Report On Ss and School Achievement PDF

Reporting on Student and School Achievement
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Professor Peter Cuttance & Shirley A Stokes The University of Sydney A Research Report prepared for the Commonwealth Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, January 2000
file:///G|/ipsahmatters/jun-dis2013/tsl3112/mine/Reporting%20on%20Student%20and%20School%20Achievement.htm[8/10/2013 10:16:50 PM]
Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs ISBN 0642239533 DETYA No. 6420DRED99A Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Commonwealth Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs. This project was supported by funding from the Commonwealth Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs under the Quality Outcomes Programme. Commonwealth of Australia, 2000 This work is Commonwealth copyright. It may be reproduced in whole or in part for study or training purposes, subject to the inclusion of an acknowledgement of the source and no commercial usage or sale. Reproduction for the purposes other than those indicated above requires the written permission of the Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and copyright should be addressed to the Director, Quality Outcomes and Drug Education Section, Department of Education, Science and Training, GPO Box 9880, Canberra City, ACT 2601. January 2000 On this page Executive Summary Section 1: National & International Context Section 2 : The Views of Australian Parents Section 3 : Best Practice Discussion and Concluding Comment Bibliography Appendices
Executive Summary
This research project provides further understanding of how schools and education systems can best meet the expectations of parents and the wider community for information about student and school achievement. In order to reach this understanding, the project reviewed the relevant national and international literature; surveyed the policies and practices of Australian education systems; and met with Australian parents to ascertain their experiences, views and expectations. Based on the findings of the research, statements of best practice were formulated. 1. A Review of the Literature 2. Policies and Practices of Australian Education Systems The Views of Australian Parents 3. Parent Views on Reporting about the Progress of their Children 4. Parents Views on Information Provided about School Programs 5. Parent Needs and Expectations for Information on School Achievement 6. Best Practice in Reporting on Student and School Achievement
1. A Review of the Literature

The information in this section was drawn from a study of previous research in Australia and overseas. Information about School Programs
International research provides evidence for the view that parental encouragement and support for learning activities at home, and parental involvement in schools and classrooms, have a positive impact on children's learning. To be active partners with schools, parents must have relevant information to enable them to support the learning of their children. The most common sources of information for parents are newsletters, parent evenings, conversations with teachers, and direct inquiries to schools. Overseas and Australian studies have found that schools are more effective at providing information about 'social events' and 'activities' within the school and less effective in informing parents about teaching and learning processes and the curriculum. Information on Children's Progress Reports on student progress provide parents with information they require in order to support the education of their children. Written reports and parent-teacher meetings are the most common means through which parents receive this information. Parents are very clear and consistent about what they want in student reports. They want to be: kept well informed about their children's progress; given information about achievement and progress in both academic and non-academic areas of learning; informed about both strengths and weaknesses of their children; and provided with pertinent and constructive advice about how they can support their children's learning. Parents reported that both descriptive reports and those based on marks or grades, such as 'A', 'B', or 'C', etc., are common. They find strengths and weaknesses in both approaches. Regardless of the form that assessment takes, parents indicated a need for objective benchmarks or standards against which they can make judgements about the progress of their children. There is emerging evidence that parents prefer their children to be involved in the assessment and reporting process through self-assessment and participation in parent-teacher meetings. Parents also want parent-teacher meetings to be more interactive and two-way, enabling them to share knowledge about their children with their teachers. Information on School Achievement The school achievement information reported most commonly to parents relates to student academic learning outcomes. In most countries such reporting focuses on the achievement of students in tests and examinations. There is considerably less focus on reporting on the affective and social development of students. School reviews and inspections provide another means of reporting about schools. These are based on the professional assessment of experienced educators and take a holistic view of the school. Reviews commonly examine and report on student academic achievement, development in non-academic areas, the quality of learning, school efficiency, and behaviour and discipline. In some countries school review reports are public documents. The research literature identifies a number of challenges in reporting about schools, including: capturing the complexity of schools and the multi-dimensional nature of student learning; ensuring the information in reports is objective and credible; ensuring reports are fair and take into account relevant differences between schools; presenting information on school achievement so that it is understandable to parents who may not have specialist educational knowledge; providing the information parents need to enable an informed choice of school; and ensuring that reports provide relevant information for parents to monitor quality and provide pressure for school improvement.
2. Policies and Practices of Australian Education Systems

The information in this section was compiled from information provided by government and non-government education systems across Australia. Curriculum Standards There is a pattern for state/ territory school systems to have publicly declared curriculum standards from the first to the eleventh year of schooling. The standards are in most cases derived from the nationally developed statements and profiles. In this report such approaches are referred to generically as criterion-based outcomes approaches. There is variation across systems in the extent to which criterion-based outcomes approaches have been implemented. Where information on curriculum and standards is available to parents, parents must either explicitly request the information or rely on schools to provide it through information sessions. Standardised testing and reporting programs also provide information about standards. Results of the tests are used at school and system level to assess changes in the level of student attainment over time. Reporting on Individual Student Outcomes Australian education systems report that the information provided formally to individual parents about the learning outcomes and progress of their children typically takes three forms: a written report, parent-teacher meetings, and, for some parents, reports on their children's performance in standardised tests. The main focus of systemic reporting policies is on academic outcomes. The academic achievement of students is most likely to be reported in terms of either their attainment of specified learning outcomes or as letter grades, such as 'A', 'B', 'C', etc. Reports of special needs students are usually in terms of progress in achieving the goals of the individual plan for the child. Systems generally acknowledge that non-academic outcomes, such as social skills and behaviour, may be the subject of comment in the written report, but gave no information to indicate that schools are provided with detailed advice about reporting on such outcomes. Most systems encourage schools to provide opportunities for teachers to discuss written reports with parents in a face-to-face meeting. These meetings are held at least once a year but are usually conducted more often. In most schools, both teachers and parents can discuss the progress of individual students at any time, at the instigation of either party. Reporting to parents on the outcomes of standardised tests is common across most State/ Territory systems, but less common for schools in the non-government sector. Such tests are mainly in literacy and numeracy in Years 3 and 5. The occurrence of similar tests at secondary school level or in other curriculum areas is less common, but state/ territory school systems are planning further development in this area. Information on individual student examination results at the end of Year 12 is reported directly to students. Students are generally provided with results in the individual subjects completed. Results are typically based on a combination of school-based and external assessment, with a moderation process to ensure compatibility across schools. Reporting on School Achievement Most school systems that report on the achievement of individual schools typically do so through an annual report and, in some systems, an external review process. Some systems leave reporting entirely to the discretion of schools and others require schools to report against prescribed standards and benchmarks. There is variation in the extent to which school annual reports are verified and audited. A small number of State/ Territory systems use independent auditors to verify the validity and accuracy of the information
published by schools. No system in the non-government sector indicated that annual school reports are verified by independent audit procedures. There is variation in the level of access parents have to reports on school achievement. There is significant variation among systems in how the learning outcomes of students at each school are reported to parents. In some cases the method of reporting is left to the discretion of individual schools and, in others, systems regulate how schools are to report this information. Few systems systematically report schoollevel profiles of achievement against externally established benchmarks or state/ territory achievement profiles. Schools in some instances selectively release information about their achievements either as part of their marketing strategy to promote the school or in a general form as part of annual reporting processes. A small number of States/Territories publish comparative information on the achievements of schools in Year 12 examinations. No system in Australia directly disseminates comprehensive reports on the profile of learning outcomes in schools to individual parents. Some systems have specific policies or regulations that prohibit the release of comparative information on the effectiveness and performance of schools in terms of student achievement. Reporting to Parents on School Programs Most schools determine their own approach to reporting the content and format of information provided to parents about the programs they offer. The most common publications are prospectuses, school handbooks, annual reports, newsletters, and course information. Schools also provide information through meetings such as open days and information nights. The purpose of informing parents is usually to market the school, to inform parents of successes, and to enable parents to know what is happening and what is expected of them and the students. Participation by Parents in the Development of Reporting Policies All education systems across Australia report that it is the practice at system and school level for parents to be consulted over the development, implementation and improvement of school level reporting policies. Not all systems have policies formally requiring, requesting or encouraging this participation. School Councils or Boards and other parent organisations are either consulted over school policies for reporting to parents or have responsibility for determining school policy in this area. When schools are reviewing their assessment and reporting policies they often also seek the views of the general parent body.
The Views of Australian Parents

The three sections that follow summarise the data collected from 364 interviews with 386 Australian parents and 16 group meetings involving a further 136 parents.
3. Parent Views on Reporting about the Progress of their Children

Parents place a higher priority on receiving information about their children's progress than any other type of information they receive from schools. The majority of parents express a degree of satisfaction with the information that they currently receive, although they also believe that the process could be made more effective. Sources of Information As in most overseas systems, Australian parents receive information on their children's progress through written reports (one to four times annually) from teachers, and through parent-teacher meetings. They also learn about their children's achievements through reports from external tests and examinations, work samples, tests that the students bring home from school and through homework and informal discussions with their children and
with teachers. The predominant focus of written reports to parents is academic achievement. Assessments are most often based on either a code or rating for achievement in each subject area. Frequently the report also includes a teacher comment on progress. Some schools translate reports into other languages for parents who do not speak English. Parents view the parent-teacher meeting as a complement to the written report. It enables them to clarify information in the written report and discuss how their children's learning might be improved and supported at home. Issues in Reporting on Student Progress Parents identified a number of concerns and improvements required in the reporting process: Parents consider there is a tendency, more common in primary schools, to avoid facing or telling hard truths. Parents understand how difficult it may be for teachers to convey 'bad' news, but nevertheless they indicate that they want a 'fair and honest' assessment, in plain language, of the progress of their children. There is a lack of objective standards that parents can use to determine their children's attainment and rate of progress. Many parents specifically asked for information that would enable them to compare their children's progress with other students or with agreed state/ territory-wide or national standards. Parents indicated they would like more interpretative and constructive reporting. Parents want something more substantial from reports than simple statements of achievement levels. They also want advice on what the report means in terms of the future learning goals for their child, and how parents can support their children's learning. Most systems that report test results to parents do not require schools to incorporate these results in their reports to parents. Parents expressed a degree of confusion when they receive test reports in one style and metric and school reports in another unrelated style using a different metric. Parents want more comprehensible reports when they are based on outcomes reporting. Some education systems have adopted criterion-based outcomes reporting approaches, but many parents are finding it difficult to understand the reports because of changes in assessment practices. Parents require more appropriate timing of reports. They indicated a clear preference for reports earlier each year when they are in a better position to support their children with any learning improvement. Parents appreciated reports during Term 1, where these were provided, and find that an end-of-year report is too late for any constructive use. There is a mistrust of computer-generated reports in the parent community. Parents indicate that they find computer reports to be impersonal and limited. Parents want reports that are tailored to their individual children. Parent-teacher meetings need to be more useful to parents. Parents are dissatisfied with meetings that are poorly organised and lack focus and purpose. They consider meetings of 5-10 minutes to be too limited to be useful and believe they are organised mainly for ceremonial purposes. The timing of most meetings does not encourage an interactive discussion. The detection and prompt reporting of learning and behavioural problems is of major concern to parents. Many parents are concerned that they had not been advised as early as they could have been of their children's learning problems. Parents would like an enhanced role for their children in the reporting process. Parents believe that their children are an integral part of the reporting process and seek to involve them in parent-teacher meetings as well as in other aspects of assessment and reporting.
4. Parents Views on Information Provided about School Programs

Parent interest and satisfaction in receiving information about whole school, grade-level or specific classroom programs are related directly to how relevant they are to their children's education. Approximately two thirds of parents are satisfied with the quality and amount of information they receive. The remainder are either dissatisfied or only partially satisfied. Parents of primary students are much more likely to be satisfied than are those of secondary students.
The most common ways in which parents receive information about school programs include information sessions; school newsletters; and homework, diaries and communication sheets. Information days and evenings are provided more regularly to parents of primary school students and students in the first year of secondary schooling. Parents particularly value small and focussed group meetings that are practical in orientation. School newsletters are almost universally appreciated. They are the usual and most common means by which parents find out what is happening at their schools. The frequency of newsletters varies to a great extent and parents expressed satisfaction with this means of communication when it was more frequent. Homework, student diaries and communication sheets are valued because they enable an ongoing and regular interaction between children's schoolwork and work at home. Other less common sources of information are school publications such as calendars, prospectuses and annual reports; school websites; informal discussions with teachers and other parents; and meetings of parent organisations. Parents who attend parent organisation meetings find them to be excellent sources of information. In some schools, meetings enable parents to contribute to school decision making. Schools provide parents with information about school policies and activities; school curriculum information; and information about teaching and learning practices. Parents identified the following issues about the information provided on school programs. Accessibility of information - few schools have a formal communication policy so that parents know exactly what they can expect to receive or how to get an answer to their question. Information may be provided in a piecemeal fashion or may not be readily available to parents on request. Accessibility is of particular concern to secondary school parents and parents who are less well educated. Parents' roles in the education of their children - parents in all schools want the opportunity to be consulted and to share in decision making about how they are informed and what they are informed about. They indicate that they may not always be able to contribute, but they want recognition of the fact that they have a role in school decision making and that they, not the school, are ultimately responsible for managing the education of their children. Need for more information on teaching and learning - parents want information that will assist their children at home, particularly if they are having difficulties with their learning. Information sessions are the main source of this information. Some sessions meet parent needs; others are said to be boring, repetitive and not specific enough to provide the information that parents find useful. The adequacy of information about subject choice - a prominent issue for secondary school parents. Parents often have difficulty in accessing sufficient information to enable them to adequately understand the implications of particular subject choices so as to provide appropriate guidance to their children.
5. Parent Needs and Expectations for Information on School Achievement

Parents make judgements about schools using their own criteria and utilising information from a range of both formal and informal sources. At present, most parents indicate that they rely almost entirely on informal sources as very little objective and reliable information is available in the public domain for either government or nongovernment schools. Parent judgements about the schools that their children currently attend are based chiefly on their own interactions with schools and comments from their children and other parents. The majority of parents indicate that they are able to access the information they need on school achievement, but a large minority would like more, particularly more objective, information about the achievements of schools. Parents use information about school achievement to: choose schools for their children; monitor the effectiveness of schools; and put pressure on schools to improve. The primary purpose that parents cite for wanting to know about school achievement is to assist them to select schools for their children. Parents actively choose from among schools, particularly at entry to primary schooling
and at the point of transition from primary to secondary school. Parents also use information on school achievement to monitor how well schools are meeting the needs of children and to seek reassurance that schools are doing a 'good job'. Parents also want more information on how effective schools are in achieving their goals for students and want to know how well schools are meeting expected standards. Parents express concern that the information they currently receive is not objective, that is it is made available for self-promotion purposes, or that it is inadequate in other ways. Parents are less likely to use school achievement information as a means for seeking to improve schools overall, though some parents are likely to seek improvement in relation to a specific issue. The issue about which parents are most likely to seek improvement is that of teacher quality. Sources of Information Parents rarely rely on one source alone. They collect information from various sources and assemble the pieces like a jigsaw until they have built up a picture of the school, or completed it to their satisfaction. Personal contact through their own experiences, as well as information from other parents and from their own children have greater value for parents when judging a school than does written information provided by the school. Parents view the written information provided by schools as a form of marketing or as being provided for public relations purposes and tend to view it with some caution. Parents value information based on personal experience because they consider it reliable. Although they recognise that their experiences may be very subjective, parents indicate that they rarely misjudge a school. Parents consider school success rates in standardised tests, external examinations and the profile of tertiary entrance scores, or equivalent, when assessing schools. They value this sort of information but rarely make judgements about schools on the basis of this information alone because: they have a much more complex idea of what a 'good' school is and of the school that is most appropriate for their child; and they are aware that schools all too frequently publicise only the results of high achievers and medal winners, which do not necessarily indicate how effective the school would be for their children. Parents consider that media reports of schools are unreliable and can be misleading, although they read and utilise media reports as potentially interesting 'pieces' of information to add to the picture they build up about schools. Parents rarely access official reports such as annual reports and school review reports published for schools, mainly because they do not know they exist or do not know how they could access them. Most official reports are written in a language that is inaccessible to parents. From the information that they currently receive or glean, parents construct a number of indicators to inform them about how well the school their children attend is achieving. These include: whether their children are happy, motivated and appear to be achieving; the academic achievements of students at the school; the demand for the school as indicated by steady or increasing school enrolment, leading them to believe that the school must be doing something right; the school's achievements in non-academic areas such as extra-curricula music, drama and sport as well as performance in competitions; and the destination of students when they finish schooling and the later success of students following their school years. The information that parents want to be able to access in choosing a school is varied. A range of school achievement information is required because parents have varied requirements and are rarely interested in a single aspect of performance. Parents believe that schools have a role in developing the whole child - which includes the academic, affective, social and physical development of children. Parents want school achievement information to be provided in a format and in sufficient detail for them to
assess how well children like their own are achieving at each school. In particular they want the information to tell them how children of average potential or with interests and abilities in a particular area are achieving in each school. In essence, they want a multi-faceted consumer guide to the schools that are of interest to them. 'League tables' based on a single indicator are of little interest to them as they are far too narrow in terms of the information they provide. Hence, they are also viewed as presenting a partial and unfair picture of the comparative performance of schools. Parents require access to information on a range of school policies as well as information about programs that are of particular relevance to their child or a focus or strength in each school they are considering. In making a choice between schools, parents seek to obtain the best fit between the child and a school. Parents try to match their child's personality, interests and career aspirations with the programs and culture of a school. The most suitable school for a particular child can be one that caters for a narrow range of students or one that is effective in catering for a broad range of students, depending on the needs of the child. Parents also want information about schools such as the nature of the climate and ethos of schools and the quality of teaching and learning.
6. Best Practice in Reporting on Student and School Achievement

This section provides statements of best practice in reporting to parents about the achievements and progress of their children and in providing other information about schools to parents that emanate from the findings of this research. The statements of best practice have been derived from what parents indicate they require and on examples cited by them of current school practices that they value. The practices cited embody the fruits of developments that have led to current best practice. These practices incorporate the insights and initiatives of all groups with responsibilities to ensure that educational provision is of the highest quality - teachers, administrators, parents, researchers, and other professionals in a number of disciplines.
1. Schools and parents develop an effective partnership to support the learning of students. 2. Schools ensure that the standard of achievement of students is reported to parents. 3. Reports to parents provide interpretative comments about the progress and achievements of their child. 4. Reports describe achievement in both academic and non-academic areas. 5. Reports are presented in a format and language that is readily understood by parents. 6. Schools ensure that the frequency and timing of reports maximises the role of parents in supporting student progress. 7. Schools support and encourage all parents to attend parent-teacher meetings. 8. Parents are provided with comprehensible reports on student achievement in standardised tests. 9. Students participate in reporting processes. 10. Schools have a planned strategy for informing parents about their programs. 11. Schools facilitate opportunities for parents to receive advice and discuss their child's progress and how they can support their child's education. 12. Communication strategies are tailored to meet local school community circumstances and conditions.
13. Parents are encouraged to interact with school staff and other parents on an informal basis. 14. Parents participate in providing input to school decision making and feedback in reviewing the effectiveness of school policies and programs. 15. Schools report annually to parents on their success in achieving goals and performance targets. 16. Parents are provided with benchmarks against which to assess the achievement of schools on a range of outcomes. 17. Parents are provided with a range of accurate and reliable school performance and effectiveness information. 18. All schools in receipt of government funding report accurately to parents on their achievement in accordance with an agreed public reporting framework. 19. Schools and school systems promote a culture of accountability by providing parents with access to school achievement information.
[Return to Top]
Section 1: National & International Context

Chapter 1: A Review of the Literature Introduction Reporting about School Programs Reporting on Student Progress Reporting on School Achievement Conclusions and Discussion Chapter 2: Policies and Practices of Australian Education Systems Introduction Contextual Background Current Policies and Practices Conclusions and Discussion
Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to review the educational research findings on the needs and expectations of parents and the wider community for information on school programs, student progress and school performance. The review was undertaken in a context of increased opportunities for parents to make a choice as to which school their child will attend, increased devolution of authority to schools - placing pressure on schools to respond to community needs and expectations, and requirements for schools to be more transparently accountable, to authorities and to the community, for the quality of their educational services. This chapter considers the literature on: parent involvement in education, its forms and subsequent impact on student learning; information provided to parents about school programs in general, as well as the level of parent satisfaction with the depth and type of information received; parent needs and expectations for information on their children's progress, from formal and informal sources; and reporting to parents and the community at large about school performance and the issues that such reporting raises for policy and practice.
Reporting about School Programs
Rationale for Better Informed Parents The rationale for encouraging parents to be active partners in the education of their children is built on research findings that show parental encouragement and support for learning activities at home, and parental involvement in schools and classrooms, have a positive impact on children's learning (Coleman et al., 1966; McDill & Rigsby, 1973; Leichter, 1974; Lightfoot, 1978; Epstein & McPartland, 1979; Marjoribanks, 1979; Epstein, 1983, 1987; Mortimore et al., 1988; Bastiani, 1993; Munn, 1993; Yap & Enoki, 1994; Griffith, 1996). High levels of parental involvement have also been shown to be strongly related to increased student motivation (Mortimore et al., 1988; Munn, 1993). Parent involvement is a term used to describe the various processes of parental and community input to schooling. Fullan (1991) distinguished between parent involvement in instructional and non-instructional contexts. Instructional involvement relates to parent activities that provide assistance in the classroom or with learning activities at home, such as homework. Non-instructional involvement refers to participation in decision making, governance and community-school relations. Instructional involvement by parents has direct benefits on the learning outcomes for their children (McGaw, 1992). Epstein (1987) has disaggregated the processes involved in effective parent involvement into the following components: parenting practices and home conditions that support the learning of children in school; assistance with learning activities at home; monitoring student progress and student programs; involvement at the school - including assisting with and attending school activities; and contributing to decision making and advocacy through organisations such as parent associations, and school councils. An Australian study of school effectiveness sought views about the roles that parents have in effective schools (McGaw, 1992). Parents indicated the following roles, in order of importance: taking an active interest in the learning of their children; being actively involved in schools; communicating with schools; and participating in school decision making (McGaw, 1992). Research on the participation of parents in governance and decision making provides no evidence of a direct relationship between the degree of parent involvement and student learning outcomes. It does, however, provide evidence of a number of indirect benefits, such as increasing the resources for the school as well as individual benefits for the parents who participate through the enhancement of their planning and management skills (McGaw, 1992). A particular aspect of parent involvement that is explored in a number of recent studies is the concept of parents as complementary educators or partners, with teachers, in the learning process. Parents as partners, with a shared sense of purpose with teachers, provide the basis for improving student learning (Tomlinson, 1991; Wolfendale, 1993; Bastiani & Doyle, 1994; Macbeth, 1995; Crump, 1997; Martin et al., 1997). Drawing on the work of Pugh (1989) and Wolfendale (1989), Bastiani (1993) lists the central characteristics of effective parent-teacher partnerships in education as follows: sharing of power, responsibility and ownership, though with each party having different roles; a degree of mutuality, that begins with the process of listening to each other and that incorporates responsive dialogue and 'give and take' on both sides; shared aims and goals based on a common understanding of the educational needs of children; and commitment to joint action, in which parents, students and teachers work together. Broadfoot (1990) argues that, to be respected as partners, parents must have relevant information to enable them to support the learning of their children. She indicates that there "is a gap between what parents say they want to know and what they get" (Broadfoot, 1990: 98).
Sources of Information A study by Martin, Ranson & Tall (1997) analysed parental responses in relation to the quality of information schools provide and the extent to which schools and parents have a shared understanding of the information. The study examined the views of over 30,000 parents in Scotland. It found that the most common sources of information were newsletters, parent evenings, conversations with teachers, and direct inquiries by parents. Hughes et al., (1994) also concluded that newsletters, parent evenings and casual conversations were the major means by which schools communicated with parents - findings supported by McGaw (1992). Parent Satisfaction with the Information Received The Scottish study (Martin et al., 1997) found that the information provided to parents by schools was focused on 'social events' and 'activities within the school'. There was less focus on information about the core educational processes of teaching and learning, the curriculum offered, and homework strategies (Martin et al., 1997). As a result parents perceived schools to be unwilling to share information about the fundamental processes of teaching, learning and the curriculum (Martin et al., 1997), a finding supported by other research in the UK (Broadfoot, 1990; Hughes et al., 1994) and Australia (Crump, 1997). Hughes and his colleagues explored parental perceptions about what was happening in schools within the context of reforms taking place in England and Wales in the period 1988-1994. The research found that: most parents knew very little about what was happening in their child's school; parents wanted to know considerably more about curriculum and assessment, what their child was learning in the core subjects of English, Mathematics and Science, and what would happen at key stages; and much of the information communicated by schools was found to be of limited value to parents (Hughes et al., 1994). Hughes concluded that parents want information about core educational processes - what their children are doing and how they are getting on - and that this is not clearly communicated to parents in a routine and effective way. The view that parents need and expect information that assists them to understand what schools are doing is reinforced by research from a number of sources in Australia (McGaw, 1992), Canada (Anderson & Bachor, 1993), the UK (Glatter et al., 1997) and the US (Office of Educational Research and Improvement, 1992; Diffily, 1994). A research study conducted to investigate school-home connections in a group of New South Wales government primary schools revealed also that parents did not receive the information that they expected from schools (Crump, 1997). The research investigated the home-school relationship overall, rather than specific information needs of parents. Both teachers and parents indicated that home-school relationships were a high priority, but despite the best practices of some staff, "both active and silent parents feel excluded from the information flow" (Crump, 1997: 42). The findings from this research support the conclusion of Martin et al. (1997) that many schools are reticent in sharing information about the most significant aspects of learning regarded as fundamental by parents. Crump (1997) concluded that the reason parents are not more equal partners in the information flow is that school-to-home communication does not cover the information desired by parents. He found that the deeprooted and often non-negotiable authority and power exercised by schools was at the heart of the problem. Schools' predominant perspective of the role of parents is that they are expected to adhere to and reinforce school values, a point made also by Munn (1993) and Woodhead (1995). Munn went further in asserting that parents who challenge school values and demand more from schools are often typecast by schools as 'problems'. Analysis of the findings from Quality Assurance reviews in New South Wales schools (NSW Department of School Education, 1995) found that parents have little knowledge of the curriculum in most Key Learning Areas at either primary or secondary levels and would prefer to be better informed. Parents reported that the most effective way of gaining further information about school programs was by involving themselves as classroom helpers.
The NSW report also noted that parents want information about school policies on matters such as welfare, finance, management and administrative matters. The report concluded that:
[a] change in culture is needed in many schools to accommodate the needs of parents. This cultural change includes a shift in the relationships between schools, teachers and parents - wherein responsiveness to the parent community becomes more prominent. Schools need to continue to develop strategies for meeting the needs of parents for information in ways that they have not done previously. (NSW Department of School Education, 1995: 4)
A source of parent dissatisfaction identified by Martin and his colleagues in their Scottish study arose from the lack of willingness of schools to communicate information on subjects that might be open to interpretation of failure on the part of the school - in particular, matters relating to discipline, lateness, and absence. Parents expressed satisfaction with the information they received about aspects of schools such as cleanliness and safety, communications about parent evenings, social events and activities in schools, and in the promptness of schools' responses to their inquiries. Although satisfied with the promptness of responses to their inquiries, parents indicated that schools often did not provide the information or explanations they had sought (Martin et al., 1997). Differences between Primary and Secondary Schools Only one study (Martin et al., 1997) has analysed differences in satisfaction with the information received by parents from primary and secondary schools. It found that primary schools were perceived by parents to be better at providing information on teaching strategies and activities within the school, as well as general information about school activities. Parents with children in primary schools felt involved in developing a shared understanding with teachers about homework. Secondary school parents perceived themselves to be less knowledgeable than primary school parents about how they could help their children with learning at home. The study found, however, that secondary schools were more effective than primary schools at communicating information about the curriculum and matters of discipline to parents. Responding to Language and Cultural Differences Considerable numbers of parents do not speak English and require reporting and communication processes to be specifically adapted to their needs (McGaw, 1992). Inadequate understanding of the cultures represented in school communities and other social and cultural differences is a major impediment to successful school-home communication in some cases (Delpit, 1991; Tomlinson, 1993; Manning, 1995; Holden et al., 1996; Cummins, 1996, Cahill, 1996).
Reporting on Student Progress

