Bringing national education news to parents No Images? Click here FEBRUARY 2019 We all know literacy and numeracy are important skills – not just for school but for life. As your child develops and grows these skills, you can complement their learning while doing everyday things such as measuring ingredients to bake a cake, or debating a social issue on the news. The Learning potential website has a great list of everyday ideas to build on learning at home. You can also have a look at our learning progressions. Learning how to read, write, spell, add and subtract generally happens in a certain order. While our literacy and numeracy learning progressions resources are aimed at teachers, you can use them to see where your child might be up to in their development of a particular skill (like learning to write a full sentence). Our parents’ guide to the progressions resources page has videos showing how parents have used the progressions to understand and identify their child’s literacy and numeracy development, plus FAQs and infographics. Some of our learning progressions resources: LATEST NEWSStaying safe online Safer Internet Day, held earlier this month, and the National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence on 15 March, reflect the reality that, unfortunately, cyberbullying is a side effect of our mobile-centric world. If you’re concerned your child is experiencing cyberbullying, the Office of the e-Safety Commissioner’s iParent website has parent resources to help you find support for your child, plus tackles other issues like online gaming, social networking, sexting, etc. In the Australian Curriculum, online safety is covered in a range of areas. We recently published an article for teachers on how they can incorporate the teaching of online safety across a variety of subjects. It’s a good read to help start conversations with your child’s teacher.
Comparing curricula How does the curricula of British Columbia, Singapore, New Zealand and Finland compare with ours? You can read the studies and some key findings from the comparative studies, which we’ve conducted over the past year, in the Resources/publications drop-down menu. Helping children thrive Director of the Gonski Institute for Education and former NSW Education Minister, Professor Adrian Piccoli, recently released a new book for parents on helping children thrive at school. Prof. Piccoli covers issues like ‘What’s NAPLAN?’, ‘Why does it matter and what influence should/shouldn’t it have on choosing a school?’. He also talks about what to expect when your child starts school, staying informed about your child’s progress, understanding the role of homework and more. “The real value in [the Australian Curriculum website] for parents is the work samples… Work samples are actual examples of schoolwork done by real children in different years at different levels of achievement… Printing out work samples, looking at them yourself and showing them to your children is one of the best things you can do to help understand where your child should be at any stage of their school life… Comparing your child’s work to these real work samples is a great way of understanding how they’re going at school.”
Q&AQ: I purchased NAPLAN books for my children to complete over the school holidays. Does ACARA recommend them for preparing for NAPLAN?Excessive NAPLAN preparation isn’t useful and it can lead to unnecessary anxiety. Image: Getty images We don’t produce, nor do we recommend the use of, commercial NAPLAN products, such as booklets and practice tests. None of the commercial products currently on the market are endorsed by ACARA. NAPLAN results provide an indication of what your child can or can’t do in the reading, writing, language conventions (spelling, grammar and punctuation) and numeracy tests. The best way you can help your child prepare for NAPLAN is to reassure them that the tests are just one part of the school program and to treat NAPLAN days like any other school day. There’s a lot of helpful information on preparing for, and participating in, NAPLAN on our ‘Parent/carer support’ page.
WRITE FOR USDo you have tips for parents on engaging with children’s learning? Ideas on how your child’s education can be improved at the parent/teacher level? We’d love you to contribute to our newsletter and be published on our soon-to-be-relaunched ACARA blog. Email us at parentupdate@acara.edu.au. |