The new Student and Parent Experience Directorate, within New South Wales Department of Education, is focusing on helping increase parent and carer engagement in their child’s schooling.
The main purpose of the Student and Parent Experience Directorate is to design and deliver high quality experiences that put students’ and parents’ diverse needs at the centre of decision making.
Minister for Education and Early Learning, Sarah Mitchell said the directorate is developing a range of initiatives through consultation and research which shows a shared responsibility for learning is a key factor in maximising student success.
“We know parents are a key ingredient to school success. Students perform better at school when their parents are engaged in their education,” Ms Mitchell said.
Key priorities for the directorate include:
- Developing a student engagement framework.
- Establishing an independent, alternative dispute resolution body for complaints.
- Creating resources for schools to send regular SMS messages to parents, following a successful behavioural insights trial that increased parent engagement by 5 per cent.
- Partnering with the Department of Communities and Justice to support advocacy for families of students with a disability.
“The student engagement framework will draw upon best practice to support these processes and make them even better,” Ms Mitchell said.
The unit’s priorities will include creating an independent dispute resolution body for complaints, and working with the Department of Communities and Justice, which looks after young people with a disability, to improve support to vulnerable students and their families. It will also help schools set up an SMS system to message parents about what students are learning each week and how parents could help, after a successful trial that increased parent engagement by 5 per cent reported the Sydney Morning Herald.