Parents require reports on their children's progress to provide fundamental information that supports parents in making decisions about the education of their children (McGaw, 1992; Hughes et al., 1994; Martin et al., 1997). In particular, they want information that will assist them in supporting their child's learning at home (Broadfoot, 1990; Anderson & Bachor, 1993; Hughes et al., 1994; NSW Department of School Education, 1995; Australian Council of State School Organisations & Australian Parents Council, 1996) and will reassure them of the educational progress of their child (NSW Department of School Education, 1995; Australian Council of State School Organisations & Australian Parents Council, 1996). Variety in the Provision of Information on Student Progress Written reports and parent-teacher meetings are the most common means through which parents receive information on their children's progress. Broadfoot's (1990) research in New Zealand found that parents strongly support this aspect of reporting. Informal meetings and telephone calls from teachers, student diaries, examination results, samples of work annotated with teacher comments and corrections, and the examination of their child's workbooks and homework are other ways that Australian parents gain information about progress at school (McGaw, 1992; NSW Department of School Education, 1995; Deschamp, 1996). A study of parents in Western Australian government schools found that parents "value a variety of ways of reporting" (Deschamp, 1996: 10).
What Parents Want in Terms of Frequency, Timeliness and Format of Reporting Parents want regular and more frequent written reports than they currently receive (Broadfoot, 1990; NSW Department of School Education, 1995). They also want flexibility in arrangements for making formal and informal contact with teachers (Australian Council of State School Organisations & Australian Parents Council, 1996). Parents express a clear need to be advised immediately if their child's learning or behaviour becomes a concern. They do not want to wait to be advised through the next formal report, if they can take action at an earlier time (McGaw, 1992; NSW Department of School Education, 1995; Deschamp, 1996). The format, structure and clarity of written reports is a source of dissatisfaction for some parents, especially when there is a lack of consistency within a school or across different years as to how and when information is presented or reported. Parents indicate that they need help to interpret the information contained in reports (NSW Department of School Education, 1995). Broadfoot (1990) found that many reports are couched in language that has a high 'fog rating'. What Parents Want to Know from Reports Parents are very clear and consistent about what they want in terms of the substance of reports on their children's progress. They want to be: kept well informed about their child's progress (Martin et al., 1997); given information about a range of different aspects of achievement covering all curriculum areas as well as information on social development and behaviour (Broadfoot, 1990; Anderson & Bachor, 1993; NSW Department of School Education, 1995; Australian Council of State School Organisations & Australian Parents Council, 1996; Deschamp, 1996); informed about strengths and weaknesses (providing details of positive achievement only is not what either students or parents want, because it is not viewed by them as constructive) (Broadfoot, 1990; Anderson & Bachor, 1993; Deschamp, 1996); and provided with diagnostic assessments and constructive advice about how they can provide support for their children's learning (rarely available in current reports) (Broadfoot, 1990; Deschamp, 1996). Parent Views on Reporting Children's Progress Methods of assessing and reporting on student achievement are contentious matters among parents. Two distinct forms of reporting are common, narrative reporting, and reporting using grades and marks. Parents indicate the following areas of satisfaction and dissatisfaction with narrative reporting of student progress: They are satisfied with the detail of narrative reports. They believe they receive more information about their child from narrative reports than from other types of reporting (Diffily, 1994; Deschamp, 1996). They are dissatisfied with narrative reporting when it is uninformative, vague, and ambiguous (Anderson & Bachor, 1993). They view narrative reporting as informative when it not only describes what the student has achieved, but includes evaluative comments about the level of achievement and expected levels of achievement (Anderson & Bachor, 1993). Other aspects of reporting provide marks or grades to indicate the level of a student's achievement. Parents indicate that this form of reporting: is more reliable than narrative forms of reporting because it is less dependent on individual teacher skill (Anderson and Bachor, 1993); enables parents to understand the level of achievement of their child in a comparative sense (Anderson and Bachor, 1993); is not useful where parents are unsure what the grades refer to or do not mean the same thing in different contexts (Hughes et al., 1994); can be a motivating factor for students, especially older students (Anderson and Bachor, 1993); and
is not appropriate for students who are constantly failing and may be less useful in the early primary years (Anderson and Bachor, 1993; Hughes et al., 1994). In addition to formal assessments of achievements, parents want and value anecdotal comments that provide additional information. Anecdotal comments are used by parents to assess how well the teacher "really knows" the student (Anderson and Bachor, 1993). Parental Need for Standards The limitations of grades by themselves to provide parents with information about student progress was detailed in a study by the US Office of Educational Research and Improvement (1992). The research compared parents' satisfaction with the quality of their child's schooling with the child's subsequent mathematics achievement. It found that most parents believed that their child's school was effective in preparing them for high school and college because the children had been receiving high grades - 'A's and 'B's - even if they subsequently had low levels of achievement in mathematics in college entrance exams. The report found that the letter grades did not accurately inform parents about their child's achievement level because most students receive high grades. It concluded that parents require external standards against which to assess the performance of their child and their child's school. Broadfoot (1990) too found that reports need to make greater reference to external standards. The need for standards against which teachers and parents can assess student learning is supported by educational administrators.
...we must establish very specific and clear standards defining what we expect every child to know, to understand and be able to do at each level of schooling... (Boston, 1997: 3)
Research undertaken in NSW found that parents would like to access more information on their child's progress relative to the progress of students in other schools and assessments of their child's achievements comparative to their previous achievements (NSW Department of School Education, 1995). They also wanted more information about their child's ranking or level (Anderson and Bachor, 1993; Diffily, 1994). Parents express a desire for objective benchmarks or standards against which they can make judgements about their child's progress. They believe independent standards would provide relevant information in forming a judgement about how well their child is achieving (Anderson and Bachor, 1993). Whilst some parents believe that grades, such as 'A', 'B', 'C', etc., can meet this need, others prefer alternative reporting strategies such as those based on a common set of clearly defined descriptors of levels of achievement (Anderson and Bachor, 1993). In the Australian context, the 'statements of outcomes' now in common use were developed to meet multiple objectives, one of which was to provide parents with a common framework for interpreting reporting about student learning outcomes. A report of Australian parent organisations (Australian Council of State School Organisations & Australian Parents Council, 1996) identified both potential advantages and pitfalls in the use of such outcome statements. They have a potential to recognise student achievement and locate that on a learning continuum. However, they could also have the impact of breaking down the assessment of achievement into "a myriad of disconnected parts" in which the significance of the learning could be lost (Australian Council of State School Organisations & Australian Parents Council, 1996; McGaw, 1996). The Role of Students and Parents The participation of students in reporting to parents has emerged in the literature as a key topic. Broadfoot (1990) reports that her New Zealand study found parents want reporting to be based on collaboration with students, while Anderson and Bachor's (1993) study reported that parents and students appreciate the inclusion of students in parent-teacher meetings. Parents indicate that a more constructive process for improving learning can be achieved when the process of reporting is two-way and parents share knowledge about their child with the teacher (Broadfoot, 1990; McGaw, 1992; Australian Council of State School Organisations & Australian Parents Council, 1996). Parent-school dialogue to support student learning should cover parent participation in the development of school reporting processes (Broadfoot, 1990). Australian parent organisations consider an active parent role in
developing and implementing reporting policies to be a key principle in the effectiveness of reporting practices (Australian Council of State School Organisations & Australian Parents Council, 1996).
Reporting on School Achievement

The Extent and Nature of Reporting on School Achievement
Student achievement in individual schools
The achievement level of students at individual schools is the main type of school performance information reported to parents. In many countries such reporting focuses on the achievement of students on the basis of tests and examinations of learning outcomes in the cognitive domain with considerably less focus on the affective and social outcomes. In England the average achievement score in each school is provided to parents. Further, the Parents' Charter (DES, 1991; DFE, 1994) requires that comparative performance tables (' league tables') of examination and national curriculum test results be published for schools. In addition to the information on student performance, other information on the improvement of schools and the rank of schools is published for various categories of schools. League tables have proved to be controversial and have drawn considerable comment in the media, although a government survey has reported that they have been well-received by parents (DFE, 1994). Whilst examination results and test scores are the main performance measures reported in the UK, there are plans to report also on the basis of teacher-based national curriculum assessments in the future (Goldstein & Spiegelhalter, 1996). Public reporting of test results is a common occurrence in the United States (US) where more than twenty-eight States include school-level test scores in public reporting on school performance (Elmore et al., 1996). The Stanford Achievement Test, a normed multiple choice test, is commonly used across the US, but some systems have designed more complex assessment standards, such as those linked to state curricula. In Kentucky, schools are held accountable for specified performance standards in the areas of reading, writing, mathematics, science, social studies, arts and humanities, practical living and vocational studies. The standards are aligned with the state curriculum. Student achievement is assessed against these standards through examinations that require students to provide complex open-ended responses to questions and portfolio assessments of collections of student work. Similar assessment methods are used in Maryland to test reading, writing, language usage, mathematics, science and social studies. No student is assessed on all six parts of the examination system, as the purpose is to evaluate school rather than student performance. The assessments of student achievement are used to calculate a School Performance Index which is published for each school. The New Zealand government and a number of Australian education systems have implemented systemic testing programs for reporting to parents about the achievements of their children. A small number of Australian systems 1 also make available a profile of student achievement in individual schools. In addition to academic achievement data, governments publish a variety of other indicators of school performance. In England, published performance information also includes truancy and post-school destination data, while in Maryland the School Performance Index (SPI) encompasses attendance rates in middle schools and attendance/ retention rates in secondary schools. Attendance and graduation rates are published in school performance reports in Philadelphia. The need to provide comprehensive information to parents has been accepted, but not yet widely implemented, by educational administrators in Australia.
...we must provide regular, comprehensive and understandable reports to parents on the outcomes of schooling, using hard data on student and school performance; and we must report publicly... to governments and the community on the effectiveness of [schools]. (Boston, 1997: 3)
School review reports
Another form of reporting about schools has also been in place at various times since the inception of schooling
in many countries. This has been based on the professional assessments of one or more experienced educators who have been required to make a judgment about the quality of each school. Inspections, or school reviews, in various forms take a holistic view of the school and examine and report on school processes as well as student achievement data. School inspections in England and Scotland and school reviews in New Zealand assess the performance of schools against a range of performance indicators. These include standards of achievement, quality of learning, school efficiency, behaviour and discipline, and student development in non-academic areas (England); student attainment, the quality of teaching and learning, school development planning, and responsiveness to parents (Scotland); school administration, curriculum management, student support, the achievement of sub-groups, personnel management and financial management (New Zealand) (Cuttance, 1998a). In all three countries the reports from these processes are public documents available to parents and the wider community. Parents in England are encouraged to use the reports to compare the performance of schools in their local area (DFE, 1994). In Scotland all parents receive a summary of the published report and may obtain the full report on request (McGlynn and Stalker, 1995). The review system in Australia most like the overseas models just described was that operating in New South Wales government schools between 1992 and 1995 (Cuttance, 1995). These reviews of school quality analysed data on student achievement and gathered data on the quality of teaching by observing lessons, interviewing teachers, parents and students and consulting school documents. Parents were interviewed as part of each review and the reports were public documents. The Victorian State school system currently has a review system, which prescribes a broad range of information on which judgements about school performance and effectiveness are made. The information is collected by the school, which provides a report which documents and evaluates its achievements. The data and the selfassessment are subsequently reviewed by an external verifier who makes a professional judgement about the achievements of the school. The report, written by the external verifier, is available to parents (Department of Education, Victoria, 1997). School review systems are not well-established in the United States (Wilson, 1995). However, in an effort to balance the focus on the quality of teaching and learning and test outcomes, some States in the US are implementing new forms of inspection involving classroom observation, feedback and assessment of the quality of teaching practice (Elmore et al., 1996).
Prospectuses and annual reports
Each year every school in England is required to publish a prospectus that describes its achievements and the courses it provides. The prospectus must present information on the school's results in public examinations and National Curriculum tests and compare them with national and local results. Schools are also encouraged to explain the aims and values of the school, their approach to teaching, and arrangements for programs such as sex or careers education. Free copies of the prospectus are available to parents (DFE, 1994). Additionally, parents in England are provided with an annual report from the governing body. Legislation requires these reports to include specified information on student achievement, truancy, post-school destinations of students, and school budget (DFE, 1994). Many Australian schools issue prospectuses and annual reports to their parents and communities. No Australian system mandates that schools must issue a comprehensive prospectus of the type described above for England. Many Australian systems require schools to produce an annual report, although there is significant variation in the required content and the quality and accuracy of the information reported. Key Issues in Reporting about Schools
1. Capturing the complexity of schools
Research indicates that performance indicators of school performance, such as test results and retention/ attendance data needs to be interpreted carefully in making reliable judgements about the quality of learning
(Barber et al., 1994; Goldstein & Thomas, 1996; Goldstein & Spiegelhalter, 1996; Rowe, 1996). Simple summary information cannot describe the complexity of school performance (Nuttall et al., 1989; Goldstein & Spiegelhalter, 1996). Public reporting systems need to focus on the broad objectives of schooling and the multidimensional nature of school performance. (Barber et al., 1994; Rowe, 1996). Parents possess a clear and distinctive model of a 'good school', which is based on wide-ranging criteria. This model of a 'good school' includes a high level of teacher professionalism, a broad curriculum, a safe and secure environment, strong leadership, parental involvement, effective communication, well-maintained facilities and adequate resources (Martin et al., 1997). Research findings about the variation in student achievement indicate that about half of the variation is attributable to differences in the achievement-related capacities and dispositions of students. Of the remaining half, approximately four-fifths is attributable to differences due to the effectiveness of classrooms - teaching programs, etc. - within schools, and the remaining fifth to differences between schools (Cuttance, 1998b). The challenge in developing strategies for reporting on the achievements of schools is to describe the substantial variation that is attributable to educational processes within schools, in addition to the variation in achievements between schools. The core issue is how to capture both the multi-dimensional nature of achievement and the variation in the impact of individual schools in reports on school performance. School inspections and review models based on qualitative and quantitative data provide the most common mechanism for reporting that takes account of the complexity of schools. The English and Scottish inspection systems (Matthews and Smith, 1995; McGlynn and Stalker, 1995) assess both school processes and student outcomes in a number of areas. The professional judgements of school performance in such processes draw on information from a range of sources, usually including interviews, classroom observations, and data on student achievement. Reviews of Victorian schools consider student achievement data on both teacher-assessed curriculum outcomes and externally assessed tests. These data are reported against both 'like-school' and state/ territory-wide benchmarks. The data assessed goes beyond cognitive outcomes to include parent and staff assessments of aspects of school management and environment; student attendance, enrolment, and accident and injury information; teacher leave; and school professional development. State benchmarks have been established for non-cognitive as well as cognitive data (Department of Education, Victoria, 1997). US education systems generally utilise a narrower range of indicators than those described above for UK and Australian schools. Wilson (1995) notes that in America the indicators that are most trusted are those based on student achievement test results. Achievement testing is generally either standardised (normed) or criterionbased. The advantage of standardised testing is that results can be compared nationally and the testing process is relatively straightforward. A disadvantage in using standardised tests for assessing school performance is that they may not be designed to assess the particular curriculum which is taught in the schools concerned (Rowe, 1996). To overcome this problem, some US States, such as Maryland and Kentucky, have developed assessment and reporting systems based on the outcomes specified in local curricula. The most common non-cognitive indicators used in school reporting in the US include attendance, drop-out, and truancy rates and post-school destinations (Ramirez & McClanahan, 1992). The methodology for assessing school performance in terms of more substantive non-cognitive aspects of school performance such as affective and social development of students is not as well developed as that for cognitive development (Barber et al., 1994; Cuttance, 1998).
2. Ensuring the objectivity of reports
Secondary schools in England view the independence of inspectors as essential to the aim of public accountability (Matthews and Smith, 1995). School reviews in New Zealand are undertaken by staff of a separate government authority. Some Australian systems utilise external validation procedures to assure quality. In Victoria, the self-assessments produced triennially by government schools are validated by external verifiers. The validation of reports on school performance in other States/ Territories is undertaken by school system administrators, hence lacks the independence from management of the systems in place in Victoria, England
and New Zealand. Wilson (1995) reports that some question the validity of quality reviews by 'experienced practitioners', even if they are undertaken independent of school and system management and consider that assessments based on student outcome data are more valid.
The notion that an experienced practitioner could judge the quality of what actually happened in a school in a manner that would support a national accountability scheme was utterly foreign (to Americans). Observations of schools were considered anecdotal information (Wilson, 1995: 93).
School review models address this issue by themselves having a quality management and assurance system which includes detailed guidelines and criteria for making judgements (OFSTED, 1992; McGlynn and Stalker, 1995), training, and stakeholder evaluations of the review process. Indicators of school performance based on public examinations are generally viewed as reliable and objective, although the validity of the interpretation of such data is challenged by some constituencies (Rowe, 1996).
3. Ensuring fairness
The need for fairness in reporting school performance information has been the subject of substantial discussion in the literature. The publication of 'league tables' in the UK has been criticised for creating 'winners' and 'losers', and for not taking into account differences between schools (Rowe, 1996). Findings in Kentucky that baseline scores for schools were highly correlated with socio-economic status were interpreted as indicating the need for fairer ways to report school performance than publish raw data on student achievement levels (Elmore et al., 1996). Two approaches can be used to maximise fairness in the use of school performance information. The first is to explicitly take account of contextual information to adjust student test results for pre-existing social and educational differences among students (Cuttance, 1992; Education Review Office, 1998). One approach to assessing the contribution schools make to the achievement of students - value-added' - is to use statistically complex models to estimate the effect of individual schools. (Barber et al., 1994; Rowe, 1996; Goldstein & Spiegelhalter, 1996). The simpler approach is to publish school performance information in a way that supports valid comparisons with other schools serving similar populations of students (Barber et al., 1994; Rowe, 1996). Reporting the performance of individual schools against the performance of other schools serving similar populations is used in Victoria (Office of Review, 1997b; Department of Education, Victoria, 1997) and has recently been introduced in Queensland.
4. Distinguishing school effectiveness from school performance
Understanding the difference between school effectiveness and school performance is critical to assessing schools fairly.
School performance is defined as the average level of achievement of students in the school in the particular domain assessed, [eg. mathematics]... School effectiveness is defined as the relative level of performance of a school [for students of different backgrounds and levels of prior achievement] in a particular area of assessment (Cuttance, 1998: 6).
In Kentucky, where schools receive incentive rewards for their effectiveness in meeting school improvement targets, schools serving disadvantaged communities are as likely as those in more advantaged communities to be effective. It is important that both the performance and the effectiveness of schools be assessed and reported. Focussing on performance only fails to recognise and reward schools that have lower performance principally because their intake of students had lower levels of achievement prior to their entry to those schools. Conversely, focussing only on effectiveness runs the risk of institutionalising lower expectations for groups of students who have the lowest levels of achievement (Elmore et al., 1996). Concerns have been expressed that the publication of information about the performance and effectiveness of
schools will be misused because the public will not understand the difference between 'performance' and 'effectiveness' (Barber et al., 1994). Models of reporting on schools that provide information for each individual school and allow a comparison of achievement for 'like' groups of students across a system or groups of schools provide the basis to evaluate both performance and effectiveness. Alternatively, 'value-added' measures can be used as indicators of the effectiveness of schools (Cuttance, 1992). The 'like-school' groupings used in some States are based on socio-cultural characteristics of students (eg. social disadvantage, non-English speaking background), which are relatively weak determinants of student achievement. Hence they represent only a small part of the impact of student characteristics on achievement. A much stronger impact is found for prior levels of achievement. That is the impact of socio-cultural characteristics on the achievement of, say, Year 12 students is considerably less than the impact of say, their prior level of achievement at entry to their secondary schooling (Hill, 1995). The validity of grouping students and schools into 'like-groups' is highest when the student characteristics that have the most impact on student learning outcomes are the basis for allocating schools to comparable groups.
5. Public confidence in reporting
School performance information needs to be presented in a form that parents can easily understand (Barber et al., 1994). The public reporting of school performance information which is both valid and fair is technically complex (Rowe, 1996), yet if the public does not understand how performance measures are determined, it will affect their confidence in the system (Elmore et al., 1996). Systems have a responsibility to disseminate information about the procedures used to determine school performance (Rowe, 1996). The Kentucky and Mississippi accountability systems use formulas and calculations that are not clearly understood by parents. Elmore and his colleagues noted that confusion was particularly strong among parents who had difficulty in adjusting from norm-referenced standardised tests to criterion-based outcomes assessments. Parents found it difficult to understand the new assessment terminologies and expressed the need for some linkage to past systems to assist their understanding of the new developments (Elmore et al., 1996). The clarity, integrity and rigour of reporting is of paramount importance if the public is to have confidence in them. Early school reports in New South Wales, for example, were described as "semi-fudges and shadow plays akin to a puppet show" and a "vague-up" (Reported in The Sydney Morning Herald, 2/ 4/ 98).
6. Reporting as a basis for choosing a school
The Parents' Charter (England) states that the purpose of performance tables is to help parents choose schools and colleges for attendance by their children. With the increased role of market models in the public sector, the provision of information to support efficient and effective choices is of greater importance (Munn, 1993; Barber et al., 1994; Highett and Marsland, 1998). Parents seek to ensure the best fit between the educational needs of individual children and the provision on offer from schools.
...school characteristics which are conducive to a particular conception of 'success' for one child may be quite different from those which are conducive to the same conception of 'success' for another child (Adler, 1993: 56).
There are indications that parents are influenced more by information about discipline and the general reputation of the school than by educational considerations (Adler,1993). The choice of school may involve finding a satisfactory alternative to the 'local school' rather than making an optimal choice from a wide range of possible schools. Information about schools must address a broad and diverse range of aspects of provision and performance if it is to satisfy the wide range of needs of parents in choosing a school.
7. Reporting as pressure for school improvement
Most education systems that report on school performance, for example England, Scotland, Kentucky and Mississippi, have school improvement as an explicit goal of reporting (Matthews and Smith, 1995; McGlynn and
Stalker, 1995; Elmore et al., 1996). Public reporting about schools provides pressure for schools to improve.
Public reporting energizes parents and other community members to pressure schools for higher performance, particularly when data show differences in performance among schools that are roughly comparable in the public's eye (Elmore et al., 1996: 67).
Pressure from parents is part of a broad approach to school improvement in which systems and schools set improvement targets established on the basis of performance information. For example, in Scotland, a follow-up inspection is held within 18 months of the original inspection and the subsequent report made available to parents. The follow-up report is a "powerful motivator" for schools to achieve their improvement targets (McGlynn and Stalker, 1995: 17). The English inspection process, by identifying strengths and weaknesses and assisting schools to tackle their weaknesses, has twin functions of improvement and accountability. There is much evidence that school inspections in England have a direct impact with schools establishing action plans and achieving improvement targets within months of the inspection. The improvement targets focus on school processes (such as revising syllabuses, improving management, or raising teaching standards (Matthews and Smith, 1995). Schools are also required to set annual improvement targets for student learning outcomes (Department for Education and Employment, 1997). As in Scotland, there is a requirement for schools to report to parents on implementing a program of improvement to achieve their inspection targets (Matthews and Smith, 1995). In Maryland, the School Performance Index (SPI) is calculated annually based on student achievement results. Change in performance is determined using the current SPI less the average of SPI of the previous two years. The intention of the program is to measure school improvement (Maryland State Department of Education, 1997). In Kentucky, school improvement is assessed annually, with schools receiving incentive payments determined by the level of improvement (Steffy, 1993; Elmore et al., 1996).
8. Conflicting outcomes of public reporting
The publication of information may in some cases have a negative effect on improvement efforts, particularly where there is conflict between the use of an indicator for accountability purposes and its use for improvement purposes (Barber et al., 1994; Australian Council of State School Organisations & Australian Parents Council, 1996). The public reporting of school performance data in the US has been "very powerful in attracting public and press scrutiny" (Elmore et al., 1996: 78) and interest, but school performance information can be sensationalised. The Kentucky accountability system is based on how well schools are progressing toward a standard. The press reanalysed this information to rank the performance of schools in the State (Elmore et al., 1996). Value-added indicators and comparing schools with 'like-schools', are strategies that can be used to reduce the misuse of such data (Rowe, 1996; Goldstein & Spiegelhalter, 1996). The popular literature has focused on the negative impact of reporting on underperforming schools. The impact of public reporting on schools performing at higher levels is not well-documented, though acknowledgment of "those schools which are doing outstandingly well" (Woodhead, 1995: 13) is a goal of school reporting systems (Elmore et al., 1996). No Australian education system reports school performance information in a way that enables schools to be compared across a range of indicators - although performance in Year 12 examinations is published for some systems. More generally, information about an individual school is only released to members of the school community, and in a way that does not allow direct comparisons with other schools. It is difficult for parents to assess information about the performance and effectiveness of schools in both the government and non-government sectors in Australia. On occasions this paucity of access to such information has led to the press giving considerable attention to incomplete and sketchy data when it has been made available. The Sydney Daily Telegraph Mirror story of the Mount Druitt High School HSC class of 1996 is a case in point. Although many saw this press coverage as destructive, it did have the impact of causing the New South Wales Department of Education to take concerted action to improve the performance of the school concerned (Laughlin, 1997).
9. School performance information as a form of assurance and accountability
Public information on school performance is required if the process of accountability for the use of public funds is to be transparent. In Australia, all but a small number of non-government schools, in addition to government schools, receive a significant proportion of their recurrent income through State/ Territory and Commonwealth government funding. 2 Governments, business, and community leaders are more willing to ease regulations and leave decisions in the hands of teachers and principals when schools report regularly and clearly on results (Herrington, 1993). As well, the public needs such information as assurance to monitor their investment in public education (Kirst, 1990; Gaines, 1991; Herrington, 1993; Barber et al., 1994; Rowe, 1996). Parents also require performance and effectiveness information to assure themselves that they have made an appropriate choice of school (Broadfoot, 1990). Parents consider that they have a right to access information relevant to the education of their children (Office of Educational Research and Improvement, 1992; Herrington, 1993; Crump, 1997).
10. Variation in what is reported to parents
There is considerable variation in the type of information that parents and the public receive about school performance. In England, The Parents Charter (DFE, 1994) requires that all parents receive: regular reports from independent inspectors; performance tables for all local schools; a prospectus for all local schools; and an annual report from the school their children attend. This information is considerably more comprehensive than that available in most other systems. As discussed earlier, parents in the United States have access in most systems to public information on school performance based on student achievement in tests or examinations. Within Australian education systems there is substantial variation in what parents receive in the way of reports on school performance. In most systems they have access to an annual report produced by each school and in many instances to a prospectus. Very few systems provide parents with school reports based on independent review or inspection and only one requires schools to report student outcome information in a way that provides a valid assessment of the performance and effectiveness of schools.
Conclusions and Discussion

