and Support Document.
Quantitative outcomes
Growth through the levels of the matrix as shown below
Qualitative outcomes
Parent and community involvement within the school is showing an improvement in numbers, as indicated by the number of people using the visitor register at the school. More parents are feeling they have ownership over some of the activities taking place within the school.
Future directions
As part of the ongoing priority being given to HSCP, the school will continue to employ a CLO to enhance HSCP and to implement the strategies identified by the parents and community and staff. The PSP partnership officer will also continue to play a role in coordinating workshops by consultants within the school.
Implications
The workshop originally developed by the PSP consultant and the PSP partnership officer was provided as a CD-ROM and printed document to all PSP consultants and partnership officers on the North Coast to be used as a regional resource. It has also been provided to a number of other consultants and partnership officers across the state on request. One of the strategies identified was conducting a community audit and the process used at Manning Gardens Public School was presented as a paper at the 2005 partners 4l earning conference in Sydney. Since that time a number of schools have requested assistance and resources to allow them to follow the lead of Manning Gardens Public School. The workshops and the audit will be continually monitored and updated.
Further information
Lyn Schneider
PSP Partnership Officer, Forster Office, North Coast Region.
Gabby Barlow
Community Liaison Officer, Manning Gardens Public School