On the basis of the literature surveyed for this review, it is evident that parents and schools have different perspectives on their roles in the education of children. Schools view their role as that of educational providers and expect parents to support them in that role. From the type of information that parents want to receive from schools, however, it is clear that they see themselves as managers and facilitators of the education of their children. They therefore require information that will enable then to support learning and make well-informed educational decisions for their children. It is for this reason that parents are asking for more information about schools, particularly in terms of teaching and learning. In regards to reporting on individual student progress, most schools have procedures in place that are capable of meeting parent expectations. Parent satisfaction or dissatisfaction with reporting processes, however, depends on the effectiveness with which individual schools implement reporting policies. Parents expect that they will receive reports on their children from schools that provide: regular assessments of progress on a range of academic and non-academic outcomes; information about their child's academic achievement levels in relation to an external standard; advice about improvement goals for the child and strategies that they can use to support their child's learning; an opportunity to discuss their child's learning in a face-to-face meeting with the teacher, and in many
cases with the child present; and immediate notification from the school if their child's learning or behaviour in not progressing in line with expectations. Less is known about the information parents want or expect about school performance and effectiveness. The literature provides only indirect evidence about what parents want to know. For example, information on school examination and test results is used by parents in the UK and the US. The public reporting of school performance and effectiveness information based on student achievement in external tests and examinations is common practice in the UK and the US. The information is not always provided in such a way as to enable direct comparisons of schools, though comparative information is commonly available. The purpose of providing information is to encourage school improvement and raise standards; provide an informed basis on which parents may choose a school for their child; and to contribute to accountability processes. The most common forms of reporting are the publication of the profile of student achievement in schools and other indicators such as attendance, and the publication of school review reports. A number of issues arise from the research literature on reporting about schools. In essence these are captured in the following questions: Who determines what information parents or the public have access to? What information do parents require and in what form? How can the information be provided to the public in ways that ensure its validity and fairness? What is the most appropriate means of providing access? There is considerable evidence from research on school systems overseas about the provision of information on school effectiveness and performance of schools, however, there is a lack of Australian research in relation to the following: the information parents utilise in choosing a school; the impact of information provided to parents on school improvement; and effective strategies for providing information to parents about schools. Information provided to parents needs to focus explicitly on school performance and effectiveness across a range of areas. Parents express a need for information that will allow them to match the needs of their children with the most effective environment for their learning. They also need information to monitor school performance and effectiveness so as to support and manage the education of their children. The provision of information in many school systems is not yet sufficiently comprehensive or accessible for parents to feel that they are confident about their choices and for them to monitor the continuing effectiveness of the schools they have chosen for their children. The evidence suggests that information on the performance and effectiveness of schools in Australia is not as comprehensive or publicly accessible by parents as it is in many school systems in the UK and the US. There is a substantial gap between the information that parents say they require and the information available to them in the public domain.
Chapter 2: Policies and Practices of Australian Education Systems

Introduction
This chapter surveys the policies and practices of Australian education systems in relation to the reporting of student and school achievement. The information on which this report is based was provided by education systems in Australia. All systems were surveyed. 3 Each State/ Territory government education system and seven Catholic systems provided information. The Northern Territory Department of Education reported that its response covered government and non-government schools. The independent sector was not surveyed, as it does not form a school system. The cooperation of the systems that responded is appreciated and acknowledged.
Systems were asked to provide responses about the following areas of policy and practice. The information provided by schools to individual parents and the community about the learning outcomes of their children. The information provided by schools about their educational programs and how successful they have been in achieving their goals for students. The type and range of information provided publicly by school systems about curriculum standards and the achievements of students - including information made available for particular sub-groups of students. The participation of parents, at school and system level, in the development, implementation and improvement of reporting policies.
Contextual Background
The report should be read in the context of changes across Australia in the assessment of student learning outcomes, school accountability and reporting processes. Outcomes and Standards Frameworks Education is a state/ territory-level responsibility but pressures for a national framework led to the Australian Education Council (AEC) forming a Curriculum and Assessment (CURASS) Committee to develop collaboratively national curriculum statements and profiles. These were completed in 1993. Subsequently the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA), which replaced the AEC, referred the materials back to the States/ Territories for implementation. The Curriculum Statements and Profiles for Australian Schools are organised around a learning continuum for primary and secondary schooling. The key concepts of the various approaches adopted by State/ Territory systems are: curricula defined for each Key Learning Area (KLA) and based on outcomes rather than content; a continuum of learning across grades; and curricula divided into a number of levels, each of which approximates to two years of schooling. Such curriculum statements have been expressed in Victoria as the Curriculum and Standards Framework and in Western Australia as the Outcomes and Standards Framework. In South Australia they are known under the original name of Curriculum Statements and Profiles. For the purpose of this report any state/ territory-based derivative of the original Curriculum Statements and Profiles or curriculum frameworks using similar approaches will be referred to as criterion-based outcomes. One state system is implementing an outcomes approach based on State syllabus documents. The term 'criterion-based outcomes' will also be used to refer to this model. The Key Learning Area (KLA) concept is evident in most state/ territory curricula. For example, the Victorian framework includes English, Mathematics, Science, Technology, Studies of Society and Environment, The Arts, Health and Physical Education, and Languages Other Than English, and in Western Australia they are basically the same but Technology is called Technology and Enterprise. Most States/ Territories have Key Learning Areas that are the same or similar to these. The number of KLAs used in various systems range between six and eight. In some States/ Territories the KLA approach is not applied to the last two years of schooling. Standardised Testing A second major trend that has emerged in Australia over the last decade is the introduction of systemic standardised testing. Such tests are conducted most frequently in Years 3 and 5 in literacy and numeracy, but also occur in other years. In New South Wales and South Australia these tests are called the Basic Skills Test, in Victoria the Learning Assessment Project (LAP) and Queensland has a system referred to as the Year 3 and the Year 5 Tests. From 1999, primary school tests will move towards common approaches and similar timing to enable reporting against national benchmarks. It is expected that some States/ Territories will report individual student benchmark performance to parents.
Tests of this type, whether Year 3, Year 5 or some other grade level, will be referred to generically in this report as standardised tests. Quality Assurance Systems The third national trend relevant to this report is the implementation of quality assurance processes in school systems. Such developments are not as strong as the previous two developments noted above and vary in rigour. These processes chiefly revolve around schools establishing goals and targets and then reporting publicly on their achievement through an annual reporting process. In a small number of cases the quality assurance component involves some form of external independent verification of the school's evaluation and limited general public or local reporting, but most systems fall short of these standards.
Current Policies and Practices

Curriculum Standards There is a pattern for government school systems to have publicly declared curriculum standards established from the first to the eleventh year of schooling (Year 10). 4 In most States/ Territories, a statutory body responsible for curriculum development, such as a Board of Studies, sets such standards. The standards are in most cases derived from the nationally developed statements and profiles referred to earlier. The standards are expressed as criterion-based outcomes standards expected at each 'stage' of schooling. All government education systems have adopted criterion-based curriculum outcomes, founded generally on either the national statements and profiles or State/ Territory variations of them. There is variation across systems, however, in the extent to which criterion-based outcome approaches have been implemented, particularly in the extent to which the outcome statements and standards have been made explicit across all KLAs. Some systems have had criterion-based outcomes in place for all KLAs for three years or more. Others have a longer time frame for the completion of this process and are still in the early stages of implementation. In some instances the 'learning outcomes' are being expressed through individual syllabus documents rather than through KLAs. In some States/ Territories schools report to parents against these standards and in other States/ Territories reporting does not relate to such standards. The linking of criterion-based outcomes to specific stages of schooling makes the standards explicit. Some systems have also been able to, or are in the process of, establishing external benchmarks of achievement against the standards. These allow student achievement levels to be compared with the learning outcomes appropriate to the age and the achievement levels of other students across the State/ Territory. At their most sophisticated, such benchmarks - which are currently only established in English literacy and Mathematics - allow schools, parents and students to evaluate their performance overall, and the performance of sub-groups of students, against an external indicator. Systems consider that their standardised testing and reporting programs also provide information about standards. They use the results, at school and system level, to determine whether the level of student performance is improving. Some States use this information to identify students requiring additional support. Catholic systems have adopted one of two approaches to the specification of educational standards and the assessment of achievement. Either they have linked student outcomes directly to the curriculum standards approach of the statutory curriculum body in their State/ Territory, which is common, or they have linked directly to the nationally developed Statements and Profiles. A small number of Catholic systems also participate in standardised testing programs conducted by the States/ Territories. The information on curriculum and standards in each system is available to parents, but in most cases parents must either explicitly request the information or rely on schools to conduct appropriate information sessions. Reporting on Student Progress The information provided formally to individual parents about the learning outcomes and progress of their child
typically takes three forms: A written report which is prepared one to four times annually, though twice annually is the norm. Oral reports, usually through the means of a parent-teacher meeting. Reports, at selected Year levels, of the child's performance in standardised tests. Formal written reports and parent teacher meetings are the most common reporting combination used in Australia. This pattern of reporting is common to all education systems and across all 13 years of schooling. The report and meeting are typically interrelated - the meeting generally providing an opportunity to discuss the information provided in the written report. There are differences among school systems as to whether systemic policies and guidelines inform such school practices or whether decisions about reporting policies are at the discretion of the school. Government school systems typically publish policies and guidelines for assessment and reporting. Common principles espoused in these documents indicate that practices should: be integrated into teaching and learning practices; be aligned with relevant curriculum documents - usually through a focus on reporting against specified curriculum outcomes; be fair, valid and comprehensive; value teacher judgements; be based on an appropriate range of assessment methods and strategies; and convey useful and meaningful information. Students are frequently involved in assessing and reporting on their own achievement. No system provides any guidance on this policy, but a number of systems encourage the practice. Whilst student involvement in selfassessment is more common than in reporting, some schools have advanced practices in which students report to parents on their own self-assessment, select work samples to be part of the report to parents and, more commonly, take part in parent-teacher meetings. Written reports Reporting on academic outcomes is the predominant focus of systemic reporting policies, which are based on four different assessment frameworks: Assessment and reporting against criterion-based outcomes standards. Assessment and reporting in terms of outcomes achieved. Reporting achievement in curriculum areas as either letter grades, such as A, B, C, etc. or some similar criterion, usually with an accompanying general comment. Reporting progress against an individual plan for the student. Criterion-based outcomes approaches vary in their complexity and rigour and in the extent to which they are mandated as policy. In its most complex manifestation there is a requirement that schools report to parents on the attainment level of each student against specified curriculum outcomes. Such approaches may also report student achievement against the state/ territory average or state/ territory benchmarks. Some systems encourage schools to use an outcomes approach based on curriculum documents for the State/ Territory or, in some instances, directly on the nationally developed Statements and Profiles. Systems that do not require schools to report against criterion-based outcomes indicated that individual schools decide such policy. In a small number of instances, systems reported that schools use a 'subject and contentcovered' reporting process whereby individual achievement levels in various subjects are indicated by comments or letter grades. A small number of systems made specific mention of the practices of schools in reporting on the achievements of students with special learning needs. Such reporting was usually against the specific program developed for each individual student. It is common practice in many systems for student work samples to form part of the formal report to parents.
The teacher may annotate these samples. The work samples are used to provide tangible evidence of the student's achievement of certain outcomes or skill development. Systems generally acknowledge that non-academic outcomes, such as social skills and behaviour, may be included in written reports to parents, but such reporting is likely to be the initiative of individual schools. 5 Despite the Australia-wide pattern of regular written formal reports, frequently with similarities in the reporting framework, no system prescribes the format that written reports should take. Schools design the format and layout of the reports to parents. Many systems indicated that they encourage consultation with parents in the development of the style and format of reports. Parent-Teacher meetings Most systems encourage schools to provide opportunities for teachers to discuss written reports with parents in a face-to-face meeting. These meetings are held at least once a year but are usually conducted more often. Systems did not detail the purpose of the parent-teacher meeting other than noting, in some instances, that the general purpose was to discuss the content of the formal written report. One system that was more specific reported that the parent teacher meeting...
...enables parents to provide teachers with information about their child. It also allows teachers to discuss issues of importance about students and the learning outcomes they intend to cover.
Systems report that it is a common practice for teachers and parents to discuss the progress of individual students at times other than the formal parent-teacher meeting. Parents can make a formal meeting appointment or may discuss their children informally with teachers in the course of their interaction with the school. Many systems indicate that schools are to advise parents that they can seek an meeting at any time to discuss the progress of their child. Schools may instigate an meeting with a parent outside of the formal reporting processes. This practice is less common and is usually an urgent response to a student not progressing at the rate expected or not behaving satisfactorily. Reporting on standardised tests and external exams Reporting to parents on the outcomes of annual standardised tests is becoming increasingly widespread. Such tests are mainly in literacy and numeracy and at specified Year levels. Five out of the eight government systems require schools to report to parents on the literacy test results of students sitting an external test in Years 3 & 5, or the equivalent grade level for the system. In a smaller number of States/ Territories the standardised test includes mathematics/ numeracy and can include an additional curriculum area. There are also examples of similar tests being conducted at the secondary school level, though this occurs in only a minority of systems. Under the National Literacy and Numeracy Plan governments are implementing full cohort assessment of student achievement across Australia in Grades 3 and 5. Parents will receive a report of their child's level of achievement in relation to an outcomes standard and, in some cases, national benchmarks. They will also be provided with a report detailing specific areas of skill. Some governments are planning State/ Territory testing at one or more year-levels in KLAs other than literacy and numeracy. For example, Queensland is planning to assess upper primary and lower secondary students in 1999 in Health and Physical Education and in Science. Information on individual student exam results in end of secondary schooling credentialling processes is reported directly to students by statutory bodies in each State/ Territory. Students are generally provided with their results in individual subjects. Assessment is typically based on a combination of school and external testing, with a moderation process to ensure comparability of standards between school and external marking. In most States/ Territories students who are seeking to undertake further study also receive a score for tertiary
admission purposes. A tertiary body such as Universities Admissions Centre (UAC) in New South Wales or Tertiary Institutions Service Centre (TISC) in Western Australia prepares this score. In New South Wales this is called a Universities Admission Index (UAI), in Victoria and Western Australia it is a Tertiary Entrance Ranking (TER), while in Queensland it is called an OP (Overall Position). These scores are variously determined but students are most commonly ranked from 1 to 100 with 100 the highest score. In Queensland students are ranked from 1 to 25 with 1 the highest rank. There is variation from State-to-State in the composition of the cohort on which the tertiary ranking is based. Some States/ Territories base it on the cohort who sit the end of secondary school examination, others have recently moved to base tertiary entrance ranking on the cohort who commenced secondary schooling. Reporting on School Achievement Systems that make information on school achievement publicly available indicated that they do so to: inform parents and the public; enable schools to compare their results with the state/ territory-wide profile; monitor standards and plan interventions where appropriate; provide valid information on which to base resource decisions; provide an informed basis for improvement initiatives; build public confidence; and meet accountability requirements. Most school systems that report on the achievement of individual schools typically do so through an annual report and, in some systems, external review processes. The reports are often restricted in circulation to the school, the School Council, and system authorities. In some instances a summary report is provided to all parents with the full report available on request. The systems that have been most pro-active in setting policies and procedures for reporting on school achievement are in the government sector. Catholic systems generally do not intervene in determining how schools report to their communities. They indicate that monitoring school achievement is typically undertaken as part of school registration or accreditation processes and that they also report under Commonwealth accountability requirements by contributing to the Annual National Report on Schooling in Australia and through other processes.
Overall school achievement
Most systems have an expectation that schools will report against the specific aims and objectives set out in their school development plan, school charter or similar documents. Across systems, however, there is a wide range of approaches by which schools report on their own performance and effectiveness. Some systems leave it entirely to the discretion of schools, the case in most non-government systems; some report against targets that individual schools establish for themselves, the most common State/ Territory system model; and others report against established standards and benchmarks, in addition to their own locally developed goals. Systems that have implemented formal planning and reporting frameworks provide detailed descriptions of the requirements of schools. Examples include the Directions for Education initiative in Tasmania and the Schools of the Future program in Victoria. A key feature of these systems is the articulation of overarching goals or objectives and the implementation of educational programs to achieve these goals and objectives. The time span for the implementation of programs by schools is typically three years, with annual progress reports. The audience for the planning and reporting documents is the school community. The school plans with and for its community and accounts to them via an annual report. In essence, such annual reports provide an evaluation of how well the school is achieving its academic and non-academic goals for students. In practice the reports from schools serve a dual purpose of accountability to both the school system and the school community.
About half the school systems have an integrated planning and reporting framework. Most are quite specific about what is to be included in the planning and what is to be reported in the school's annual report. In addition to providing contextual information, the annual report is expected to provide an assessment of the school's success in achieving the goals, objectives and targets identified in the linked planning document. Some State/ Territory systems prescribe areas of achievement that schools are required to report on. For example, one system requires its schools to report on the following: improving student performance, teaching and learning, leadership, managing staff, the learning environment, and interaction with the school community. Another requires reporting on occupational health, safety and welfare, performance management, skills of staff using technology, and literacy and numeracy initiatives. A third system mandates reporting on literacy, numeracy, behaviour management and information technology. At its most rigorous, such reporting covers prescribed areas with transparent standards or benchmarks against which schools are required to make judgements about their performance. In Victoria, for example, the school environment area of the annual report requires schools to report on student attendance, student accidents, enrolments, and the results of a specific annual parent survey. In making judgements about their effectiveness, schools in that State reference their performance to state benchmarks as well as their performance in previous years. In the management area, a standardised staff survey with state benchmarks for primary and secondary schools provides baseline data for evaluating the management of the school. Across the country there is variation in the rigour and extent to which school annual reports are verified and audited. Approximately half the State/ Territory systems use external verifiers to assess the validity and accuracy of the information published by schools. Following the recommendation of a State audit report, in Victorian government schools this is undertaken by verifiers who are independent of school and departmental management. The range of practices varies from every school's annual report being externally verified, to external verification once every three years following a formal review, to a sample of schools being subject annually to external verification.
Learning outcomes of students
There is significant variation in rigour among systems in school-based reporting of student learning outcomes. Catholic systems all indicated that the overall profile of learning achievements of students in individual schools was either not reported or the method of reporting was at the discretion of the school. Only one Catholic system indicated that it has issued guidelines to its schools on school-level reporting of student outcomes. Government school systems generally have more prescribed systems of reporting on the performance and effectiveness of schools. Few systems, however, require schools to report learning outcomes in a way that would allow parents to evaluate the performance or effectiveness of the school. It is more common for schools to provide selective information that focuses on highlights only, with no explicit information provided on the range and level of achievement of the school as a whole. Most Government systems that require schools to report on the profile of student achievement do so only in the context of the school's own goals or targets. In a small number of systems this includes information on student achievement in external tests or progress in achieving benchmarks against criterion-referenced outcomes. Very few systems systematically report school profiles of achievement, either in standardised tests or in relation to criterion-based outcomes, against externally established benchmarks or state/ territory means. Only Victoria has such a process in place for all 13 years of schooling. The most sophisticated of these approaches not only encourages schools to assess students against curriculum outcomes on a continuum across the compulsory years of schooling, but also provides state/ territory and other relevant benchmarks 6 against which schools can assess their achievements and progress. Such benchmarks may be disaggregated for various sub groups of the student population, eg. boys/ girls, students from a nonEnglish speaking background, and disadvantaged students. A refinement, which is critical to enabling fairness in the interpretation of performance data, provides schools with benchmarks to assess their achievements against other schools that serve comparable populations. No system in Australia directly disseminates reports on the profile of learning outcomes in individual schools to individual parents. However, in some systems this information is available to individual parents should they seek it. Some systems have specific education policies or regulations that prohibit the release of achievement data
that is necessary for any assessment of the effectiveness and performance of schools. The issues most frequently mentioned by school systems in the information they provided for this research related to 'fairness' and 'equity'. There was particular concern in reporting on student learning outcomes. A small number of State/ Territory systems have addressed, or are planning to address, these issues by providing achievement profiles for 'like-schools'. Individual schools will be able to make fair assessments of their effectiveness and performance against other schools serving similar populations. Reporting to Parents on School Programs In general schools provide public information that serves marketing purposes, communicates about on-going programs, and reports on achievement and progress.
Marketing information
Schools control both the content and the format by which parents receive information about their educational programs. In both government and non-government systems schools use a prospectus as a marketing tool to attract new student enrolments and provide information about their educational programs. Many schools also actively seek to publish articles in the local media to provide information to parents and the wider community and to create a positive impression of the school in the community. Many systems indicated that schools also issue a booklet or school handbook to inform parents about the educational offerings of the school and, in particular, the courses available. Whilst it could be presumed that there may be marked differences between the type of information reported to parents of primary and secondary aged students, systems indicated little such differentiation except in relation to subject choice. Both Catholic and government systems indicated that secondary schools provide information to assist parents and students to make course selections and to advise them of processes such as for the Year 12 assessments of student achievement. Not all marketing information is provided to parents in printed form. Many schools have open days and provide targeted information sessions for parents whose children are about to enter their first year of primary or secondary schooling. Marketing is clearly a significant purpose of these sessions, but they also play an important role in facilitating the transition from pre-school to primary schooling and primary to secondary schooling.
Information about school programs
Schools in all systems provide information to parents about ongoing programs and initiatives. The main forms of communication are school newsletters and parent-teacher information sessions. Some teachers also write to parents about their programs, though systems did not report this to be a common practice. Systems, and curriculum bodies such as Boards of Studies, also occasionally place information about school programs into the wider public domain. This is particularly the case where programs are provided across a number of schools, the topics relate to schools generally or the program is a special initiative of the system. Such information is provided through publications such as system newspapers or through booklets issued by systems about programs and opportunities in particular curriculum areas, such as vocational education for example. School newsletters highlight current activities in both academic and non-academic areas. They include details of programs operating within schools, such as those aimed at the prevention of bullying, cooperative learning strategies, literacy initiatives, and school debating. Only a small number of systems mentioned school meetings as a way to provide parents with information about what is happening. In some cases such meetings provide the parents of children in a class with information specific to the class. Teachers in some schools conduct an information session for parents of students in their class at the beginning of a term to explain the learning program for the class. In other cases meetings are grade or whole-school focussed and in secondary schools they may be subject or faculty based.
Reporting on achievements and progress
The third way of reporting to parents about schools is through annual school reports. Whilst, as described above, annual reports may have an accountability function, they also have a role in informing parents about the school. Many systems indicate that they see school planning documents, called a Partnership Agreement in Tasmania, the School Charter in Victoria and a School Development Plan in Western Australia, as a primary means by which the school community can learn about the school's educational programs and direction. Annual reports usually include a portrait of the context of the school, highlight the achievements of individual students in academic and non-academic areas and provide an overview of educational initiatives. Annual reports are usually made available to interested community members, but a few systems have a policy of ensuring that all parents receive them. The most common practice, however, is for a summary of the annual report to be distributed to the school community, with an invitation to parents to seek a copy of the full report. Alternatively, parents may be advised in the newsletter that they may request a copy of the report. Whilst annual reports appear in most cases to be vehicles for informing parents about the educational programs provided by schools, not all annual reports can be viewed as performance reports. Some annual reports simply describe the school's programs and outcomes but do not provide sufficient detail for the reader to evaluate the school's overall achievements. Principals' addresses at annual speech days often provide a synopsis of the educational provision of the school over the year. A summary of the address may be provided to parents and highlights may be reported in local newspapers. Information Provided by School Systems about the Achievements of Students and Schools Most systems that have information on the performance of students report publicly about the performance of students, but provide little information about the performance of schools. Systems ensure that such reporting does not allow the identification of individual students. Statutory bodies in some States/ Territories provide public information on students whose performance in Year 12 has been meritorious in some way. Most government systems aggregate student achievement information for each school. A number of them have policies or regulations that specifically restrict the publications of data that can be used to compare schools. No system currently reports publicly on the performance of individual schools on standardised tests or criterionbased outcomes across K-12. A small number of States/ Territories publish the achievements of schools in end of schooling examinations such as tertiary entrance examinations. Most government school systems across Australia publish sparse information on the performance of specific subgroups of students. These sub-groups are typically boys, girls, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) students, students from a non-English speaking background (NESB) and students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Some States/ Territories also provide public information on the achievements of students with high mobility, isolated students and students with a disability. Catholic systems indicate that they report on sub-groups as required for Commonwealth accountability purposes or for internal monitoring purposes, but do not report in the public domain. Where information about the achievement of sub-groups of students is published at system level it is generally based on the performance of students in standardised tests at specific year-levels, most commonly Years 3 and 5, in literacy and numeracy. Some systems also report results against tests in other KLAs. Only one system (Victoria) currently provides system-wide reports based on criterion-based outcome standards, though other systems have plans to do so. A number of systems plan further developments in reporting on school performance and effectiveness based on student achievement. Developments being planned include 'value-added' reporting and improvement in the capacity of the relevant databases to support reporting of longitudinal data. Systems use the term "public" in reference to the publication of school performance information in a number of different ways. In some cases it means that information is relatively inaccessible but can be made available to individual members of the public if they make an explicit inquiry, in other instances the term indicates that
information is available through the media or other outlets. Participation by Parents in Developing and Implementing Reporting Policies All education systems across Australia report that it is the practice at system and school level for parents to be consulted over the development, implementation and improvement of school level reporting policies. Not all systems have policies formally requiring or encouraging this participation. School Councils or Boards, where they exist, are either consulted over school policies for reporting to parents or have responsibility for determining school policy in this area. Parents and Friends Associations, or similar parent bodies, may also have input to the development of school reporting polices and practices. There is considerable variation in the way the general parent body participates in developing school-level reporting policies. When schools are reviewing their assessment and reporting policies they often seek parent views through surveys, request feedback via the school newsletter or call special meetings of parents to discuss proposed changes. All systems reported that relevant parent bodies are consulted in the development of system level policies. Boards of Studies, or their equivalents in each State/ Territory that determine the reporting policies for achievement in external examinations, in particular the end of schooling credential, normally have parent and community representatives on their boards.
Conclusions and Discussion

In summary, this survey of Australian education systems points to a significant convergence across the country in the form and substance of how schools report to parents on individual student achievement. However, there is less commonality in reporting on school achievement and school programs. The nationally developed Statements and Profiles for Australian Schools have had a significant impact. Most systems are moving towards the implementation of criterion-based curriculum outcomes with related standards, and in some instances, state/ territory benchmarks for all students and specific sub-groups of students. Parents in all systems receive information about their children's progress through both written reports and the opportunity to attend meetings with teachers. The reports are, in the main, about academic achievement and are usually provided to parents twice a year. The extent to which systems prescribe reporting practices varies. In some cases there are explicit expectations about the type of student achievement information to be reported - in all such instances these include criterionbased outcomes. In other cases guidance is provided about general principles of assessing and reporting. In a small number of cases, systems leave policy on reporting to individual schools. Criterion-based outcomes approaches that owe their heritage to the national curriculum statements and profiles are the most common means of reporting on student achievement. Parents also receive information on the performance of their children in standardised tests, though schools may have this information and not report it to parents. Whilst all parents receive information on the progress of their children, information on the achievements of schools is not widely available. In some cases the parent governing body receives a report on school performance, with parents being able to access either a summary or full version of the report on request. School accountability is clearly weighted more towards reporting to system bureaucracies than to parents. There is substantial variation across systems in the comprehensiveness and rigour of reporting on school achievement. The most rigorous reporting clearly specifies standards and reports student learning outcomes against these and against required system-wide benchmarks. At the other end of the spectrum schools essentially report whatever they wish. Schools provide information about educational programs for a range of purposes, most commonly for marketing and general communication, and through means such as newsletters, prospectuses, information nights, and
open days. An increasing number of systems collect data on the performance of students, but this information is not made available to the 'public'. Systems argue that it would be unfair to schools or groups of students if the general public had access to information on the achievements in different schools. Systems use performance information for internal accountability and school and system improvement purposes, but rarely for public external accountability. Most systems have not developed the methodology for using information on student achievement to evaluate the effectiveness of schools although the methodology for doing so has existed for some years. The development of this capacity would provide an additional basis for reporting on schools to parents and the wider community. [Return to Top]
Section 2 : The Views of Australian Parents

Introduction and Methodology Chapter 3: Reporting to Parents on Children's Progress Introduction How Parents Find out about their Children's Progress Issues Associated with Reporting on Student Progress Discussion Chapter 4: Information Provided to Parents about School Programs Introduction Sources of Information Available to Parents Content of Information Provided to Parents Issues Associated with Reporting on School Programs Discussion Chapter 5: Parent Needs and Expectations for Information on School Achievement Introduction How Parents Use Information about School Achievement Information Available to Parents What Parents Consider when Choosing a School Discussion Section 2: Discussion
Introduction
Parents place a higher priority on receiving information about their children's progress than any other type of information they receive from schools. Their interest is first and foremost in the development of their children and they use the information they receive to more effectively support their children's learning. Parents glean information about their children's progress from a range of sources, both formal and informal. Reports from parents suggest that there is variability across the nation in the satisfaction of parents with the information they receive. The difference in satisfaction is not due to the State/ Territory or the type of education system in which children are educated, but to differences between schools. Parents in all States/ Territories, and in both government and non-government schools, provided evidence about the need to improve practices in reporting. The majority of parents are satisfied, in general, with the information that they currently receive. A substantial minority of parents, however, detailed aspects of the reporting process and access to information about schools that did not meet their needs. A large proportion of parents overall indicated areas in which they seek improvement.
How Parents Find out about their Children's Progress

Written Reports Content The predominant focus of the written reports that parents receive on their children's progress is the
achievement in individual subject or learning areas. The most common way in which student academic progress is reported to parents is through some form of rating of achievement in each subject area, usually in coded form. Examples of the codes reported to parents are: 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D', etc., sometimes with + or -attached to the letter grades. In this type, there may be some advice to parents about what an 'A' etc. means, such as 'excellent' or 'outstanding'. 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 - usually with an explanation of what the numbers mean. Other letters, such as 'E' (excellent); 'A' (above average); 'S' (satisfactory); 'U' (unsatisfactory), etc. A variation of this type of report is where schools record next to each subject the students' marks in the end of year exams for that subject. Schools that record exam results often also note where the student came in class in the subject. For example, a student may be recorded as being ranked 5 of 25 students in his/ her class in Science. A variation is to record students' test scores and the average scores for the class. Gradings or ratings are usually complemented by teachers' comments on students' achievements. Teachers' comments are valued more than the grade or mark in a subject by many parents because they provide more specific and personal information about their children. Such comments also inform parents about how well teachers really know the children. Many parents read the comments before reading other sections of reports.
The thing I most value out of the reports that we receive, I think, are the teachers' written comments. I read the comments and that was really important, because what they put in the comments... showed why they felt that he was doing better in those subjects. And it was not the things that you [would] necessarily think. They were much more, like, carefully observed for him personally.... They'd taken quite a lot of trouble to ...let you know when [he'd] really achieved something.... They note the achievement, and have done all the way through to that grade.
The interpretative nature of teacher comments appeals to parents. After recording the marks or grades, the comment provides an interpretation of the child's progress and achievement, either overall or in a particular subject. Grades themselves merely signify a level of achievement, while comments provide parents with a basis for action.
It says my son didn't contribute very often in class discussions. So I knew I needed to develop his confidence. It says he enjoys art and craft, but he had difficulty with paper skills... so when he's got nothing to do I give him a pair of scissors and a piece of paper. My high school boy's report... [said] he didn't hand in one of the assignments, so now when he comes home and says "I've got no homework", I go and double check.
The value parents place on teachers' interpretations of student performance possibly explains why they are so critical of what they term 'meaningless' comments. Parents don't like cliched phrases in reports such as 'working well', or 'satisfactory'. They either don't know what these terms really mean, or they find them too imprecise and unhelpful, or trite and irrelevant. They don't inform parents about their child.
'Very good', 'good', 'adequate', and 'satisfactory'. I guess they look nice with ticks in the boxes, but... again, it doesn't say much. You get the odd comment like "Your son can do better." Well, what does that tell you? Absolutely nothing... Better at what? Well what I don't want is the comments you typically get, like "Your child is a delight to teach". I hate the word "pleasing". Pleasing whom? What? How?
Parents report an increased use of computer-generated comments. Parents understand the desire for more efficient methods of preparing reports, but believe the effort is wasted if the resultant information is of little value to them and not directly relevant to their children. If comments are generated from a computer list they lose their impact because parents don't believe that they are really about their children.
When I questioned [the phrase attached to one of the subjects], the teacher said, "Well really, the difficulty is that with those six phrases we've got, none of them fit your child. And I said... "I've got
a feeling that they probably don't fit a good percentage of the thousand kids we've got here". "Yeah, but that's all we've got to pick from". Sometimes [parents] feel the comment at the bottom is a computer generated one. Where they've had a hundred different comments and pick the one that's closest to what they actually want to say. Many parents receive descriptive reports on student progress, as distinct from the rating or ranking approach described above. Descriptive reporting systems are more common in some systems than others, and are mostly linked to criterion-based outcomes approaches to curriculum. They are a relatively recent initiative. Reports based on outcomes-based curricula usually list a range of outcomes in each subject or Key Learning Area and note whether, or to what extent, the student has achieved that outcome. The reporting... became much more portfolio-based,... looking at what her skills were as an individual, what her strengths were, what areas... she needed to work at, so that it was much more focused on the individual rather than focused on her [being] ranked with everyone else in her class. I learnt a lot about alternative ways of assessing kids in a school.
Often a code is attached to each outcome to indicate level of mastery of the outcome. Most commonly 'B' = beginning; 'C'= consolidating; and 'E' = established. Other variations are either of the form 'NE' (not in evidence); 'E' (emerging); 'F' (frequently); and 'WE' (well established) or 'achieves consistently' 'achieves sometimes' or 'cannot yet achieve'. These reports may also include teacher comments. Reporting against learning outcomes sometimes includes student self-evaluations of how well they are achieving curriculum outcomes. A less common descriptive reporting approach is where teachers summarise student achievement in each subject or learning area in words, but not linked to a formal criterion-based outcomes curriculum approach. There is considerable variation across Australia in what is reported in areas other than academic achievement. 7 No distinct patterns are evident. Most commonly reported, usually with a rating of the 'excellent' or 'causing concern' type are: student attitude and effort, usually in each subject or learning area; student attendance information; and work or study habits. Some schools also report to parents on the number of assignments not completed and some secondary schools include a comment from the pastoral care or year coordinator - or equivalent. This is usually a summary comment on the child and parents value these comments in the same way that they value interpretative comments on academic achievement. Parents reported that they want information on the whole child, including academic, social, and emotional development as well as progress in extra-curricula activities.8 They are particularly interested in knowing how their child is 'fitting in' or developing as a person. However, schools report relatively little of this information.
You need to know how your child is coping socially. You need to know how they interact with adults. You need to know whether they are confident enough learners to question... and whether they can take their learnings and adapt them in new situations. And a lot of it is learning in a social context. [Reporting is] always heavily weighted one way. It's either weighted academically, with a little bit of social interaction, or it goes [too far back] the other way... You need both.
One very satisfied parent received the following report (edited) on how her child is developing. This level of detail on non-academic achievement is rare.
Barbara is a superior student in all subjects, has a strong natural curiosity and is willing and able to express an intelligent opinion when called upon to do so... Barbara is... participating in a wide variety of sports within school and many inter-school teams - swimming, athletics, cross country, netball, rounders, and rhythmic gymnastics. She's an excellent team member with an excellent sense of sportsmanship.... Barbara continues to enjoy and work well in gymnastics. In drama, which she obviously enjoys, her diction and sense of realism are well-developed. In dance, she's a keen contributor; she works with energy and enthusiasm.... Her great efficiency and confidence are
obvious. We believe she will continue to enjoy ensemble work. Socially, greater responsibility in leadership has been asked of her this year and she has risen to the challenge. She gets on well with teachers and peers. Barbara's developing as a good public speaker and from time to time acts as a guide to visitors of the school.
Parents in schools with significant numbers of students from non-English speaking backgrounds (NESB) commented that their schools translated the reports for parents and provided interpreters at parent-teacher meetings. They indicated that criterion-based outcomes reporting had added to the workload of schools and were impressed with this support. English speaking parents also expressed concern in some instances, given their own difficulties with understanding reports, about how much NESB parents understood. Most parents from non-English speaking backgrounds do not receive translated reports or have access to interpreters. Some parents with poor English language skills indicated that they would appreciate greater provision of translating and interpreting services.
Frequency
Parents most commonly receive written reports twice a year, at the end of each semester. Many receive a report at the end of each term. Some receive a written report only once a year. Termly reporting is more common in some systems or sectors than in others. Parents appreciate receiving more frequent reports. Such reports, often called 'interim reports', - with the end of semester reports typically more detailed than those at the end of Terms 1 and 3. Interim reports often address matters that are broader than academic achievement alone. In many instances they function to provide an assurance to parents that all is going well, or in the case of Term 1 reports, that a child is settling into the grade, or new school. Given that most reporting is at the end of each semester, the interim reports enable schools and parents to keep in touch in the 5 6 months between semester reports. Parents want reporting to provide them with a basis for monitoring and supporting their children's learning and they clearly indicated that mid-year is too late for the first report of the year. Parents consider earlier reporting on how well students are progressing and areas where they would benefit from further development to be a vital part of an effective reporting process. Those who receive reports, written or oral, at the end of Term 1 are extremely appreciative of the early feedback. Parent-Teacher Meetings9
Purpose
Parents view the parent-teacher meeting as a complement to the written report. It enables them to clarify information in the written reports and discuss how their children's learning might be improved. If the timing allows, they also use the meeting as an opportunity to give feedback to the teacher about their children, and to raise any concerns they might have. To be able to achieve this level of interaction requires a high degree of confidence on the part of parents, and many reported that they feel too intimidated in most meeting situations to be more than relatively passive participants. Many parents also use the meetings as an opportunity to get to know the teachers and to form a better working relationship with them. They believe a positive relationship is important to the child.
It's going to help the reporting system because the teachers are going to automatically... put the student and the parents together and therefore things will click over and they're going to start just passing comments [when they see each other again].... I had the maths teacher say to me at the tuck shop, "Can I see you for a minute outside?" Blah, blah, blah about my son. Fantastic. I think we need that. You know, we will be a whole heap better if we can get teachers putting a face to a name and to the child.
Some parents attend the meetings to let the teachers know that they are committed and interested parents. These parents indicated that if teachers believe they are uninterested in their children's progress, they (teachers) might be less rigorous in monitoring the quality of the children's work.
Types of meetings
In some systems the most common approach is for a time (an evening, or afternoon/ evening) to be set aside and parents who wish to avail themselves of the opportunity make an appointment. These meetings are generally linked to the written report and scheduled shortly after they are forwarded to parents. Often students are responsible for conveying notices about these meetings to their parents. In this approach, schools that have concerns about the progress of individual students usually write specifically to parents asking them to make an appointment. In many of these instances parents take a negative view of attendance at a parent-teacher meeting, particularly if the school only contacts them when there is 'bad' news. Participation of other parents is optional. Some schools create a context by believing that parents have to be particularly keen or have a 'problem' child to want to attend and conveying a message that indicates that where there are no concerns there is no need for a meeting. Reporting processes in such schools make it harder for less assertive parents, because they place a greater emphasis on the parent taking the initiative to make an appointment. Some parents are satisfied with this type of reporting arrangement if they are confident that teachers will initiate contact if there is a need for a meeting. If parents in this context do not receive a request to attend a meeting they then interpret it as 'good news'. Some parents receive advice with the written report that "no meeting is required". While this provides some reassurance to parents, it can also have the effect of discouraging them from making an appointment to meet with the teacher, even if they really want to discuss their children's progress. The alternative to asking parents to make an appointment for a meeting on a scheduled night is to set the evening or night aside and make an open invitation for parents to attend. Some parents feel more comfortable with this approach as there is less formality associated with their attendance. Parent-teacher meetings are generally linked to the written report, but are usually brief, often no more than 510 minutes. Some parents view these meetings as being ceremonial only, and feel that they are conducted, particularly in secondary schools, using an assembly line or supermarket queue approach. Despite this, most parents are reasonably satisfied with this form of meeting; most of these indicating that they could seek a longer meeting at another time if it was desired. Parents expressed dissatisfaction with parent-teacher meetings when: the report is not forwarded in advance so that they can prepare for the meeting; not all teachers are available (reported by parents to be the case in some secondary schools); there are too many teachers to talk to in a short period of time, especially if parents have more than one child at the school; time wasted in queuing results in parents not managing to meet with the teachers they most want to; privacy and confidentiality are not assured, such as when conducted en mass in a hall, or when the classroom door is left open; and, teachers do not have appropriate knowledge of the children whose progress is being discussed. Whilst parents report the forms of meetings described above are the most common approaches to parentteacher meetings, there are alternatives, particularly among primary schools. These involve more extended meetings with parents, from 15 minutes to one hour. Such events may be scheduled over a number of days and are arranged at a time convenient to both parents and teachers.
There's usually a folder of the child's work out, and we take our son in and he will... tell us about the work that he's been doing. And then the teacher will spend about twenty minutes talking about, what you might call 'descriptive' assessment - I guess the sorts of things he does in class and what he might find challenging and the sorts of things he enjoys.
Many schools and teachers include examples of student work and classroom tests as part of parent-teacher meetings. These are used to illustrate what is being discussed. Parents appreciate and value the opportunity to have work samples and tests used in this way. The examples assist parents to more readily understand the points teachers are making.
Parent-teacher meetings are good... if my daughter was experiencing problems they would pull out an example of her work, or a test, and explain it to me.
Often parents want a meeting with their children's teacher outside of the formal parent-teacher meeting. Parents find that most schools are approachable and co-operative if they want to arrange a meeting. Primary schools are most likely to be co-operative. Parents reported that some secondary schools do not make it easy for them to arrange these meetings. The most positive comments about parent-teacher meetings came from parents who felt that their meetings with teachers had been constructive and useful and focussed on both academic and non-academic development, including the future development of the child. When the meetings focus on what the report might mean to parents and teachers, parents indicated that they have far more value to them than the written report. Parents often believe they get a more truthful report from their meetings with teachers than from the written report. This is because they believe teachers are cautious about what they commit to paper, and therefore will say face-to-face a number of things that they will not write in a report. Work Samples and Classroom Tests Work samples and completed tests are popular with parents as a form of reporting on student progress. As mentioned above, they are sometimes used illustratively in parent-teacher meetings but have a function throughout the year in keeping parents informed. The use of work samples was reported more commonly in some systems than others and more often in States/ Territories that have a curriculum and reporting framework that includes a statement of criterion-based outcomes. In many schools, marked classroom tests are sent home. This provides parents with a 'snapshot' of how learning is progressing. There is wide variation in the types of samples sent home and the form in which they are presented. In some schools, work sample packages are sent home at regular intervals, such as the end of Terms 1 and 3. In other cases the samples are forwarded on the initiative of individual teachers.
The assessment folders come home once a term with samples of the kid's work for all the curriculum areas and normally [I'm] given the opportunity to write a comment. And I like it because you write a comment to the child and go through it with them. I don't know whether the teachers, when they're sent back, go through it with them or not.
Students often assess their own work samples - an approach supported by parents.
In that school they have a display book, work portfolio, and twice a year they bring that home. And it's got marked tests with the teacher's comments and so on. And also the student's self-assessment of their work and what they've achieved and what they need to work on. The parent has to sign that and send it back to the school. We get the book home and we have to read through it and look at actual examples of work and the teacher's comments and the student's own assessment.... I think it's great because they're really giving you... a much broader hands-on feel for how they're achieving in their work and it means a lot more than numbers or letters on a page.
A number of parents commented that students appear to set higher standards for themselves in their selfassessments than they would have expected. External Tests A majority of parents support standardised testing10 because it currently provides them with the only external indicator they have of how their children compare with other students across the State/ Territory.
I suppose it's the first real measurement that you get on how your [children] are going.
Additionally, for many parents - and in some States/ Territories more than others - it provides them with diagnostic information to identify areas where their children require further support and assistance. Parents also support standardised testing because it provides additional information for monitoring school and teacher standards, not just the performance of their children. Parents find information from state/ territory-wide testing most useful when the reports provide specific information, often of a diagnostic nature, which is beyond that provided by the child's teachers. For some parent s, test results at Year 3 or 5 were the first indication they had received that their child had a learning problem. In many cases it was the catalyst for the parent to take action to remediate the problem. Parents who are less enthusiastic about standardised testing indicated that this is, in part, due to the fact that they cannot interpret the results.
I think it's very unsatisfactory because... you get a piece of paper home... and, there's been no other explanation by the school or by any other forum to really explain those results, other than the letter explaining how the tests were done.
Sometimes, also, the information from the test results does not match the information parents receive from teachers, which parents find confusing. Parents find systemic standardised testing programs that provide diagnostic information to be particularly useful. However, diagnostic information is of little use if schools do not know how to accurately interpret test results or fail to act to remediate any problems that are identified. Parents reported instances of learning problems identified in later years, which they subsequently discovered had been, or should have been, apparent from earlier test results. Parents believe that standardised tests provide pressure for teachers and schools to maintain quality. They see teacher quality as integral to their children's progress and improvements in teaching as associated with improvement in student learning.
If the teacher of Grade 3 sits down and looks at all her... students and they're all at the bottom end of the reading scale [of the standardised test] then maybe she is slipping in her teaching of reading. It shows me the school has a high standard generally.
Many parents, including those who support standardised testing, however, sounded a note of caution about their use. They clearly do not want the tests to lead to unnecessary or excessive performance pressures being placed on students, particularly primary aged students, and they want safeguards to ensure that testing does not lead teachers away from a focus on teaching to a focus on testing. Informal Sources of Information on Student Progress Parents are information bowerbirds when it comes to knowing how their children are progressing. They use any information source, some not intended as formal reporting mechanisms, and sift and analyse the information to glean what may be useful to them. They build up a picture from multiple sources of information that give the same message.
Classroom visits
Parents who visit the school frequently, particularly if they are classroom helpers, gain much information about their children's progress through those visits. As classroom helpers they are able to assess the standards of work in the classroom and make judgements about their child's achievements compared with other students and compared with specified standards. Some parents use school open days (or nights) to learn about their children's achievements. These are scheduled occasions when parents are invited to the school and into classrooms to view children's work. Parents find these occasions useful for comparing their child's work with that of other students.
Homework
Homework is very useful in informing parents about how their children are progressing. Homework that is returned marked by teachers is even more useful. For many parents, homework provides an insight into what is being taught in classrooms. Homework is the only means that many have to assess on a regular basis how their children are achieving and progressing in the months prior to the first written report of the year. Parents of secondary school students also find that homework tells them about how their children are progressing. They report, however, that secondary students are less forthcoming in showing them work. Homework assignments, particularly when the child involves the parents or discusses the work with them, is a common way that parents of secondary students learn about their progress. Many parents report that teachers involve them formally in their children's homework practices. This most commonly involves having them sign off on their children's homework and has the effect of requiring parents to monitor the completion of homework. Most parents who reported this practice like it not only because it provides them with an entr...e that they might not otherwise get to their children's work, but also because it tells them that the school is organised about homework and monitors it. Parents mentioned that a weekly plan for homework is appreciated because it enables them to plan homework completion around family commitments. Parents prefer to see homework that is relevant to the learning program. They do not like to see homework that they find meaningless 'busy work'. Parents use homework much like they use information from tests, to provide an insight into teacher and school quality. Planned, meaningful and relevant homework practices send positive messages about school and teacher quality.
Home-school communication books and diaries
Our children start using diaries from Year 2... for their homework, any notes they have, [and] things they have to remember. And there's space... for comments. And you'll find, well I have found, that the teachers will make comments to you in that as well. It might be something that's happened that week. [The child] may have raised a problem with the teacher about the work, homework, etc, and you get a comment back at the end of the week saying, well you know we worked on this, or Joe Blow's done really well this week in maths. And that helps too. That gives you an idea of how [the child is progressing].
The comment above from a parent is one example of how a diary or home-school communication book works. All parents value this system, especially when it functions properly. They are especially happy with diary systems that encourage two-way communication and enable parents to write messages back to the teacher. The only criticism from parents of diary systems is that they are often not maintained throughout the year. Home-school diaries require a significant commitment from teachers and parents, and secondary school students often negate the process by not passing the diary back and forth.
Other information
Parents find informal conversations with their children and with teachers a good source of information about their children's progress. They like to chat with their children, usually at the end of each day, about the day and what they did and what they learned.
Comments from [my child] are valuable as we get feedback about her progress and whether she is happy or not and is making and keeping friends. [They are] an important gauge on daily school life and how teachers are perceived. Parents indicate that primary school children are generally more open than secondary children, but that all children can be encouraged to talk to their parents. If a child is having problems at school, he or she is less likely to talk about it easily with parents. Hence, parents say they cannot rely on their children alone to alert them to difficulties.
Parents also often find that visiting the school regularly puts them in a position to gather teacher comments in
a less formal way. If they are regular visitors to the school and are known by teachers they find that they often have 'classroom door ' or 'canteen' conversations with teachers. Parent organisation members, in particular, say that their position and profile in the school enables them to access more frequent information about their children. They are therefore less reliant on the written report as a source of information.
I just call in when I'm in; you know, catch him in the corridor and say "How are things going?" So I think it's that one-to-one that I get most of my valuable information from. I'm President of our [parent organisation] so I'm actively involved... and I get to know the teachers so I personally haven't found any problem with sharing information. I'm in there all the time and we're talking about how my child is doing and so forth. So it hasn't been a problem... If I wasn't like that, I don't know if I would get the information unless I went out seeking for it.... The reports at the end of semester probably just kind of sum it up for me. There are usually no surprises... because I know pretty well what's going on.
Issues Associated with Reporting on Student Progress

Written Reports
Usefulness and clarity
Parents noted a tendency, particularly among primary schools, to avoid facing or telling hard truths. They feel that teachers often couch negative comments in unclear or misleading language, or put comments on learning difficulties in a warm, encouraging and positive tone.
Reports [might] say "Johnny is a good boy" or "doing well"... but you know he could cope with a lot more. I've seen some written reports... and I've said "That comment's interesting" because I've known that child, he's not really super hot in that particular area, and they've just said a positive thing. And I thought well, yeah, it's great to say a positive thing, but it's not accurate.
Parents understand how difficult it may be for teachers to convey 'bad' news. 11
I know from what's been said from teachers that they sometimes have to tread cautiously because of the backlash, or a person not wanting to believe that's where their child is at. They want to say the truth but they've got to do it in a delicate way. [Teachers] are not allowed to write a negative comment about a child.
Nevertheless parents really want a "fair and honest" assessment of how their children are progressing. They do not want to find out in later years that a child has "a problem because he didn't have the fundamentals." Parents believe that advice can be 'honest' without being negative. Many considered that written reports are too often 'politically correct' at the expense of 'honesty'.
If the child is failing, they want it said on [the report]. They don't want some politically correct thing on there. [Parents] want to know in black and white [how their children are achieving]. Parents who have noted the contrast between the generally more from some primary schools. Related to the lack criticised reports which they feel have not been to decode the language of reports.
children in both primary and secondary schools, particularly precise reporting of the secondary school with 'fuzzy' reporting of clarity is the inappropriate use of educational jargon. Parents tailored to their level of understanding. Many expressed a need
Well, [the report's] pretty vague and its sort of coded, you know, like you're not really sure what it means... They forget to give the parents the code... [An example is] (reading from report) "She communicates factual knowledge with a high degree of accuracy and understanding and she has
been successful interpreting theoretical information". ... 'C' for consistently. So I find that terminology extremely broad. I mean what's 'consistently'? Is it consistent to the child? Is it consistent with the rest of the class? Is it consistent with the state level of what's expected? In the end it doesn't really matter whether you're a rocket scientist or a truck driver... if they use a lot of educational jargon, like they're doing, nobody will understand what they're saying unless you've been schooled in it.
Where ratings or codes are used, parents need to understand not only what the codes mean, but also how the assessments are arrived at. They believe that knowledge of assessment processes is essential if they are to fully understand the report.
How is it that marks get made up?... And how do they make those value judgements about what's important to include in something that becomes just one letter on a page?
Objective standards
The lack of clarity and vagueness noted by many parents in reports was considered by others to be due to a lack of objective standards through which they could really see where their child 'was at'. The term 'where he (or she) is at' was used repeatedly by parents. It denotes a need for a sense of precision and 'positioning' that many parents do not feel that they get from what they call 'vague' reports. These parents do not believe that the reports they now receive enable them to understand how their children are achieving. Many were more explicit and asked for information that would enable them to compare their children's progress with other students or with some agreed state/ territory-wide standard.
There's a demand [among parents] in my school for comparison stuff among students. A particular students' achievement in relation to the class and the state and national average. (Comment in relation to a systemic standardised test). I keep pushing for things like... benchmarking. "Can you tell us how this class is going in the relation to the rest of the school?" "No". "Can you tell us how this school is going in relation to [the State/ Territory] or the... system". "No".
In discussions with parents the need for comparative information on student achievement was raised more frequently than any other issue relating to reporting on children's progress. Parents, who had previously been exposed to a system whereby students were ranked in class, often asked for this form of reporting to be reintroduced because they felt that under a ranking system they could see how their child compared with other children. Parents also expressed concern about how a system of standards reporting would affect the self esteem of lower achieving students. Others indicated that competition is a 'fact of life' and that students should get used to it.
We want comparative stuff. We don't want to just know if Jane is a good girl who gets on with people and works hard. We want to know [how she achieves compared to others] because once they get out into the real world... they do have to compete against other people.
Many parents believe that students already know the 'pecking order' in their classes. Others were uncomfortable about not being able to reconcile their need for an objective statement about the attainment level of their children with a strong dislike of competition and 'labelling'. This view is more common among primary school parents. Some parents suggested that a system of recording students' results in tests (marks) would enable parents to see how their children were performing without them being ranked. Others were against any system of reporting based on standards established by individual schools, as they believed it could be inadequate or misleading for their needs, as one school's standard might not be high enough.
The comparability of school standards is critical when students change schools, move from primary to secondary school, or are preparing for post secondary schooling. Parents reported examples of students who believed they were high achievers - 'A-level' students in their primary school - and discovered that in secondary school they were only getting 'C's. Parents of these students did not believe that this reflected their children's ability but rather the standard of learning at the primary school.
An 'A' is the highest grade they get. They think they're doing well. But an 'A' means just seventy and that's not good enough,... They've been getting 'A's all along at school, so they can't figure out why [they can't] get into medicine. They tell you basically where they are in a class.... I'd quite often like to know where they sit in relation to other schools. I mean, does their school mark extremely hard or is their school a bit easier on the kids?... Is an 'A' at that school an 'A' in another school?
Whilst the issue of standards was noted more at critical stages of transition in schooling, it was considered important at all stages. Reporting against standards enables parents to know when they need to get their children to 'pull their socks up' and it enables students themselves to monitor their own progress more easily. Parents also believe that a system based on state/ territory level standards would expose under-performing teachers and put pressure on them to improve. The current situation enabled too much leeway for the teacher to set the standard, and that even when students were graded, it was only against the class-level standard. Under these conditions parents had no way of knowing whether the teaching standard at their school, and therefore the achievements of their children, were 'up to scratch'. Reporting based on objective standards is likely to be more effective at detecting students who require additional support or referral to a specialist. A number of parents reported that too frequently student problems went undetected and 'slipped through the net' because there was little to alert teachers or parents to the problem.
The teachers told me in the reports she was going along fine and whatever. In the end, I think it was Grade 3, it was me who had to tell them that they had to do something.... She's in Grade 6 now and probably at a Grade 2 level.
Interpretative and constructive reporting
Parents who are highly engaged with their children's learning often find considerable frustration when they receive a bland report, especially if it mainly features ticks or letter codes. They want something more substantial. They want reports that not only tell them what their children have achieved, but what they face next or need to do to improve. Importantly, they also want advice on how they, as parents, can help. Many see the parent-teacher meeting as the appropriate avenue for this, and are satisfied with the teacher's cooperation.
I just went to the meetings and they were the same questions. Which are: How's he going? Does he need help? And, if he needs help, how can I help him? That's exactly what I want to know.... When it's face to face [I get the answers]. Whereas with a report it doesn't tell you that. I want to find out exactly what my child is good at... and where her strengths and weaknesses really lie because that doesn't always come out in a report... I really challenge the teacher. I want them to tell me a lot more than they actually put in a report.
Parents find that if they ask or push for specific information they usually get it. However, they want written reports to routinely include interpretative and constructive comments, so that they do not have to ask for it. They are dissatisfied at having to seek out the implications of their children's reports rather than having it provided to them. Parents directly and indirectly expressed interest in the development of all facets of their children. They believe that schools have a role in much more than academic development. They want reports to express that. Many expressed disappointment that student reports have little focus on development in non-academic areas. The
development of social and relationship skills are particularly important, possibly reflecting a recognition that interpersonal skills are important to happiness, which is what parents most want for their children, and to future career success.
You don't get anything about the social development of the child at all unless you... specifically [ask for it]. I actually asked all my daughter's Year 7 teachers what they thought of her behaviour in class.... And it was really quite interesting because I didn't really get a good idea of what my daughter was like [from teachers' responses].
Outcomes reporting
Some States/ Territories and education systems are introducing changes from letter grades and similar assessment approaches to a criterion-based outcomes reporting approach. Many parents are finding it difficult to adjust to this form of reporting, not because they don't like this approach to curriculum, but because the reporting format used is not easily understood. Parents are critical of the current methods of outcomes reporting, although they are not critical of the use of an outcomes approach per se.
And then Grandpa picks it up and says "Oh, you've got all these 'B's. That's great. What are these 'C's doing there". And you go, "But 'C's are better than 'B's these days" I don't particularly like their system of grading and it's confusing until you've read it because there is 'B', 'C' and 'E', and you think that 'B' is better than 'E'. But 'B' is beginning to understand concepts, 'C' is consolidating concepts and 'E' is... established. So when you see 'B's to start with, ' Oh terrific.... So I disagree with that, but otherwise for information about how the child is doing, I think they're pretty good. I like to pick something up and read it and understand it straight away and I reckon you don't with [outcomes reports]... I'm one of those people... when they send you out the report and they send you the top sheet which you know you should read first because it explains the report, but I don't want to read the top sheet, I just want to flick through [the report] and say oh yeah look he's good at that and he's not good at that. But I don't get that from [these reports]. (This parent felt better informed after a subsequent meeting with the teacher who explained the report to her.)
Parents find it difficult to adjust to assessment reports that apply to learning levels across two years of schooling and the lack of a direct match between grades and levels. 12
The levels are over two years, so you're never going to get a high score for your first year, because you can't possibly have done the work required.... It always seems like your child in the lower part of that level never does well, they never get the high marks. "Early Stage 1" is meaningless to me.
Parents who have had this system of outcomes reporting explained to them and understand how their children have been assessed find the reports useful.
I think it gives you so much more information. It gives the kids a lot more information. You can actually sit there and say, "Oh look, in reading you're doing all of this and that. But perhaps we need to look at that and the other".... There are some really concise comments now, not just Tom's a lovely boy, but really nitty-grittys about where he is.
When too much detail is provided to parents about the outcomes achieved by their children, especially when the outcomes are described in jargon, parents find the information overwhelming and the detail can obscure the overall picture of the child's performance. Some parents find the descriptions "too long and too wordy" and "hard to understand".
I would prefer learning outcomes stated in layman's terms.
The language is inaccessible and intimidating. The language was unfamiliar.

In systems where work samples are sent home as part of the process of reporting on the achievement of outcomes, parents need an explanation of what the expected learning outcomes are for a particular piece of work. Parents value teachers who annotate the sample and explain the relevance of the learning. Sometimes samples are sent home without any comment at all. In these cases parents are unable to make use of the sample to inform them about how well the child is progressing. Overall, it is evident that the assessment of outcomes for teaching purposes needs to be a separate process from that for purposes of reporting to parents. If parents are ultimately to support criterion-based outcomes approaches to curriculum then they must be reported to parents in a way that is useful, meaningful and clearly understood. 13
Timeliness of information
The timing of the distribution of student reports is important to parents. They consider written reports to be a catalyst for continuing engagement in their children's learning as they respond to the information reported.
I would like the first [written report] to come sooner, during first term, then you find out sooner and sort problems out if the child is struggling.
Parents prefer not to receive reports on the last day of a term. They then have to wait through the holidays, sometimes feeling anxious, before they can discuss the report with the teacher. In these cases they also believe that they lose valuable time in which they could be providing learning support to their children over the holidays. Many parents find that the end-of-year report is unnecessary or less important, as they can do little until they know about their child's program for the next year. Parents want reports to be distributed at times that can maximise their input to their children's learning. Parents of students in the first year at a school, particularly the first year of primary and secondary schooling, find that waiting till the end of semester one is too long to discover how well their child is settling in to the new school. Parents appreciate reports during Term 1, where these are provided.
Computer-generated reports
Parents express a degree of mistrust of computer-generated reports. They appreciate that teachers may find that they save time, but if the outcome is information that is of inferior use to parents, then the time spent generating reports is wasted. This criticism by parents is particularly aimed at the 'select a comment' type report, not those for which teachers use a computer as a word processor to prepare the sort of comments that they previously wrote by hand. Parents indicate that they find computer reports to be more impersonal and limited. Parents like to think that each report is tailored to their children.
It is computer-generated and you get the feeling it is impersonal. I would like a more individual touch, a sense that this is my child. The reports have computer-generated comments on them. This takes the meaning and relevance right out of them. It shocks me. I was reading [the report] so intently and hanging on to every word until I realised this.
Parents reported instances of schools withdrawing computer-generated reports after parent backlash.
When I first started getting reports they were computerised.... There was such a parent revolt.
Parent-Teacher Meetings
Organisation of meetings
Parents generally make favourable comments about parent-teacher meetings. However, parents are dissatisfied when such meetings are poorly organised and planned and when they are insensitive to the needs of parents. When the meetings lack focus and purpose parents see them as ceremonial only, ie. that they are useful only as an exercise in 'waving the flag'. Meetings of 5-10 minutes are limited in their usefulness and provide parents with an opportunity to do little more than make contact with the teacher. In the secondary context, the numbers of parents waiting for meetings, and number of teachers that parents wish to meet in a short space of time, means that it is sometimes impossible for parents to see more than a few teachers at a parent-teacher session.
You get five minutes with the teacher. You actually have to put your name down as to which teachers you want to see. And once your five-minute interval times all fill up. That's it. If there's one that you want to see and all the time's used up. You miss out. [We] have the parent-teacher [meeting] and I've always complained because ours are eight minutes.... After hearing these ladies [other parents in the focus group]... I should stop complaining. Parent-teacher meetings [are] very short, eight minutes per teacher. Not enough. Not enough feedback. "Can I see the examination papers, the test papers so I can see where my son is going wrong?" "No, denied." [We] need more time allotment so we're able to see more teachers... I might only see five teachers out of eight most times.
Some schools advise parents of the meetings via students, some of whom discourage their parents from attending the meetings, or fail to pass on notices. Parents believe that some schools do not take the meetings seriously and view them only as an obligation. In some instances, not all teachers make themselves available or are disinterested in reporting to parents.
The faculties are basically... uncontactable. They don't particularly welcome parents going and asking them questions, finding out what's actually happening with their kids, or asking for specific information. It all comes home in a half-yearly and yearly report.
Areas of dissatisfaction
Parents who are dissatisfied with parent-teacher meetings believe that they could be more focussed. These parents indicated that they: do not find a general chit chat about the child constructive; often find the discussion vague and unhelpful; and sometimes come away from parent-teacher meeting wondering if the teacher really knows their children. Some parents counter this by attending the scheduled meeting to show they are interested in their children's education, but then look for other opportunities to have a substantive discussion about their children's progress.
I guess the interviews are reasonably short, but it's a good opportunity to find out if there's a problem. And if you want you can make an appointment during the day.
Parents who know what their children are learning are able to use their knowledge to provide a context for the meeting and find the discussion focussed and helpful as a result. Many parents also view these meetings as opportunities for two-way communication, not just the teacher telling parents about the child, but parents telling the teacher of their perceptions. Parents want the outcomes of such discussions integrated into decisions about how school and home might jointly support student learning.
As soon as we changed schools, it was "That's no problem". You build up [a] relationship with... the teachers, the principal and the school.... And I worked very hard at it because... I didn't want any
more failure. And I told them that he needed to succeed and if they could find anything that he could succeed with, then I would be happy. And so they understood that from the beginning. [Parent after searching (successfully) for a school that would work with her in the schooling of her 'difficult' child.]
Teachers do not always take notice of parents' advice in meetings, or are slow to respond.
The reporting process had broken down, basically, because they didn't listen to what I had told them at the parent-teacher interview. My major concern is that reporting is a two-way street. They have got to listen as well to what parents are trying to report to them. We got results. [The teacher] finally even read the reports and assessments that had come from the neurosensory unit that were photocopied and sent to the school last year [and hadn't been read]. "Here we are second term and they still haven't looked at it, and it had all the strategies for him... to use with my child". I mean how easy can it get. So yeah, [applying pressure to the teacher] worked.
Not all parents feel confident about a more active role in parent-teacher meetings and need to be supported in that role.
When my children first started going to high school, the [parent-teacher] interview was very, very scary.... If parents had a bad time at school themselves... they're not about to go up to a parentteacher interview. They usually don't come. We need to educate the parents about what they need to do with parent-teacher interviews, because you know, the parents just sat there and had their [interview] and they weren't game to ask a question.
A Role for Students Parents believe that their children are an integral part of the reporting process, part of the 'loop'. The whole cycle of assessment, reporting, responding, etc. involves the child. It is common for students to report to parents after self-assessment of their work, parents usually discuss the written report and its implications with their children, and frequently the parent-teacher meeting is a three-way discussion with parents, teachers and students participating. Children are involved in written reports in two ways. First, when student self-assessment is a feature of the written report and second, when students discuss the content of the reports with their parents. Parents (and teachers) are surprised at how seriously children assess themselves.
The teacher... got the kids to report on themselves.... Self-reporting was, I thought, a very useful developmental technique for her as an individual. She had to think about how she was going. In fact she was much harder on herself than the teacher was. At least twice a year we get the book home and we have to actually read through it and look at examples of work, with the teacher's comments and the student's own assessment.... Students often set higher standards than the teachers in terms of what ought to be done.
A more common role for students in the reporting process is to discuss the report with their parents. There is considerable variation in the depth of the discussion, from fairly perfunctory engagement to more in-depth discussions. Reports which provide more written detail, particularly in the form of learning outcomes or thoughtful written comments from the teacher, give parents a better basis for constructive discussion with their children. Annotated work samples often provide a more accessible basis for a discussion about student learning than 'formula' reports. It is relatively common for students to be present and have a role in parent-teacher meetings. Many parents believe that because the meeting is about the child and their progress, they should be part of the discussion. In particular, parents believe that students will be encouraged to be more involved in their own learning.
Is [the report] something secret between the teacher and the parents?... And that's the way it often gets taken isn't it... and I think that involving the child in the whole process [is important]...." We're talking about you, we're including you in this conversation. Tell me about how you're going."... so that it becomes much more of something that we're all doing together and thinking about that person's progress rather then [the report being] just something that's sort of kept and filed. I like this idea of the children being part of the parent-teacher process because it's their future as well. They should be there and they should hear what their teachers have to say about them to their parents and vice versa. It's very important.
This belief in an active role for students was reported more commonly by secondary school parents - some of whom mentioned that there was an expectation in some schools for children to be present. Parents of primary school students also support the involvement of their children in such meetings. Student involvement in meetings is not just about students responding to the report, but also contributing through an on the spot selfassessment.
Generally the report is about the student, but the students don't have any say, in most situations, any legitimate way of contributing to that process, They're almost like a piece of furniture.... In [the new school] I've experienced a different kind of involvement of the student in the reporting process. ...The student actually comes in with the parents... so that they get to talk about how they think they're going and what their needs are. ...One of the things that's actually encouraged is that the student goes home and talks to their parents about issues they want discussed. (Parent of primary student)
Some parents, however, are not in favour of having their children present at parent-teacher meetings. They feel that it would constrain the discussion and prevent the parents and teacher from being as open as they would like in discussing children's progress. Some parents who are in favour of having their children participating in the discussion also want an arrangement that provides an opportunity where some part of the meeting can be restricted to them and the teacher. For some parents, having children present gives them an opportunity to assess the teacher student relationship. They find that this is a good pointer to how their children are getting on with teachers and an indicator of any potential difficulties. Students with Problems Parents whose students were successful at school tend to have fewer concerns about reporting systems. For these students, reporting often does not have a significant impact on their learning achievements, and therefore parents are more likely to be accepting of whatever reporting system is provided. The detection and reporting of learning and behavioural problems, however, is a major issue for parents. It prompted more parent emotion than any other in this study. Parents reported mixed experiences of schools' responsiveness. Many had had experiences of the school being prompt in bringing matters to their attention. The assurance that the school would do so was very comforting to them.
Teachers... will very quickly contact the parents if they see the child is struggling or losing ground. They are interested to find out if there are any problems at home or if the child needs help... The teachers try to find out why they're not improving.... So with this new school, I find that as soon as there was something that they were concerned about... they felt I should know... they'd call me or they'd send a message home. And [they'd say] "He's not working, not concentrating he's all over the place. What do you think we should do about it?" And I found this much more helpful than getting a report at the end of term.
Other parents reported a number of incidences where problems were not reported immediately. This resulted in delays in action being taken to improve the situation.
If there's a... problem you don't hear about it until it's become a major problem. You don't hear from a teacher saying "Look your child is moving towards having problems in this area, can we
please talk and rectify it?" ...Unless your child has missed four or five assignments, and you don't know there's a problem with the first assignment, let alone the fourth or fifth.... Teachers don't know the kids individually [in secondary school]. So Amanda actually ended up with some problems that were way down the track before we even realised it. She went from being an 'A' student to basically not being there. Then we got a phone call in July. "Can you please come up and see us?" And I had no idea why we were going up. And so it was the longest journey in my life... to get to the school. And "Oh your daughter is crying. She's under a lot of stress. ...She's just not making the grade." And I said, "Well why didn't someone tell me this sooner?"
Parents want to be advised immediately if there is a problem. Some of the instances of late reporting of problems were cited by active members of parent organisations, who were disappointed that despite their profile in the school, the school had not alerted them earlier of the problem. Parents also want improvements in schools' ability to detect problems. Many believe that teachers lack the skills to effectively diagnose and remediate problems. Some parents who suspected a problem had their children assessed at their own expense. On the basis of the assessment, they then applied pressure to schools to introduce specific learning programs. Sometimes, despite parent pressure, schools were not forthcoming in responding to the behavioural, social or learning problem that had been identified. In these instances parents reported that they changed schools, and often after an extensive search were able to find a school responsive to their children's needs.
We persevered with the school. ...It was an absolute disaster because we left him there for probably another twelve months and then we realised it was just hopeless. We removed him from that school... What [the new school] has actually done is literally turn the situation around from a child who had very poor self-esteem [and] all sorts of behavioural problems into a child who's succeeding in the areas that he's extremely strong in.
Parents who reported stories like this often commented that they were successful because they were assertive, knew what they wanted, and found out how to achieve their goals. Some of them commented that parents without their knowledge, resource-fulness or time - the 'average' parent would have a very difficult task in protecting the needs of any children with difficulties at school, whether detected or not.
...It's very easy for that [not knowing that a child's performance is slipping] to happen if you're not the sort of parent that's in there asking questions all the time. ...There are a lot of parents who aren't, or can't be involved to that degree in their children's education. So reporting needs to be able to meet the requirements of a wide range of people.
In summary, parents criticised school practices in reporting about students' learning problems on a number of grounds. They (parents) often found out through a scheduled end of semester report. They think this is too late. They sometimes found out through a phone call or letter requesting an meeting, but discovered that the problem had been around for some time. They sometimes found out months or years later, when the problem had been identified by someone else, that the problem had existed for some time, including, in some instances, years. Sometimes, it was the parents who had detected a problem and then they had difficulty convincing the school of it, only to be subsequently proven right.
Discussion
In terms of opportunities to learn about their children's progress, parents are generally satisfied to receive written reports at regular intervals and have the opportunity to attend a parent-teacher meeting. They also usually like to be presented with examples of their children's work - either through homework, work samples, tests or assignments - in the period between formal reports. They need to be assured that they can approach the school at any time, for feedback or to raise a concern, and that the school will contact them immediately if
there is a problem. These are the basics to successful reporting. Parents generally do not rely on any one means alone but use multiple sources of information to give a rounded picture of their child's progress. They are concerned if information from one source does not support that from other sources. Parents are adamant that schools should take what they have to say seriously and understand that both parents and teachers are together sharing the provision of support for children's development. Parents are clear in their view that individual teachers have delegated responsibility for individual children for only some of the time, or in only some learning areas, and that it is parents who are responsible for the educational decisions in relation to their children. Parents quite explicitly reject t he nine t e e nth century view that the State/ Territory is responsible for the education of children. Schools are widely viewed as service providers by students and parents, and not as controlling authorities in young people's lives. Parents, nevertheless, acknowledge the goodwill and professionalism of teachers and do not want to be unreasonable. Parents are aware that there are schools that have exemplary reporting practices. They want the school their child attends to be one of them. Parents have identified a number of features of effective reporting. Written Reports Parents want written reports to indicate the 'real' achievement level of their children. They believe that some reference to a standard is the best way for this to occur, and that the standard needs to be objective and preferably refer to state/ territory level benchmarks indicating expected levels of achievement at each stage of schooling. The desire for an external standard does not reflect a desire among the majority of parents for students to be ranked or directly compared with one another. They support well-founded teacher judgements against benchmarks, provided they can be shown to be reliable and standardised across teachers and schools. Parents were very concerned that reporting be a 'fair' process, with the outcome being a clear indication of how well children are progressing relative to their peers and to standardised benchmarks. They do not want the process, particularly in primary schools, to produce an overly competitive environment for students. Parents need to know the basis for any assessment of a child if they are to fully comprehend the written report. As one parent asked: "I wonder how the grades are made up? What sort of things do teachers choose to make up the grades?" Parents want the teachers to interpret their assessments - to explain what they mean. They especially want to know what assessments mean in terms of focusing improvement efforts and how parents can assist their children's learning. Parents want constructive advice about all children; not only those who are experiencing less than expected levels of achievement. Reports must be easily able to be interpreted by 'average' parents if they are to be useful. Parents want the language to be straightforward and jargon-free and the key information to be readily accessible. While they want comprehensive information, they do not want so much detail that they miss the main points. More frequent reports earlier in the year would be useful to parents. It is important to parents that school reports focus on more than academic progress. They want information on a broad range of areas of their children's development - academic, social, and behavioural - as well as achievements in extra-curricula areas such as sport or music. Parent-Teacher Meetings Parents see the parent-teacher meeting as providing an opportunity to form a relationship with their children's teachers and to have an interactive discussion of the written report. They prefer that teachers use tests and samples of the students' work to demonstrate the points they are making, as this makes the learning goals for
the student clearer to them. They want to be able to access all the teachers of their children, and if the 'supermarket queue' process does not provide this opportunity, many want to arrange a meeting to discuss matters in greater depth at an alternative time. Parents want all schools to encourage and to take steps to make it comfortable for them to attend parent-teacher meetings. The parent-teacher meeting is viewed by parents as an opportunity to tell teachers about their child and to establish a sense of partnership in managing the children's education.
Chapter 4: Information Provided to Parents about School Programs

Introduction
Parent interest and satisfaction in receiving information about whole school, grade-level or specific classroom programs are related directly to how relevant it is to their children's education. Relatively few parents express an interest in broader educational issues. Parents have quite different experiences of the provision of information by schools. Some schools are miserly in what they tell parents, others provide parents with an abundance of information. The difference is often associated with how schools view parents and their role in education. Those that want parents to be closely involved and supportive of their children's education make it as easy as possible for parents to receive relevant information. Those that try to keep parents at bay are less forthcoming in providing information. There is considerable variation in the information that different schools, and different teachers within schools, provide.
The volume of detail ...varies from subject to subject and even within a faculty.
Parents have varying needs and expectations for information. There is little differentiation among parents in the information they receive, although parents with children going through the education system for the first time may have quite different needs. Many parents learn the hard way from experience with their first child and are better prepared and more confident for subsequent children. Parents appear to be most satisfied when they are able to get information from a range of sources, thus enabling them to better corroborate information. They are more confident and satisfied if the information provided by the school concurs with what they hear from children or other parents. Parents who are more actively involved in schools, more confident about approaching parents and teachers and have a high level of informal contact with school staff are also more satisfied than those who aren't. Parents in schools where improved school and home communication is a priority for the school are also generally very satisfied. Approximately two thirds of parents are satisfied with the quality and amount of information they receive. The remainder are either dissatisfied or only partially satisfied. Parents of primary students are much more likely to be satisfied than are those of secondary students. Most parents believe that if they want more information it is up to them as parents to seek it out.
I've had my older child go through school so I guess I know a little bit about what they do in each year. Anyway, ...you don't want too much information. Sometimes ...you can be overloaded with too much information. They should just give you a basic outline is what I'm trying to say. ...I think that is quite sufficient and if you want to know more [the school's] quite willing for you to ask questions.
A minority of parents are interested in having more information, and are disappointed that schools do not make
it easy for them to get additional information. The different levels of satisfaction appear to be related not to different parental expectations but to differences in what different schools provide. When dissatisfied parents talk about the information they want to receive it is commonly the type of information the satisfied parents say that they already receive or have access to. Parents, generally, look favourably on schools' efforts to provide them with information but they are less positive about schools' willingness to engage them in decision making about school policies or, in secondary schools in particular, in having them "around the place".
Sources of Information Available to Parents

Information Nights/ Days Parents cite formal information days and evenings as the most common means by which they gain information on schools' curriculum programs. These are usually held at the beginning of the school year. They introduce parents to the courses and learning programs that their children will be undertaking in the coming year. In many cases they also provide parents with an overview of the curriculum appropriate for their children. Information sessions are provided more regularly to parents of primary school students and students in the first year of secondary schooling, than they are for the subsequent years of secondary schooling. The sessions are conducted at individual grade levels, and in some instances at individual class level. Parents who attend them value these sessions, but they note that the proportion of parents who attend is not large. Parents particularly value small and focussed group meetings. Parents have a better opportunity to form relationships with teachers and interact with them in smaller groups. When provided for class groups of parents these sessions focus on more relevant information and provide an opportunity for parents to experience the curriculum that their children will be covering in a 'hands-on' manner. Such sessions are mostly conducted by primary schools. Parents find them useful and enjoyable.
They have parent-teacher [meetings] two weeks into school and you go and sit in your child's classroom. You sit in their seat if you want to. The teacher gets every book out and says, "Right. This term we're going to study this and this and next term we're going to do this. And we're going to do problem solving in this area..." When my children were in primary school we had ...year evenings ...Year 3 parents would all get together and you would actually sit in the desk where your child would normally sit. ...They even went as far as to say, "Now this is what we're going to do". They had quizzes for you so that you could sort of get the idea of what was being taught.
Parents find that handouts, whether given out at the information session or forwarded at a later date, are very useful supplements to these sessions as they can refer to them later. Handouts are also handy reference materials for parents who are unable to attend information sessions.
The [teacher] just sort of gives us a lesson. And then we have handouts. And I think handouts are wonderful things because you're nervous and you don't take it all in. And then you go home and you read it.
Parent-teacher evenings appear to be the only source of information on children's learning programs even though some parents would prefer to receive information in written form.14
I don't feel well-informed. ...At the beginning of the year I would like a kind of summary of the program - some basis for knowing what he's doing. I would prefer written information rather than personal, as I like time to absorb the information rather than just hearing it.
Newsletters School newsletters are the usual and most common means by which parents find out what is happening at their schools. The frequency and regularity with which they are published means that they link parents with the
school on a continuous basis. Newsletters are almost universally appreciated and liked for providing the sort of information that parents expect from them.
It's the first thing I say to my kids when they walk through the door "Hello. Where's the newsletter".
Newsletters don't provide much information in the way of student learning programs. Parents do not necessarily expect this to be detailed in newsletters. They do expect them to provide a broad coverage of what is occurring or being planned to occur in the school.
Every Thursday a bulletin goes out about what's happened through the week. ...It's from various areas, from religious education to the canteen, to the uniform shop lady. Anything that's appropriate that parents need to know on a weekly basis comes from [the principal], and anything he needs to bring up. We get a lot of congratulations on who's achieved what and how well. What's going on out of school hours - musical productions, sporting events - you get an occasional thing from teachers saying we're going to be concentrating on this or that and the children are expected to do this.
When newsletters do provide brief outlines of the learning program and activities- often by profiling a different class or activity in selected editions- parents find the information interesting and useful. A small number expect to receive at least some curriculum information in newsletters.
Through newsletters ...we're always hearing about what is going on in all of the years. And what the kids have been achieving right across the curriculum and extra-curricula activities. And I think that's important for the people to know about the wide range of things that go on in the school. Newsletters are mostly about politics and funding etc. There is not enough curriculum information.
Many schools make a great effort to ensure that their newsletters are understood by parents as they view them as the primary means of communication with parents. Some go to considerable trouble to ensure the widest possible readership, including translations into other languages.
We have a real multicultural school [and] every now and again in our newsletter, if there's something really important [to be] said, it will be in two or three languages, so there's no excuse then that mum and dad don't see it.
Homework, Student Diaries and Communication Sheets Parents use their children's homework, and other school-work that the children bring home, to learn about and monitor the educational programs of the school. They value the insights they get from homework because it is specific to their child. Where parents are provided with the overall learning framework for the class, such as through an information session or information sheet, they find the homework particularly meaningful to them, as they can then place the homework in the context of their children's overall learning program. Student diaries or journals fulfil a similar role for parents. That is, they enable an ongoing and regular interaction between children's schoolwork and work at home, thus providing an avenue for parents to become informed about their progress and a basis for monitoring the learning program of the school. The term 'communication sheet' is used to cover communications from individual teachers to the parents of students in their classes. Where this mechanism for communicating with parents is used, it is most often the initiative of an individual teacher, rather than a school-wide practice. The use of communication sheets is not very widespread, but is very popular with parents who receive them. Where provided, parents find them to be both regular and informative. The communication sheet is used by teachers to provide regular updates to parents about what is happening in their classes, what the students are learning and what parents could do to help. It is different from the student diary in that it is direct teacher to parent communication, rather than communication through students' work.
School Publications School publications such as the student diaries noted above, yearly calendars, prospectuses and annual reports provide parents with information about the school, but parents did not cite them as particularly common sources of information.
Parents receive the school calendar. A term calendar with a lot of the things all ready and set up. That's quite a useful tool to have on the fridge. It highlights parent evenings, school assemblies and excursions that might be happening. And all of these things really are seen by parents as an opportunity for contact with the class teacher.
Parents want schools to have events planned, programmed and communicated to them well in advance. This assists them to manage their own diaries and conveys to parents a sense that the school is well organised and operates in an orderly fashion. Parents particularly dislike being advised at short notice about school excursions. One emerging source of information is the website being developed by many schools. A small number of parents mentioned these websites as a potential source of information, but they did not view them at present as being a substitute for printed publications or meetings with teachers. Parent Organisations Meetings of parent organisations are considered an excellent source of general information for those parents who attend. The information may be provided through formal parts of the meeting, including input from the principal, but is just as likely to be gained from the informal conversations held before or after the meeting. Some school newsletters include reports from parents organisations or from the School Council, but, unless this is the case, parents who do not attend meetings of their school parent organisation miss out on a lot of incidental information.
I would say the major part of the information about what's happening comes through the [parent organisation]. It's very difficult to get parents to come to meetings but ...after each meeting I have sent a [newsletter] out to families saying this is just a brief run-down of what we discussed. ...Otherwise they're never going to know.
Parents consider that the information flow should be a two-way street, and should be more interactive so that parents can offer comment and feedback on the information provided. Members of parent organisations overwhelmingly believe that the extent to which this occurs is dependent on the willingness of the school's principal. The principal also influences the extent to which parents, and parents organisations in particular, are able to be informed about and contribute to discussions about the school's teaching and learning programs. Whilst some principals involve parents fully, others restrict parents' engagement in what is happening and tightly control the opportunities for parents to provide advice. Often parents are asked for advice on peripheral aspects of a school's program.
We have a say in discussion about ...say swimming classes, whether we really want them or not. ...We bring up issues like road safety.
Some parent organisations hold seminars and invite guest speakers to talk on various issues. The guest speakers may be school staff members, such as counsellors or heads of faculties, who discuss their roles in the school. The speaker may be from outside the school and talk on a subject, such as a drug education program, that provides contextual information for parents to consider in discussing school policies and practices. The seminar may be part of the regular parent organisation meeting or may be hosted by the parent organisation as a separate event. The use of guest speakers is not a common practice in schools, but when the topic is of relevance to parents they appreciate them. For some parents, membership of their school's parent organisation can provide an entree to school committees, which in turn provide parents with access to valuable knowledge. Parents who are members of a parent organisation are able to more readily access valuable information that would not otherwise be available. The parents who were in this position were very enthusiastic in endorsing their active membership for this
reason, and expressed some regret that more parents were not active in parent organisations and able to gain this bonus from their membership. Members of parent organisations are also more likely to be invited to contribute to the formulation of school policies.
As a member of the [parent organisation] executive I have an opportunity to contribute to discussions where they're actually setting staff policies and so on, and I've found that quite eye-opening. A very small number of secondary schools use a contact parent structure specifically to pass on information, and to provide access for any parent seeking information. Contact between the teacher and parents of students is facilitated by parent volunteers associated with each class. Each class has a parent monitor so ...if something is happening ...the parent monitor can contact other parents. ...We have a good network that way, so we know what's going on.
If parents want to find out information they can seek it, in the first instance, through the parent monitor. Informal Opportunities Learning through informal opportunities contributes considerably to parents' understanding about school programs and the learning activities of their children. Their main 'informal' source is their own children. Each day parents like to talk with their children about what has happened and how the day has gone. This keeps them in touch with their children and over time a store of knowledge accumulates. Parents with more than one child find that they build on what they learn through the first child's schooling experiences, so that they are much wiser and better informed for the schooling of subsequent children. Parents find that younger children are more open about what happens at school than secondary students. Children who are not experiencing success or satisfaction with their schooling are less forthcoming in telling parents of their experiences than are those who are happy and feeling successful. Parents are aware that learning about schools through the filter of their children is flawed, but it is nonetheless valuable to them. Parent involvement in schools as classroom helpers or in other volunteer roles such as helping in the canteen enables them to informally gather information. Some schools have an open invitation for parents to come up to the school at any time and visit classrooms and view school assemblies. Taking part in the daily life of the school in this way gives parents access to different information. They observe the school functioning and the programs students are learning, gain a 'feel' for the school and its students, and see the programs and practices their children tell them about in action. Parents consider that 'in-school' experiences of this kind give them a different and richer form of knowledge about the school. However, only a minority of parents access knowledge about the school through this type of involvement. Many parents also look for informal chats with teachers to gain general information about school activities or knowledge about their children's learning program. Teachers are generally regarded as being open and approachable and responsive to parent inquiries, although some parents find secondary schools less welcoming.
When you get to secondary, there's a stop sign saying go away. It's like going to a foreign country. You don't know the language that's being spoken. You don't know the geography and you don't know the ethos. You don't know the expectations or intentions. It's very intimidating ...If I ask this question which I really want to know the answer to, they'll think I'm dumb. If you haven't been very successful at school yourself and your experience at school has been very limited, then you're not going to feel very confident to approach [schools], particularly a high school. It gets very intimidating to front up there ...Where do I go? Who do I ask for help?
Parents frequently commented that they wish they did not have to go searching for information. Secondary school structures, in particular, can sometimes be bewildering to parents who are trying to find out how or where to get information. A small number of schools provide advice to parents on how they can access inform-ation, make an inquiry or
lodge a grievance. They tell parents how they can find out information. The rationale in such schools is that they would rather have parents deal with them directly than air their grievances or concerns among other parents.
By closing that gap we feel that we're going to start promoting the whole feeling that it is a community and that parents need to be as comfortable in the school as their kids are.
Parent networks are a valuable source of information to parents. Information is shared, traded, discussed and passed on through these networks. Parents with less access to information, such as those in full time employment, are able to link up with a parent in a network. Sometimes a parent who is less confident about approaching a school directly will ask another parent with good links to the school to get information on their behalf.
Well myself, I'm only a voluntary person that comes in once a day. And I suppose, because I'm always seen to be here, ...[other parents] think that I know everything.
The school canteen is a popular venue for exchanging information. A secondary school that surveyed parents found that the canteen was one of the three things that parents liked most about the school, "because it is a place, particularly in high school, where parents felt they could be comfortable talking to each other and discussing issues".
Content of Information Provided to Parents

Information about School Policies and Activities Schools often provide parents with general information about how they operate. Information booklets are one source of this type of information. School policies, such as those on student welfare, drug education, or school uniform are often explained in these booklets, and sometimes these topics are also referred to in school newsletters. Parents want good access to such information. The policy information that parents value most depends on the interests of individual parents. Student welfare policies, including discipline and policies relating to drugs, are important to many parents. The uniform policy is important to others. Whilst the published policy is important to parents, they continually gather information from a range of sources, such as parent networks and from their children, to ascertain what each policy really means in practice. They seek evidence that might assure them that the formal policy- assuming they support itis being put into practice. Parents noted discrepancies between schools' written and enacted policies. Key dates are provided in school calendars that are distributed to parents, but during the year specific information about what is happening at the school, such as functions and events of specific relevance to parents, eg. working bees, is provided through school newsletters. The need to provide information in a form that meets parents' needs is illustrated by the lack of parent uptake of documents provided for other purposes. For example, a parent noted that there was an invitation to parents to collect a copy of the school charter document from the school, but only two parents had done so. School Curriculum Parents want information that provides a comprehensive overview of what students will be learning in the coming term or year. Formal parent information programs such as information days and evenings and some publications aim to provide information for parents about schools' teaching programs and the relevant curriculum. The information should also cover excursions and expectations regarding homework. These overviews enable parents to make a connection between the teaching program and homework and student diaries. Parents gain a better understanding of how the work fits together and are better prepared to provide learning support to their children. Parents are appreciative of published material to support school presentations and meetings about the learning program.
At the beginning of the year [the teacher gives] me an outline of what's going to be covered that
term in all the Key Learning Areas. Which is great, 'cause I get all this stuff to read. And on all the projects that come home I have something on [which] to base the conversation about homework and what they're learning at school. ...It sort of gives me a context that I can relate to when he comes home and asks us something right out of the blue. That's been one of the most useful things I've received from teachers. A communication from the teacher at the beginning of the term where the letter comes home that says "This term we will be looking at your child in relation to his home environment", or we'll be looking at dinosaurs, or we'll be looking at this in maths. ...Then you can relate the things that [the children] bring home to the information you have about what they're going to achieve.
In the senior years of secondary school, in particular, the availability of subjects and the content of curricula are important to parents. They use information about the courses to assist their children to make appropriate subject selections. For many parents, brochures and booklets are the major information source, but these are supplemented by information from other sources. Parents made favourable comments about the 'layered' approach to providing information to enable subject selection. The layered approach is where schools use a range of information strategies, from the general to the specific. As an example, a school might conduct an information evening to give parents a general orientation to the range of courses offered by the school and appropriate expectations for each course. Parents are then provided with booklets and course outlines which they can read and discuss with their children in their own time. Following that, parents and their children may make an appointment with teachers or careers counsellors to talk through and clarify possible options. Parents don't always feel, however, that the curriculum choice information they currently receive is sufficient to enable them and their children to make the most appropriate subject selections. Of a slightly different, but related nature, is information about the structure of the curriculum and a school's assessment and reporting practices. Changes in a number of education systems over recent years are reflected in parent references to briefings about these changes. Parents frequently mentioned briefings provided by the school on the introduction of criterion-based outcomes approaches to curriculum and assessment and reporting as well as changes or initiatives in some systems related to external examinations. Some parents do not avail themselves of the curriculum information that is provided. These parents generally express satisfaction with the amount of information they receive. Parents who take a more active role in their children's learning have a continuing need for more information about curriculum, assessment and reporting practices, and are often not satisfied with the information that is available. Information about Teaching and Learning Practices How the curriculum is translated into teaching and learning strategies and classroom organisation is a major focus of information evenings and sometimes this subject is also included in school newsletters. This information may be about specific initiatives of the school or of the education system, for example information about literacy initiatives such as the Western Australian First Steps program or the introduction of multi-aged classroom groupings or it may be about specific teaching strategies such as how mathematics or reading is being taught. Parents understand that the purpose of the school in providing this information is to seek their support for the initiatives, and/ or to provide them with the knowledge and skills to more effectively assist with their children's learning. Parents of students in the primary years are more likely to be offered the opportunity to learn about teaching strategies than parents of students in secondary schooling.
We get a handout at the evening about the program for the term. It is quite comprehensive and very useful. I am very satisfied with the information we get. We also get information for parents about methods of doing maths. They give parents a chance to learn the new methods so that they can help. I am very satisfied because ...the Deputy runs learning programs for parents so that they can help the children properly and not confuse them by using methods that they [the parents] were taught at school, and which are different to the way our children are being taught.
Many primary school parents, whilst aware of these opportunities, do not always take them up. Parents who had attended information sessions and workshops were often disappointed that more parents at their school did not also attend. Regular communication between teachers and parents, such as homework and student diaries, is an additional source of ongoing information about teaching practices. Primary school parents, in particular, express a desire for more education in specific teaching strategies in reading and mathematics. They want to support their children's learning, but many report that when they try to assist, their children say they are teaching the wrong way and not the way the teacher does it. These parents would appreciate having more up-to-date knowledge of teaching practices so that at home they can support and reinforce the work that the teacher is doing during the school day.
Issues Associated with Reporting on School Programs

Accessibility of Information Few schools have a formal communication policy so that parents know exactly what they can expect to receive or how to get an answer to their question. Information is mostly provided in a piecemeal fashion. Parents who are familiar with a school know what they can expect. New parents wait to see what is provided. Those who want to know more and are sufficiently assertive, "game" and persistent do gather the information they want.
It's only if you're persistent, then you'll find out ...[otherwise] you're just left in the dark.
It is often difficult for parents to access or know how to access information. Parents do not believe that they should have to "track down" information and they do not want to feel that they are nuisances for asking.
I asked my Grade 5 teacher for a copy of the worksheets so I could take them home and help my daughter who is having trouble repeatedly during the year. [I] was never given any and was then told by the headmaster I was harassing the teacher.
Parents of secondary school students often feel as if they are being kept at arms length and do not feel that they have the same accessibility to information that they had in primary schools. Lack of accessibility is a particular concern for parents from non-English speaking backgrounds or those with less education themselves. Some schools have liaison officers who work to improve communication and information flow between the school and specific communities. The role of these officers is strongly supported by parents.
It's good the school has meetings for us to come together. The community liaison person gets us together. We need to hear more about things in our own language.
Parents also expressed a desire for more school information to be translated. Another group with access problems is parents of secondary students. Information sent home via students often does not reach parents.
The newsletters used to go home in the children's bag and of course ninety percent of the parents didn't get them, so now the school posts them out which is good because now we all get them.
The above was not the only example cited of schools changing their information distribution processes because of problems associated with forwarding material through students. Many parents indicated that their children were not reliable couriers. Parents' Role in Education Parents rarely describe information only in terms of what is being communicated, they also describe it in terms of how it makes them feel as parents. They see school-to-home communication as an indicator of their relationship with schools. For example, if the communication is in warm, friendly, easily understood, jargon-free language and is comprehensive, parents perceive that the school welcomes them, is inclusive and values their role in their children's education. If information or communication is dogmatic and aloof, sparing in content, or
not in easily comprehended language, parents feel that the school views them less positively or undervalues their role in schooling. The information and how it is communicated signal schools' understanding of their relationships with parents. Parents' involvement in their children's education is a deeply emotional one. This is evident in the language parents use when talking about schools. They are not just interested third parties. They see themselves, not just their children, as having an integral personal relationship with the school. The issue for schools in formulating communication policies is to understand and respond to this emotional engagement, to understand that anything that affects children is likely to have meaning for parents too. Children are central to their parents' lives. Many schools recognise this, but in the eyes of parents others appear not to do so, and are dismissive of the parent role.
We have to change that culture so it's not a defensive culture. So that we end up with some sort of cooperative culture where teaching and learning is seen as a cooperative [thing] between the students and the parents and the teachers. Rather than being a 'we and they' sort of situation. I think that that's one of the real challenges in this area. I think there is a big barrier between parents and teachers. When you ask the teachers for information they seem to think that you don't need to know because you are just the parent.
Schools have particular challenges in regard to communication with parents from different cultural or educational backgrounds. The Aboriginal parents who contributed their views to this research prefer oral to written communication and like the oral communication to be informal, in plain language and more in the nature of a focused interactive chat. They also prefer to receive information in an informal communal setting. Parents who consider themselves to be less well educated are often intimidated by schools, at least initially. These parents want schools to recognise that providing information is not the same as informing them, and that sometimes the language used inhibits understanding. Teaching and Learning Information The area where parents express the strongest need for further information is in improving their knowledge of curriculum, learning programs and teaching methodology. They want this knowledge to reinforce their understanding of at-school learning so they can assist their children at home, particularly if they are having difficulties. Information nights are the main source of this information, however the timing of these sessions does not suit all parents, and they would like alternative times to be offered. Information nights also vary in quality. Whilst parents indicate some are excellent, others are said to be boring, repetitive and not specific enough to provide the information that parents find most useful.
There isn't enough detailed information about what's being done in the curriculum. ...I guess we aren't being provided with the kinds of things that we might want to know about- the details of the curriculum ...we want to know ...about what's being done, and when and what expectations teachers might have- without trying to pin them down too much.
There are some information needs that cannot be satisfied in information sessions. Many parents do not feel that they have the confidence, or knowledge to be able to assist students at home, especially where new teaching methods are involved, and would like practical training sessions. Mathematics and reading are the skill areas where primary parents, particularly, would like more knowledge of teaching strategies. Secondary parents are much less satisfied than primary parents with the information they receive about teaching and learning. They receive little information about teaching methods and learning expectations.
I think generally information to parents gets less as the children get older. And I'm talking about secondary schooling.
The adequacy of information about subject choice is a prominent issue for secondary school parents. Parents often have difficulty in accessing sufficient information to enable them to adequately understand the implications of particular subject choices. Many feel that schools have had little regard for the parent role in making subject choice decisions. Secondary parents feel, in some cases, that they have been excluded from, or are given inadequate information relating to decisions about their children's subject choice. Subject choice is the area where secondary parents express strongest dissatisfaction.
One mother said that she discovered the science program her daughter was enrolled in after a choice had been made without any parent involvement. When we had to select subjects we were only sent a sheet home to choose the subjects. That was no good. I had to ring a principal I know to find out more. They let my son drop maths and now we find that he can't get into a whole range of courses at university. They should have warned him and me about the consequences of dropping maths. [I] would like to have seen something that showed learning pathways and where they lead.
Discussion
Parents want sufficient information about the children's learning programs to be able to discuss how their learning is progressing and to assist them with their homework and assignments. They also want to be able to reinforce the learning that has taken place in classrooms and to make arrangements for remedial assistance if their children are having difficulties. Parents want this advice provided in practical and easy to understand language within a framework that recognises the need for a partnership between the school and the parents. To achieve this they require an overview of the children's learning program, including a description of the program and its aims, objectives and expected outcomes. Primary parents, in particular want to know students' learning programs in advance so they can prepare support by obtaining books and videos, etc. Secondary parents want to know more about the content of learning programs, but they also want more knowledge in relation to subject choice so that they can understand the implications of specific subject choices. Other topics that parents express interest in knowing more about include: how classrooms are organised to achieve learning outcomes- such as grouping and individualisation practices; standards and benchmarks relevant to their children; assessment and examination requirements- all grades; what schools are doing to extend the abilities of the more able students; and the extra-curricula and enrichment programs offered by schools. Parents prefer to receive information through face-to-face meetings such as information evenings, meetings with teachers and training sessions. This format allows parents to interact and ask questions or seek clarification. They view written communication as being best suited for providing either supplementary information - such as handouts that can be taken away from information or training sessions - or for communicating incidental factual information, such as that contained in school newsletters. To better prepare them to help with their children's learning, parents want to be able to access classes or training sessions on teaching methods and curriculum content. Models of effective parent training programs exist among primary schools but relatively few programs of this type are offered to parents of secondary school students. Not all parents are able to attend scheduled meetings at schools. They express a desire for more flexibility in scheduling and other ways to access information that they may have missed. Parents are often faced with a situation of "show up on such and such a night or miss out". They do not want to be too demanding of teachers' time, as they recognise the time commitments already being made by school staff, but they seek more flexibility than that currently provided in the arrangements offered by many schools. Related to this issue
of flexibility is one in which parents often realise a need for information at times between scheduled information sessions. They would like to be able to access this information, in some form, without having to wait until scheduled sessions. 15 Parents want schools to be approachable and to be positive and responsive to their need for information. They want schools to understand the role of parents as partners in the education of their children. For this reason they also want teachers, both primary and secondary, to acknowledge that classroom programs and teaching strategies are legitimate areas for parent interest. They do not want the parent role in schools to be restricted to the more ephemeral activities associated with uniforms, fundraising, working bees and monitoring homework.
I always say to [other] parents, it's time you become a front seat driver with the teachers... so it's no longer 'us and them'. ...We should be working with the teachers as a partner in [our] children's education ...You've got to get up in front and talk to [teachers] on a one-to-one basis. And yes, there's problems with high school [teachers] in doing that.
Most schools now provide opportunities, with varying degrees of openness, for parents to provide feedback on school policies. Parent involvement in curriculum policies and teaching programs is not as extensive as in other areas of the schools' operations. Many parents are disappointed that so few parents take up opportunities to contribute to policy development. Others are frustrated that they sometimes provide input and then nothing changes. Some schools limit parent participation to a small group only or to token parent representatives, while other schools make only limited acknowledgment of parental contributions to decision making. Parents in all schools want the opportunity to be consulted and to share in decision making about how parents are informed and what they are informed about. They recognise that they may not always be able to contribute, but they want recognition of the fact that they have a role in school decision making and that they, not the school, are ultimately responsible for managing the education of their children.
But this is what I felt like. I didn't have a right. I didn't have a right to be as persistent as I was, where deep down I felt I did. It's my child. In my eyes it was a case of this teacher is but a spot in my child's life, but I'm there forever.
Chapter 5 : Parent Needs and Expectations for Information on School Achievement

Introduction16
Parents tend to make judgements about schools using their own criteria and utilising information from a range of both formal and informal sources. At present, most parents indicate that they rely almost entirely on informal sources as very little objective and reliable information is available in the public domain.
Basically I form my own impressions about whether it's a good school. I don't get any information about this.
Parent judgements about the schools that their children currently attend are based chiefly on their own interactions with schools and comments from their children and other parents. The majority of parents indicate that they are able to access the information they need on school achievement, but a large minority would like more, particularly more objective, information about the achievements of schools. Parents generally have little knowledge or understanding of the terms 'school performance' and 'school effectiveness'. Only a small proportion of parents understand the notion that systematic and structured assessments of schools against specified criteria can be and often are undertaken by systems. Most parents conceived public reporting about school achievement to be solely in terms of the ranking of schools based on the academic performance of their students in external examinations. Parents do not want public ranking of schools, because it leads to high levels of competition which could have negative results for
some schools.
A lot of people ... say they don't want league tables that say that some schools are at the top and, therefore, the other schools are [at] the bottom. Nobody will go [to those schools]. [They] will degenerate then. I don't think schools should be competing against schools. I know that goes on ... and people ... want to send their children to that school, because it's a better school, and then the other school suffers.
There was little mention of the capacity of public reporting (generally conceived of as reporting in the press) being used to either acknowledge high levels of achievement or motivate schools to improve achievement. However, many parents with negative views about comparing schools assured themselves of quality by themselves making comparisons between schools, before choosing a school for their own children. There was another group of parents, however, who believed that reporting to parents directly on school and teacher quality would serve to maintain high standards.
How Parents Use Information about School Achievement

Choosing Schools The primary purpose that parents cite for wanting to know about school achievement is to assist them to select schools for their children. Parents actively choose from among schools, particularly at entry to primary schooling and at the point of transition from primary to secondary school. Parents are less likely to compare schools when selecting primary schools if they are satisfied with the school in which their children are currently enrolled. In government school systems where schools have been 'dezoned', parents are more likely to make an active choice of primary school, but the pool from which parents select is geographically narrower than the secondary pool. Having made a choice of school parents rarely change unless there are very compelling reasons to do so. Pressure to change comes mostly from extreme dissatisfaction with how their children are progressing, a change of home location, or a need to change in Years 11 and 12 - in cases where the previous school caters only to Year 10.
A school can change from year-to-year depending on the teachers and the principal in the school and it's a big decision to make up your mind where you're going to send your children. Once you make that first decision, nine times out of ten you'll stay with [the school]. But if it's not working for a particular child - all children can be different in the family - then you have to be able to [seek out information on other schools].
Monitoring Schools Parents try to use information on school achievement to evaluate how well schools are meeting the needs of other children like their children and to seek assurance that schools are doing a 'good job'. Once their children have enrolled, parents judge the effectiveness of their school almost entirely on how the school is meeting their expectations for their own children's progress. That is, if their own children are happy and achieving according to parental expectations, they are less interested in the schools' achievements overall. Those who ask for more accountability, a large minority of parents, want more information on how effective schools are in achieving their goals for students and want to know how well schools are meeting expected standards.
Perhaps it would be good to find out at the end of the year if the teachers have done what they set out to do. Some kind of common benchmarks for all schools would be helpful to parents. [It would] allow them to make informed comparisons.
Schools should be assessed and monitored as to teaching quality, teacher competence. The schools shouldn't just focus on [Year 12] results, but feedback that reports on the broad scope of a school.
Parents express concern that the information they currently receive is not objective, that is it is made available for self-promotion purposes, or that it is inadequate.
I don't get much information. The school would only give positive information. You get a lot of information out of the newspaper when [Year 12] results come out. We would like a bit more information ... an indication of how the school is performing in relation to others. There is no way to know about the real academic performance in comparison to other schools. The only way is to test and compare and analyse the results and publish them. We need a quality assurance system for education. This is the way to deliver consistent quality. ... A QA system would give you benchmarks and assurances. A QA system [should be] for all state and private schools.
Improving Schools Parents do not generally use overall school achievement information to apply pressure for school improvement, preferring instead to choose a different school if they are extremely dissatisfied. 17 Before reaching this stage, however, parents are likely to seek improvement in relation to the specific issue. The issue about which parents are most likely to seek improvement is that of teacher quality. Despite some parents citing examples where they had been influential in removing a teacher or ensuring that a particular teacher did not teach their child, most parents indicated that they feel quite powerless in tackling issues of teacher quality. Parents believe that only a very small minority of teachers are ineffective, but that one poor teacher can have a devastating and some times lasting effect on a child.
Information Available to Parents

Sources of Information There is a hierarchy of parent sources of information about schools, but parents rarely rely on one source alone. They collect information from various sources and assemble the pieces like a jigsaw until the image of the school is complete, or completed to their satisfaction.
I went to the open nights. I went to the orientation. I asked for parent handbooks and what the philosophy of the school was. I asked what day the uniform shop and tuck shop were open and I went [there] and talked to parents. ... [ The tuck shop] is where you hear most compliments and complaints.
Personal contact through their own experiences, information from other parents and from their own children have greater value for parents when judging a school than does written information provided by the school. Parents use written information to reaffirm or supplement the choice or judgement that they make on the basis of personal contacts. Parents indicate that no amount of written information can make up for an impression of poor teacher/ parent, or teacher/ student, interaction. Parents view written information provided by schools as a form of marketing or as being provided for public relations purposes and view it with some caution. They do not completely disregard written information, but attempt to use it to complement information from other sources. Some parents look to written information to confirm their own impressions of a school.
Personal experience
Parents value personal experiences more than any other source of information. They believe that first-hand impressions are the most reliable form of information about a school. Direct interaction with the school gives parents a feel for the climate of the school. Parents often use the words 'school climate' or 'school ethos' to
describe what is important to them. These experiences may be very subjective as a way of judging the effectiveness of a school, but parents trust their impressions, and indicate that they rarely misjudge a school. The type of personal contact and experience of schools that parents talk about in this context are school open days, formal visits to schools - usually comprising an appointment with the principal, but sometimes also including a guided walk around the school - and informal visits when parents visit schools unannounced and request to look around.
You walk around. You get an idea. You see the students in the playground, how they interact with the teachers ... on duty and with the principal. We could see very quickly when we came to look here how the principal was actually in the yard and how he was interacting with the students. We introduced ourselves at the office and said we were potential parents and we wanted to have a look around the school. We were made very welcome and I was really impressed by the way the staff, who weren't expecting us to be wandering around that day, greeted us and told us about the various programs ... I often go around on a non-open day to get a feel for the school. You get a much better idea of what's happening.
At school open days parents judge schools on how well the sessions are organised, how friendly, warm and approachable the staff are, how principals project the school, and how the schools' values, as espoused by principals, match their own expectations of a school. They also make judgements based on the behaviour of the students at the school. In some States/ Territories more than others, primary schools market themselves to parents of students at local pre-schools. Parents apply the same criteria on these occasions as they do when judging schools on their open days. During individual visits to a school, often accompanied by their children, parents judge schools on the principal's demeanour, what they have to say, and, if their children are present, how the principal relates to and speaks about students. Parents value these meetings with principals more for the opportunity to gather these sorts of impressions than to receive information - as useful as the latter might be. If taken on the tour of a school they will also make judgements on how well the school is presented and how well it is cared for. They look for tidiness, absence of litter and graffiti, and for the quality and attractiveness of the facilities and grounds. They look for signs of 'pride in the school'. These criteria are a basis for parent judgements regardless of the wealth of the school. If they have an opportunity, parents will observe how students relate to each other, and how the staff relate to students. They will also assess the school by the behaviour and manner of any student they come across. Parents often visit schools without an appointment, so they can observe the schools and their students when they are not 'on show'. If the visit is to assist in choosing from among schools, parents often also consider the impression that the schools make on their children. In many cases the children's preference has priority, though parents indicate that the views of both themselves and their children usually coincide. Parents who have children currently enrolled in a school frequently judge the school by how happy their children are, by the quality of work the child is doing, including homework assignments, and by the quality of the schools' interactions with them as parents. Whilst personal contact is the source of information that parents most value, they rarely rely entirely on the sort of information and impressions described above. Networks Family networks, their own children included, and other parents provide parents with information about schools. Informal parent networks are the most utilised source of information for parents with students already in the school. If parents do not visit the school on a regular basis, they can tap into their networks to find out how the school is going and what the issues are at the school.
I think that the way that you really do find out is by talking to people who have ... children there.
This information is extremely anecdotal and subjective but, nonetheless, parents value the information and store it away in their minds. They rarely make a firm judgement on one incident, issue, or successful experience but over time build up a store of impressions. Parent and family networks are accessed for opinions about schools when parents are looking to choose a school. Parents do not always consider information from these sources reliable, but they trust them more than information from any other source, their own experiences excepted. The family network is considered more reliable in choosing a school if there has been a previous family association with the school. For example, if siblings or cousins have attended the school. A large proportion of parents are quite systematic about monitoring schools through family, neighbour and parent networks. They actively seek the opinions and experiences of other parents whose children attend or have attended the school. Parents also judge the school their children are attending by how happy the children are at school and how well they are achieving their parents' expectations for them. If their own children are satisfied with the school and are achieving adequately, parents are not overly concerned with the schools' performance relative to other schools. They will only consider changing to a 'better' school if they or their children are dissatisfied with the current one. When parents are choosing a secondary school their children often visit potential schools with them and their children's preferences are often the deciding factor. Parents report that their children usually have the same criteria that they do, although school uniform and the school their peers are likely to attend are especially important to children. Parent and family networks are largely responsible for the creation and maintenance of the concept of a school's 'reputation'. A school's reputation, deserved or otherwise, is an important currency to parents. They choose schools on reputation, and then fight to maintain the reputation. Parents like principals who, through newsletters and local press articles, seek to reaffirm and promote the good reputation of a school. A good reputation is closely related to the image of a school. For some parents the reputation of the school is all they need to know.
The secretary told me that [X] School was the third best performing school in [X] State.
When asked for the basis of a 'good reputation', parents generally put it down to comments from the parent network, the reports of good academic results, and to an image of good student behaviour.
People are aware of this school's reputation and name. It's prominent. Other schools in the area are not as prominent in sharing their achievements.
Once a school has a 'poor' reputation it is difficult to shrug off, even when the label is no longer warranted.
I think the school is very good now, but a lot of the parents who maybe heard the bad things ten years ago, or fifteen years ago, might still think that.
School publications
School publications such as newsletters, prospectuses and brochures provide valuable information about schools. On their own they are not considered reliable sources of objective information because they are considered 'marketing' documents.
Occasionally you see the glossy promotional material. Which is exactly that. It's glossy, it's promotional. It's kind of what you do to sell the school, which really doesn't mean a thing.
Publications of this type are prolific in secondary schools and are available to parents considering enroling their children. Primary schools are less likely to publish brochures describing the school. Many parents expressed an interest in receiving more publications from primary schools.
The school newsletter is a major source of information about school achievement. Schools promote their Year 12 results in the newsletter. Primary schools trumpet the numbers of students who move on to desirable secondary schools. While the information is selective, and serves the function of self promotion, many parents make judgements about schools on the basis of this type of reporting, even when they are more sceptical generally about marketing type material. They give greater credence to what they read in newsletters. The type of school achievement information announced in the newsletter is typically about how well the high achievers have performed in competitive exam situations.
The newsletter shows a comparison of results for Year 12 students. The newsletter gives a lot on student achievement, especially [about] the smarter kids. ...Outstanding straight 'A's reported every term. News that the school has produced some 'perfect score' ... is a powerful influence.
Other parents are more cynical about this form of reporting.
This information is useful to a point, but you have to read between the lines. This is propaganda to a point. The main emphasis seems to be on publicity rather than reporting performance against goals.
Sporting achievements are also heavily promoted in newsletters. Some parents have far better knowledge about how their school is achieving in sport than in academic pursuits.
I don't know how the school compares with others. Academically anyway. Sporting achievements are common knowledge.
School performance in external exams and standardised tests18
Parents consider school success rates in standardised tests, external examinations and the profile of tertiary entrance scores, or equivalent, when assessing schools. They value this sort of information but rarely make judgements about schools on the basis of this information alone. Parents have a number of reasons for not placing too much emphasis on student performance in examinations. They have a much more complex idea of what a 'good' school is and of the school that is most appropriate for their child. They consider performance in examinations as just one facet of what a school should be achieving for their children. For example, a school in which students do well in examinations at the expense of developing the social and discipline skills would not be viewed favourably by many parents. Parents are aware that schools all too frequently publicise only the results of high achievers and medal winners19 which parents do not accept as a valid statement of school achievement. Excellent results for certain types of students are not read by parents as an indicator of how effective the school would be for their children. School success in achieving excellent results for high-achieving students is considered relevant by parents if their children are in that group. However, they have reservations about whether a school that focuses on the highest achieving students is necessarily going to be the most effective for children of average or below average ability.
[Average external examination scores] would be important if you had a particularly bright child who had their heart set on law and needed [excellent exam scores] to get there. But if you are going to use [exam results] to judge a school you've got to judge it [according] to what you want for your child. Our school last holidays placed forty kids from senior [years] into employment ... and if you're wanting employment at the end that's a really strong plus.
Parents are also very aware that the type of student intake that a school has affects school performance in examinations. The majority of parents consider 'league table' type information misleading if such information is not taken into account. They also comment, however, that when this type of information is published in the media, usually following end of Year 12 exams, they read it and find it to be of interest.
When schools circulate information on performance in standardised tests, particularly in primary schools, parents often do not know how to interpret the data. They are often dependent on the school to interpret the performance data for them. For this reason they are guided by what school principals say about the level of achievement in the school. However, they also recognise that there may be a degree of self-interest in the principal's interpretation of the results.
Media and marketing
Parents consider that media reports of schools are unreliable and can be misleading.
I am extremely concerned about the issues of reporting and the media, and the manipulation of this whole area of information in terms of meaningless comparisons between schools.
They do not consider media assessments or judgements of a school as accurate, but nonetheless they read and utilise media reports as potentially interesting 'pieces' of information that they might seek to verify from other sources. When local newspapers write stories about the success of schools in their area, parents find that they are often reassured to have their school, written-up positively in the newspaper. It gives them a sense of pride in the school.
I like to read about the success of our school because it affirms the success of the school we have chosen.
Official reports
Parents rarely access official reports such as annual reports and school review reports published for schools, mainly because they do not know they exist.
I know of schools where these reports come out and the only person contacted is the [parent organisation] president because they know they're going to be on side.
Those parents who do know about official reports and have access to them often either find they lack credibility as valid sources of information, do not view them as relevant to what they value in schooling, or do not know how to interpret the information, often because they are bewildered by the jargon.
I got a written [annual] report that I actually had a good giggle at. [It said] "We are a parent friendly school and we encourage parents" and in reality you can't even put your hand up and ask a question at the [parent organisation] meeting because they see it as a threat. I found them the most useless documents, I really did ... I got two reports from two very different high schools and yet the reports ... didn't address what I would have considered needed to be the issues. ... None of [the issues] were addressed in the report at all. [Both schools] came out looking like they'd been wrapped in the same sort of K Mart wrapping .... Annual report? What does that contain? Expenditure on buildings. What their fete raised. What is spent. Annual reports on school performance tell us very little.
Many parents in schools with formal annual reporting systems, such as reporting against the school's goals and objectives, were unaware that such reports existed. Parents who were aware of them, or vaguely aware in many instances, often did not know how they could access the reports. Others remember reading in the newsletter that they could ask for a copy of the annual report. Those who were most aware of annual reporting processes were members of parent organisations. Many of these reported that they often did not take up the option to read the report. Parents in systems with external school reviews were generally unaware that they existed, and therefore did not know whether and how they could access the findings. More parents were aware of past systems of school reviews. They recalled these systems because they had been closely involved in the process, mainly through being interviewed.
School review reports are rarely promoted by schools, partly because they are not written for a parent audience, but also because they usually contain information that indicates areas of the school's achievements that need to be the focus of future improvement efforts. Although the concept of a school focusing on improving its performance is a positive one, few schools seek to turn it to their advantage. Indicators Parents Use to Monitor Schools From the information that they currently receive or glean, parents construct a number of indicators to inform them about how well the school their children attend is achieving. The most important indicator is that their children are happy, motivated and appear to be achieving to expectations. Many parents believe that if their children are happy they will succeed. A second indicator about schools is how well students at the school achieve academically. Parents judge this on schools' reported performance in external examinations - numbers of Year 12 students in top 10% etc.; the numbers of primary students who get into certain high schools; and the reputation the school has for academic excellence. A third indicator of school achievement used by parents is the strength of demand for the school and evidence of increasing enrolments. The view is that a school with a waiting list must be doing something right. Parents apply this indicator to both government and non-government schools. A school's achievements in non-academic areas are used as a fourth indicator of achievement. Extra-curricula music, drama and sporting achievements, as well as performance in competitions, give clues to parents about the overall quality of the school. Many of these non-academic achievements are interpreted as a testament to the commitment and dedication of teachers. A fifth indicator is the number of positive reports about the school as well as its general profile in the local or state/ territory press. The success of students following their school years is also used as an indicator of school success. Success can be in terms of the numbers of ex-students at university, undertaking tertiary studies, or in employment. It can also refer to individual success, such as a former student achieving some notable public achievement in any area of endeavour.
What Parents Consider when Choosing a School

Informing school choice is the most important reason for which parents say they want information about a range of schools. Many, but not all, of the factors that parents consider when choosing a school are related to differences in school performance and effectiveness. Range of Information Parents are rarely interested in academic performance alone. Even when the academic standards of the school are important they may not be the most important criteria for parents. Parents believe that schools have a role in developing the whole child - which includes the academic, affective, social, physical and emotional development of children.
Language was one of the things. But so were behaviour management, ethics, and a caring attitude ... I'd be very concerned if the school was only interested in the academic achievements of the students. I think all round education is absolutely essential. That includes the arts, and it includes sport and social awareness.
The extra-curricula programs offered by schools are important determinants of school choice as they are often viewed as important to the non-academic aspects of children's development.
I asked for information on curriculum in the school ... and extra curricula activities. Did they have a
good music program or dance [program]?

The happiness of their children is paramount to parents. This is often the first criteria they consider, and after that they consider the programs that schools provide and their record of achievement. In secondary schools and to a lesser extent in primary, the perceived quality of teaching in a particular subject or extra-curricula area may be of particular relevance to a parent. This is particularly the case when parents have particular goals for their children, such as learning music, or when the children have specific skills or strengths that parents want to be nurtured further, such as dramatic ability. For many parents, the right choice involves an appropriate combination of academic, social, and extra-curricula programs combined with school policies that match parent expectations. Schools' student welfare and discipline policies are of interest, as are the school uniform and, particularly in secondary schools, the school's policies concerning drugs.
They were slightly put off by my close questioning about drugs, but I pushed it to the limit because I had to know.
These types of criteria are of interest to all parents even though, for many, financial considerations and location may prevent them from exercising choice or may narrow their options. Parents who find all that they want in their local school consider themselves very lucky. In choosing a school parents require access to information on a range of programs and policies as well as knowledge of programs that are a particular focus or strength in each school they are considering. They attempt to obtain this information by accessing school publications and informal networks as discussed earlier. Fit Between the Child and a School What parents are seeking when looking to choose a school is to find a match between their child's personality, interests and career aspirations and the programs and culture of a school.
... There are 'horses for courses'. There are schools for certain students and other schools for other students. For a long time we denied ... that there was any truth or logic in those statements. What's best for your child. It's easy for me. I only have one. ... I'm going to get one chance at educating this child so what are his needs. Impairment. Right, I need a learning support teacher. He's not a jock, so jock schools are not going to suit this child. So I looked at his needs and this particular school filled so many of those.
Parents reported schools that catered for a narrow range of student types, and other schools that they found effective in catering for a broad range of students.
The beauty of where [my child] is at the moment is that the girls who can do very, very well, do very, very well. ... We have quite a few kids [with moderate intellectual disabilities] at the school and they still leave the school doing something that they have a talent for in vocational education.
Many parents have chosen different schools for different children because their children have different needs. The different needs are not only in terms of children's academic needs, but may be social, emotional or behavioural needs. A number of parents reported how they changed schools because their children were not thriving, and found another school more attuned to their children's needs. Parents indicate that it is often difficult to separate the different academic and social or emotional needs of specific children. If a school does not meet a child's academic needs, it often also does not meet their emotional needs, and vice versa. Different learning domains often appear to be closely interrelated and whatever affects one aspect of a child's development also impacts on others. Parents have an intuitive grasp of the inter-relatedness of their children's needs. Specific Information about Schools
School climate and ethos
All parents want schools to provide a supportive and caring environment in which their children can develop. They consider that the principal has a very important role in establishing the overall tone of the school. Parents' impressions of principals, made either through hearing them speak at school open days or through an interview, can heavily influence their decision to choose or not choose a school. If the principal is genuine, open and interested in them and their children, parents are more likely to form a good impression. Parents are also attracted to schools where the principal can articulate a vision that meets parent aspirations for their child. The attitude of principals and staff to parents is very important.
When you walked into the school, were the parents welcomed? Were you given a lot of information or were you sat down and talked at? I will be looking for some sort of rapport. Probably looking for some sort of a feel about whether or not my child and myself are important ... I'd be looking for a sense from the principal that my opinions and thoughts were respected. I just felt like I'm not the sort of parent they wanted and I didn't go dressed up like the sort of parents they wanted. The principal that I ended up choosing stood up and said, "Welcome here today. You're here as parents and I'm here as the principal, and we wish to turn out in the long term your child as blah, blah, blah." That's what it was all about. He made it a partnership situation [with parents].
Children's happiness in schools is very important to parents. The reasons for this can only be surmised, but in part they reflect the fact that parents' own emotional well-being is associated with their children's happiness, and also because parents believe there is a relationship between children' happiness at school and their [children's] ability to thrive, develop and be successful. The quality of the relationships and interactions that teachers have with students is therefore very important to parents. When visiting schools, parents will note how teachers speak to and about students, they will listen to what other parents have to say on this, and they will note how teachers behave towards them as parents. This gives them important clues about the climate of the school. In choosing a school parents often observe and assess the behaviour of other students at each school. They see this as a good indicator of school tone. They note, particularly, how students behave towards each other and whether they show pride in the school. The school uniform, and how students wear it, is an indicator of school pride and tone. Parents also note how students speak about the school. They are very impressed if students speak highly of the school, as they consider that students are very direct and honest in their comments. Important to student happiness is whether children's friends are going to the same school. When changing from a primary to a secondary school, parents report that their children often ask if they can go to the school that their friends will be going to and this becomes a key factor in the choice of school.
Quality of teaching and learning
Academic reputation, while not the sole reason that most parents have for choosing a school, is important. Most parents quickly learn, usually through parents' networks, what the reputation of a school is for academic rigour. They find it difficult to assess the validity and reliability of the information about a school's reputation. The subjects and specialist programs on offer, particularly in secondary schools, are important to parents, as is the quality of teaching in them. How well the school performs in tertiary entrance results overall might be irrelevant to a parent looking for a school with a good art program for a child gifted in this area. The quality of the art program and art teaching may be a factor of paramount importance in this case. Parents usually learn about the effectiveness of different faculties and their teachers through anecdotal comments, other students and the school's 'reputation' in each area. Parents are interested to know whether the teaching and learning styles used by the school will meet their child's learning needs. They believe that a teaching or learning style appropriate for some students may not be
effective for others. For example, parents noted that while a competitive environment can challenge and motivate some students, it may not be the best environment for others.
School policies
Parents often reported that they sought specific school policies when choosing a school. These policies are usually ones that are important to the goals they have for their children. Some polices are more important to some parents than to others. For example, parents with a child who has a disability may want to know about the school's integration policy and a parent whose child has a learning difficulty will be interested to know about its 'special needs' policy. Policy areas that are of interest to a large number of parents are student welfare, pastoral care, discipline and behaviour management, and, in secondary schools, the drugs policy. Other important policy areas are the integration of special needs students.
I really wanted to hear what their concept of pastoral care was because that is important to me ... So when I said "What about a child who has [behaviour] difficulties?" The answer was "Well you'd have to ask whether he'd fit into a school like this." I looked at behaviour management policies. I rang up schools and asked, "Could I, as a parent, have a copy of your behaviour management policy?" One school said to me "Now I'm sure we've got one". I said, "Don't worry". You know you're not going to send your child there.
Often it is not the formal written policy that parents are interested to know about as much as the schools' practices in that area. Some parents have a very specific policy interest and they will seek out school practice in this area to determine whether it matches their expectations. For example, a parent might specifically choose a school that fosters and encourages an inclusive multicultural environment. Some parents have learned that there is often a gap between what schools say they do and what they actually deliver.
Type of school
Some parents have very specific requirements about the type of school that their children will attend. In these instances there is often not a lot that an individual school can do about its 'type', other than capitalise on its positive attributes. For example, parents may have a strong preference for schools in a specific sector - Catholic, independent or government. For other parents the first requirement may be that the school is single-sex. Parents have quite strong views about their preferred size of school. Many value large schools, but others prefer their children to attend small schools. Parents who value larger schools choose them because they have more resources and expertise and are more likely to provide their children with a wider range of opportunities, such as extra-curricula programs. Parents who choose small schools do so because they provide a friendlier and more secure environment.
Location
The location of a school is a consideration for parents when choosing a school. Rural parents regret that they have little choice, but report that they are generally satisfied with the local school. Parents of primary school students usually consider the local school as their first option. It is usually the closest and most convenient school for parents and many believe through anecdotal evidence or previous experience of the school that the local school will be satisfactory for their children. Provided local primary schools have a good reputation, parents will generally not look further afield. In this context, parents may choose among three or four local schools, where more than one school is viewed as serving the local area. By 'good' reputation, parents mean good student discipline, perceived high academic standards and a friendly environment. However, if children do not thrive in the local school, parents will seek an alternative. Parents cast their net much wider geographically when choosing a secondary school. The location of the school
is less important than for primary schools, but the availability of transport is an important consideration.
Discussion
The limited experience of parents with concepts of school performance and effectiveness means that it is not easy for them to articulate their views on school achievement in technical terms. For many parents this matter is more readily approached through the concept of 'a good school',20 usually within the context of choosing a school, or through anecdotal reports on the quality of the schools their children currently attend. Few parents could articulate any systematic concept of school achievement and yet most have very clear understandings of the features they want in the school they choose. They view schools as complex organisations and consider a range of dimensions when making judgements about them. However, the information on which they draw in making their judgements is based mostly on anecdotes, hearsay and personal impressions. It is not that this information is not useful, but that parents have little other credible information on which to make judgements.
I think ... that parents do actually want to have a great deal of information about the school that their child attends or about the group of schools which they think their child might attend ... What they don't want is very skimpy information about every school in [the State/ Territory].
In a context of limited information and support in understanding information on school effectiveness, parents find that they have to place considerable trust in the information and interpretations provided by schools. Most find that their trust is well founded, but others have found out too late that it was not. These latter parents found that schools selectively reported on aspects of achievement that were important in choosing a school for their child. Parents who 'know' their way around schools and education systems use what knowledge they can acquire about schools to make good educational decisions for their children. Many of these parents indicated they are concerned that not all parents have access to similar information. They do not believe that parents should have to "chase " information and would greatly appreciate access to information from sources which do not have a vested interest in what it says about individual schools. Parents compare schools when "shopping around" and accept that ultimately if they are to secure the best school for their children then all schools must be evaluated against the needs of the child, which may involve direct comparisons between alternative schools. However, there is a significant force of opinion against the public comparison of schools through ranking in the media.
I want to say a huge NO to league tables that compare schools because I think that ... you just can't compare them, as it's totally unfair.
Many parents were, however, familiar with the 'league table' concept of reporting on school performance. Ranking schools on their performance in end of schooling examinations was the most common experience that parents had of this form of comparison. They do not find this information provides particularly useful information about schools, although many parents do take some notice of such sources of information.
Parents have no way of relating their child to an average [tertiary entrance score]. They've got no idea why the school's got high, or low or [average] results. They don't know what kinds of subjects or students are made up in [the school's average score] and even if they did know they still wouldn't know how their child would fit into the kinds of things that the school does.
The major criticisms that parents had of simplistic measures of school performance is that they do not take account of differences in student ability and they do not tell them how effective a school would be for average students, students from disadvantaged backgrounds or students not aiming for university.
I feel very afraid for a system that reports on success and achievement [for children] who may never get employment, who may never fit in, who may never be part of the world's army of achievers.
Some parents were critical of schools for using questionable practices to ensure their exam averages 'improve', such those whose practice was to evict - or not enrol in the first place - potentially low achieving students. Parents indicated that it was easier for them to identify schools that were successful for getting students into university than it was to find out how effective school were at getting students into other post-secondary courses or into jobs. Whilst some schools market themselves as being equally successful for all students, parents overall do not believe this. Parents know that some schools concentrate on the highest achieving students to the detriment of others. Whilst parents do not like league tables they do need information that allows them to make useful comparisons among schools about what they provide and how they achieve their goals for students in the areas that are of most interest to them. Of all the options available for comparing schools, the parent networks and personal impressions are currently used most and considered the most credible, even though parents know these sources to be subjective and incomplete. Many parents receive school achievement information directly from schools. They question the use of student achievement data that is currently available, especially Year 12 examination data, not only for the reasons noted earlier, but because the information presented applies to only a relatively small proportion of students, usually high achievers. They want useful information about the achievements of schools for all types of students, across all years of schooling, and across all aspects of student development. Parents often receive information from schools, such as through principals' reports or articles in the local media about how a school performs in certain tests, but they believe that such information is released selectively to show each schools in its best light. Where school accountability systems are in place parents are generally unaware of the processes and how they could access achievement reports. Often only a 'select' grouping of parents is informed that a report exists, or parents have to ask specifically for a report. It is evident from this that current accountability processes focus on accountability to the particular school system with little regard as to the needs of parents. In other cases, the official reports prepared for parent consumption simply lose credibility and integrity when parents compare them with the other data they collect to make a choice among schools. Some parents believe that the current 'market' environment in which schools compete for students presents an obstacle to current accountability practices because it pressures schools to present themselves in a positive light and to hide rather than address their problems.21
Competition between schools ... makes [them] less likely to address real issues because they're afraid that it might turn parents off them. [Parents] don't want serious issues about a school to be discussed publicly because then the school their child goes to gets a bad reputation. With schools basically assessing themselves it concerns me that we're going to get lots of back patting and "Aren't I wonderful" type reports. Schools are going to tell you the good things about the schools, not bad things, and that's to do with the marketing ... Maybe we do need some sort of outside [independent] assessment or review.
Parents have their own ideas about what a 'good' school might be, but indicated they would appreciate further research-based guidance and advice on what makes schools more or less effective. They would like to build a better informed, balanced, comprehensive and structured framework for making judgements about schools. The following are some of the characteristics that parents who contributed to this study identify as characteristics of effective schools: a warm, friendly and secure environment for their children; a broad curriculum - including opportunities for students to choose extra-curricula options; high academic standards; continuity in the provision of programs; a focus on the social, physical and emotional development of children; effective discipline and student welfare policies; parents viewed as partners in the education of their children, and students treated as responsible participants in their own education.
Parents want more information about the achievement of individual schools that is not presented like a "sales pitch". They want objective, reliable and credible infor-mation that captures the complexity of schools, and in particular the complexities of what they want for their children. They want information on academic, social, behavioural, and extra curricula activities; information on school policies including policies on schools' relationships with parents. Most parents do not believe that they have the knowledge base to judge the academic quality of schools and would greatly appreciate information on the profile of student learning at the school in a format that can be easily comprehended by them. They would find comparative information on school performance in academic and other areas to be useful and interesting if it was fairly presented, although they would not rely on such information alone to make judgements about the quality of a school. On the basis of the information that they receive, parents want to be able to make evaluative judgements about the success of schools in achieving academic, social, emotional, physical and behavioural goals for their students. They also want better information on the effectiveness of schools in the areas of school policy that are important to them, personally, as parents with children who have specific educational needs.
Section 2: Discussion
Parents have a very active interest in acquiring information about student progress, school programs and school achievement. This information assists parents in : choosing the most appropriate school for each of their children; monitoring the progress of their children; supporting their children's learning; and monitoring the quality of teaching. Parents indicate that they are much more likely now than in the past to actively choose schools for their children. They also report that it is up to them to seek out the necessary information that they require in order to make their choices. Parents' primary sources of information are from their visits to schools and other personal interactions and family and parent networks.
We heard terrific reports [about the school], and when we went for our interview [the school] fulfilled all expectations that we had and it's proven to be the right choice.
Whilst they access and read publications produced by schools, they consider such publications to be focused on self-promotion, and that the information provided lacks objectivity.
Some [schools] tell you stuff to get the children into the school. You can read anything out of a school folder about what the school provides and gives and expects but [ it's not clear] if that's [what] the school is going to be like.
In choosing schools, parents require access to information on a range of programs and policies as well as objective and reliable information on the performance and effectiveness of the small group of schools that they are choosing among. Parents are not interested in a single measure of success. They choose among schools on the basis of a broad range of aspects of the education they provide. Hence they require access to a wide range of information about the provision and achievement of schools. At present, they indicate that there is insufficient information available. Parents also use information on their children's progress to monitor their learning, and be assured that they are achieving to their potential. Many parents want more than reassurance, however, they want details of how well their children are progressing.
It's difficult as a parent to know how well your child is doing. My way of knowing is by looking at [written reports] and keeping a regular check on all their tests, so I know the test scores and I know the exam scores. That's the way I consider [whether] they're doing well or not.
Parents also monitor children's work to check for any sign of problems at school. A significant concern among parents is that their child will have a problem, and they fear that the problem will either not be detected or not
be reported to them. The types of problems parents refer to include both learning and behavioural problems. Parents continually sift information from a range of sources to monitor their children's progress. The information on which parents monitor their children's progress is based on written reports, parent-teacher meetings, work samples, marked tests and other work that children bring home, and through informal discussions with their children and teachers. The effectiveness of the information provided to parents varies from school to school, but overall there is scope for improvement in most schools. Parents want information that will enable them to support their children's learning. They seek information that will support them in: giving their children assistance at home to reinforce school learning; providing instructional support at home in areas of identified weakness; encouraging children in their endeavours; accessing specialist expertise if and when a child is having more serious learning or behavioural problems; and finding a school that provides programs and support to meet their children's needs. Many parents commented that only limited individual attention can be given to students in classrooms and that they need to challenge and extend children outside of their formal schooling. In some cases, this may mean providing additional tutoring. To provide support, parents need to know what is being taught, in addition to specific information about expected standards and how their children are progressing.
[Knowing the curriculum] is absolutely important to support your child at home. ... I remember Year 1 bundling sticks, I thought that was an art activity, honestly ... So it's finding out the jargon. So that first night when we had all these things out (bundling sticks and MAB blocks), and you go Great! It's all coming together. You have to know the curriculum ... You don't have to be an expert, but you have to have some sort of knowledge, if you want to support your child at home.
Parents do not always have the time or knowhow to provide additional learning support at home, and may not have the financial resources to purchase support. Most, however, discuss progress and day-to-day learning with their children, provide a home environment conducive to learning, and support opportunities to encourage and motivate learning. Information on student progress and learning programs provides a framework and a context for parents to talk to their children about learning and support and encourage them, in a general way, even when they are not able assist them with specific learning tasks. Secondary parents, in particular, use information on student progress and school programs to help them shape their expectations for the future and to assist their children to gain the education required for their career choices. This involves monitoring progress in specific subjects, knowing the standard of achievement required for gaining entry into particular careers and applying both pressure and encouragement for children to achieve the required targets. Parents indicate that they would like reports on their children's progress to be extended to provide them with diagnostic and constructive information that would enable them to better support their children's learning. There is also room for improvement in the curriculum and teaching and learning information provided to parents. These provide parents with the learning context and skills to support learning. Using information on student progress and school programs to check on teacher quality is less important to most parents than using it to monitor progress and support learning. However, parent interest in monitoring teacher quality reflects their commitment to ensuring the best possible education for their children. 22 It is obvious to parents that the learning progress of their children is dependent on the quality of the teaching they receive. Parents are generally complimentary in the comments they make about teachers. However, most parents have had experiences of poor or unsatisfactory teaching at some time during their children's schooling. They are frustrated in not being able to have any influence over teaching quality and at the failure of systems to adequately address this issue.
I think maybe ninety percent of the teachers are really good, but there are a lot of them [who] ... don't do what we would expect as parents. ... and the [parent organisation doesn't have a] say on these sort of matters.
Because they are unable to directly influence teaching quality, parents often resort to alternate ways to minimise any negative effects of poor or inappropriate teaching. Some parents are able to use their influence to ensure that their child is not placed in a particular class, while others compensate for poor teaching by putting more effort into assisting their children at home. Some parents make the hard decision to change schools. Children's reports often give clues to teacher quality.
I went through [the reports] and found the lowest results and they were the teachers I interviewed to find out why. ... If your son was having trouble and that teacher had thirty parents standing in a queue, you could rest assured it's not all your kid's fault. You know that there is a problem in that class.
Parents also use other information on progress, such as marked work sent home, to make judgements about teacher quality. Many also use their own knowledge of their children, plus comparisons with other students, and if these do not match with the comments they receive from teachers they often demand to know where their children's learning is placed in terms of state/ territory wide standards and other children with similar learning histories.
So [if] I read in their report ... something that contradicts what I think, then [that] would get the alarm bells going ... If what I'm thinking and what this teacher has written don't meet ... then I approach this teacher and say ... Where's the problem here? Where have I gone wrong, or where has [the child] gone wrong. Or the teacher gone wrong?
Whilst a large number of parents fit in with the role that schools ascribe to them, they, nevertheless, view themselves as being the individuals with prime responsibility for managing their child's educational development. They express disappointment and take umbrage with schools and teachers who try to keep them at arms length, particularly when schools give the impression that "We, the professionals, provide the education and you should support us. " Parents strongly believe that they are responsible for their children's educational development and view the parent-teacher relationship as one of joint partnership and support, with each having different roles. One parent expressed it in this way "They're not raising our children for us. We're doing it together". Parents appreciate schools that acknowledge and form this type of relationship with them. Parents overall find that primary schools are better than secondary schools at forming a partnership relationship. Many express disappointment and confusion, when, after a happy relationship with their primary schools, they are relegated to a lesser role in the education of their secondary school children.
When the kids go into high school it's a whole different ball game. ... I think the personal aspect of it disappears. High school is like an alien place [to parents]. The parental role is absolutely critical... and we're starting to realise the gatekeepers there are in high schools ... Gatekeepers everywhere you go ... stopping you getting or controlling flows of information.
Some parents, however, were very happy with their relationship with secondary schools and described practices comparable with the best of those in primary schools. These parents do not accept that they need have a lesser role in their children's education in the secondary years. There are hardy parents who, in the face of secondary school resistance persist in taking an active role in their children's education. As one said, "You just keep knocking on their door". Parents who are well-informed and active participants in their children's education are more likely to be satisfied with the quality of the school, the quality of the teaching and with their children's progress. Simple 'cause and effect', however, does not explain this set of relationships. Some parents who have been actively engaged in their children's schools have high levels of satisfaction with their children's progress. Others have stories to tell about significant disappointments they have had at some stage of their children's schooling.
In some cases, the additional useful and meaningful information that parents can access through a higher level of participation is reassuring to them. High levels of parent engagement and school-parent interaction can also place pressure on schools and teachers to maintain high professional standards. Parents thus have a role in 'keeping schools honest'. The converse of this may also be true, that schools with high professional standards value the role of parents in education and seek to keep them well-informed and involved. In some schools, however, active participation by parents is no guarantee that they will be provided with accurate and timely information that alerts them to any problems their children may be experiencing. [Return to Top]
Section 3 : Best Practice

Chapter 6: Best Practice in Reporting on Student and School Achievement Introduction Best Practice in Managing Children's Educational Development Best Practice in Reporting on Student Achievement Best Practice in Reporting on School Programs Best Practice in Reporting on School Achievement
Chapter 6 : Best Practice in Reporting on Student and School Achievement

Introduction
Parents have a vested interest in the outcomes of their children's educational development. Successful education is a prerequisite for work and access to careers. It is also an important vehicle for guiding children towards becoming happy, responsible, aware and productive adults who are able to contribute to, and participate effectively, in our society. The parents who contributed their views to this research had a range of approaches to overseeing their children's education. They participate actively in managing their children's education. Parents who successfully manage their children's education oversee their children's development and take appropriate action to ensure that the needs of the children are being met. Other parents, those who are either too busy with other responsibilities or not sufficiently confident of their role in education, have a strong interest but are less active in managing their children's education. Both groups have a strong stake in knowing that their children's educational needs are being met. Many parents view the roles of teachers and parents, respectively, as service provider and consumer. In this context, parents, either directly through fees or indirectly through taxes pay for a service and expect teachers and schools to account for their delivery of that service. Reports on student progress are the primary means by which parents learn about how well their children are progressing at school. The reports are the primary sources of information on which parents base future educational decisions. There is a similarity in approaches throughout Australia- regular written reports and opportunities to attend parent-teacher meetings. However, there is considerable variation in the effectiveness of practices in meeting parent needs for useful, relevant and appropriate information. Both schools and school systems have a responsibility to ensure that best practice is adopted. Schools need to review their reporting policies to ensure that they are providing parents with the information they want and communicating it in a manner that meets the needs of parents. School systems need to ensure that schools obtain advice and support to assist them to achieve best practice. In some instances additional developmental work and policy are also required. For example, additional professional development may be required or policies reviewed to assure systems that their policies are providing the framework necessary for best practice to be achieved. Underlying this should be recognition that effective reporting is intrinsic to successful learning. The statements of best practice that follow have been derived from what parents indicate that they require and on examples cited by them of current school practices that they value. The national and international research
literature analysed for this report provides a reference point from which to verify selected practices. The policies and practices of education systems across Australia provide the context for the discussion of how models of best practice might be achieved and what additional systemic support is required to assist schools to implement best practice. The practices cited embody the fruits of developments that have led to current best practice. These practices incorporate the insights and initiatives of all groups with responsibilities to ensure that educational provision is of the highest quality- teachers, administrators, parents, researchers, and professionals in a number of other disciplines.
Best Practice in Managing Children's Educational Development

Best Practice in Managing Children's Educational Development 1. Schools and parents develop an effective partnership to support the learning of students.
1. Schools and parents develop an effective partnership to support the learning of students. Schools that view the learning of students as the joint responsibility of teachers and parents in partnership are more likely to meet students' and parents' needs and produce better student outcomes than those that do not. Achieving this goal will require a significant cultural change for many schools, while other schools have already achieved or are in the process of achieving this type of relationship with parents. Schools in which teachers do not have a partnership relationship with parents tend to view the education of students as the professional role of schools and their responsibility alone. They argue that parents should support them by fulfilling roles that schools ascribe for parents. Schools in which teachers exhibit this latter approach often consider reporting on student progress as an obligation or a duty. They may also consider anything more than basic reporting as 'additional work'. Schools in which teachers view themselves as partners with parents in the education of children are more likely to approach the reporting process as a core element of the partnership and to focus not on what they are obliged to report to parents, but on what parents need to know in order for them to fulfil their role in the partnership. Partnership implies mutual interests and goals with interlinked roles and responsibilities. Within a successful partnership parents have a broader, but quite distinct role from that of teachers. This is because they have a long-term interest in their child's education, whereas individual teachers are part of each partnership for specific periods of each child's education, and this may relate only to specific areas of learning, eg. Science or English. Because of this, parents, and not teachers, are the principal managers of their child's lifelong education and are responsible for making choices that affect the outcomes of schooling.23 Parents also have a major role in optimising children's learning in out-of-school time. This involves them in supporting and encouraging learning and the provision of additional resources or learning support. To be effective partners in managing their children's education they must have the information necessary to play their part. There are two implications for schools arising from this. The first is that parents must have accurate, useful, and timely information about their children's learning. The second is that parents must have access to opportunities that allow them to develop the skills, knowledge and confidence required to undertake their partnership role effectively. The first implication is relevant to all parents, the second is particularly important to the large group of parents who require additional support and training to be confident educational partners with teachers. Parents most at risk are those who themselves did not have a successful experience of schooling. Such parents may not know how to take on an active partnership role, and may believe that 'teachers know best' and leave education to teachers. Others would like to take a more active role in their children's education but feel intimidated by schools and teachers. Best practice in reporting to parents requires schools to be responsive to the circumstances of communities as a whole, as well as to individual families within communities. Schools exhibiting best practice go out of their way to be as approachable and welcoming as possible to all parents, frame their communications in language that all parents can readily understand, and provide advice to assist parents to support their children at home.
The research on which this report is based found many examples of schools expressing disappointment that relatively few parents attend school activities. There are also many examples of parents not taking up opportunities provided by schools. Parents indicate the reasons for this include unsuitable timing and parent discomfort with the school environment, among others. Schools may need to adopt additional strategies to maximise parental take-up of opportunities if they are to engage parents in a meaningful way as partners. The attitude to parents of teachers and administrative staff in some schools results in frustration even though they may make considerable efforts to engage parents. Despite the best efforts of some schools, there still may be communication or cultural barriers inhibiting their relationship with parents, which may not be detected until schools listen closely to them. For many schools, implementing a genuine partnership with the parent body and with individual parents will require a cultural change, but one that should produce a rich harvest for themselves and their students. A strong and robust educational partnership between teachers and parents is an essential prerequisite for the individual practices described in the following sections to be fully effective.
Best Practice in Reporting on Student Achievement

Introduction There is a high degree of congruence across all States/ Territories and all education systems about what parents consider most desirable in receiving information about their children's progress. Parents want to receive written reports at regular intervals. They want the written report to inform them about their children's standard of achievement, to include information about their children's progress in both academic and non-academic areas and to provide interpretative comments and advice about the meaning of the assessment for future development and progress. Most importantly, parents want written reports to be in a format and language that they can readily comprehend. Parents also want to see and discuss examples of their children's work and marked tests. These enable parents to gain a practical understanding of the types of work that their children are undertaking. Parents express a keen interest in schools sending work samples and marked tests home at regular intervals and providing the opportunity to discuss them at parent-teacher meetings. Parents value, in particular, the opportunity to have a meaningful rather than a ritualistic discussion about their children's progress with teachers. They do not want a process that simply has the teacher reporting to them, but one that facilitates interaction and discussion about their children's progress. This includes teachers listening to what parents have to say about the learning of their children. In addition to formal scheduled reporting, parents want to feel comfortable about approaching the school at any time for information about their child's learning or to raise a concern. Further, they want absolute assurance that schools will contact them immediately if there is a problem in relation to any aspect of their child's educational development and progress. Emerging among parent needs is a desire that their children also participate in assessment and reporting, chiefly to promote in their children a sense of engagement in and responsibility for their own learning and development.
Best Practice in Reporting on Student Achievement 2. Schools ensure that the standard of achievement of students is reported to parents. 3. Reports to parents provide interpretative comments about the progress and achievement of their child. 4. Reports describe achievement in both academic and non-academic areas. 5. Reports are presented in a format and language that is readily understood by parents.
6. Schools ensure that the frequency and timing of reports maximises the role of parents in supporting student progress. 7. Schools support and encourage all parents to attend parent-teacher meetings. 8. Parents are provided with comprehensible reports on student achievement in standardised tests. 9. Students participate in reporting processes. 2. Schools ensure that the standard of achievement of individual students is reported to parents.
Parents express a need to know how well their children are progressing at school. General statements of achievement, either in terms of learning outcomes, words such as 'excellent' and 'satisfactory' or grades such as 'A', 'B' or 'C', without reference to a standard are relatively meaningless to most parents. Parents need to know how well their children are achieving against specific learning standards, the progress they are making, and how well they are achieving compared to their peers. The aim should be to provide parents and their children with an honest and fair assessment of how they are progressing. Assessments need to provide the information that parents require to monitor student progress and on which they can base decisions about the future. Parents use the reports as the basis for judging whether additional support or encouragement is required, for monitoring work effort, and planning their children's educational future. Parents also require this information to assist them in monitoring teacher and school quality. If teacher quality is not up to expectations parents may complain to the school, compensate by themselves providing extra support for their children's learning, or, in extreme cases, transfer the children to other schools. Because of concerns some parents have over the reliability, and ultimate usefulness, of standards established by individual schools, the standards used in reporting have greater credibility if they are based on state/ territory, national or international standards. Most parents want information that allows them to interpret their children's progress in relation to the progress of other students. Parents also want other relevant comparative information. For example, parents of boys should know how their sons' achievements compare with the average and range of achievement of boys across their school system or across their State/ Territory.
3. Reports to parents provide interpretative comments about the progress and achievement of their child.
To report against standards of achievement and provide comparative information only, however, is incomplete if it does not also include an accompanying interpretation of what the achievement results mean for student's further progress and educational development. A statement of the standards attained in each Key Learning Area, while important, is incomplete as a report to parents. Additional interpretative and developmental information is required to complete the picture. This information is often relegated to the "General comments" sections of reports and given less attention by schools. Interpretative and developmental comments are required to assist parents to interpret the meaning of the standard attained by each child. For example, parents want the information to provide the basis on which they can ascertain whether the standard attained by their child is appropriate, excellent, or unsatisfactory given the child's previous record of progress. Additionally, reports should include information about the student's strengths and weaknesses in each Key Learning Area. Such comments need to be more specific than general statements such as "needs to improve writing skills" that are often found in reports. This information should be written with the purpose of enabling parents to target interventions and home learning support for their children. There is no reason why developmental comments should be limited to weaknesses- areas in which a student has made good progress should feature in comments about the student's development as they also provide guidance for future learning. It is critical that teachers acquire skills to adequately diagnose learning difficulties and identify appropriate remedial actions, which may involve referring students to other professionals with specialist expertise. The research found evidence that there may be many teachers who are unable to effectively diagnose specific learning problems or design and provide adequate remediation. The implication from this is that teachers would
benefit from systemically provided training on diagnostic and remedial techniques, especially as applied to literacy development. The provision of interpretative and developmental information in written reports does not imply that parents alone are responsible for providing any additional support. Parents will do what they can to assist their children, but teachers also need to specify at the parent-teacher meeting what their plans are for assisting the development of individual students. There is a need for a child's parent and teacher to discuss together the specific input and support that is to be provided by each party, students included.
4. Reports describe achievement in both academic and non-academic areas.

Parents choose schools with the expectations that the ones they select will attend to the development of a much broader range of knowledge, skills and attitudes than those encapsulated in the Key Learning Areas curricula. Concomitantly, they want school reports to include information on the full range of development goals that the school is attempting to achieve for its students. Schools have responsibilities in the areas of student affective development (eg. self-esteem, motivation, selfconfidence); social development (learning appropriate behaviours and developing an awareness of the 'rules' that govern social roles and interaction); and for certain aspects of physical development (eg. development of fine and gross motor skills, particularly in younger children). School systems have not developed frameworks for assessing and reporting on the affective, social and physical development of students to the same extent that they have for the academic development of students. Although schools often report on selected aspects of student behaviour, much additional work is required to develop an appropriate framework for reporting on the affective, social and physical domains of student development. There would be potential in exploring the development of an appropriate set of competencies for reporting in these areas across both the primary and secondary years.
5. Reports are presented in a format and language that is readily understood by parents.
If parents cannot clearly and readily understand what written reports are telling them, they are of little relevance and the effort put into preparing them is a waste of resources. The focus of well designed reports should be as much on what parents need to know and understand, as on what the school wishes to convey to parents. Many parents who now receive reports based on criterion-based outcomes regret the passing of the earlier report formats while at the same time acknowledging the limitations of the latter in regards to reliability and comprehensiveness. Parents consider assessment on criterion-based outcomes to be a worthy intention, but many indicate that they do not yet have a good understanding of such reports. Parents require either training or detailed explanations of how to interpret such reports. Understanding such reports requires knowledge of the linkages between the outcomes and the path of educational development for students. Teachers often report what they have assessed, but further consideration needs to be given to the inform-ation required by parents. Schools should consider the relative utility of reporting the specifics of the outcomes attained against reporting in a style that summarises and interprets the student's achievements. With more attention to forging a better link between the written report and the parent-teacher meeting, any additional detail required by parents may be more usefully conveyed and discussed in the meeting.
6. Schools ensure that the frequency and timing of reports maximises the role of parents in supporting student progress.
Parents use reports for monitoring their children's progress, hence, the timing of reports is critical. There is an attractive symmetry to mid-year and end-of-year reporting, but reporting earlier than mid-year is necessary if effective remedial action is needed. Earlier reporting is required, particularly, when children are not achieving to expectations. Best practice necessitates that parents be notified immediately if the school is at all concerned about a student's progress. Prompt action to advise parents and seek their support could prevent the problem from escalating and will acknowledge that the school and parents are working as a partnership in the education of the student.
There are also cases in which it is not urgent for parents to be notified but where they should be alerted that their children need extra support or encouragement. Schools should always report to parents earlier than midyear. A system of quarterly reporting used by some schools - interim reporting at the end of Terms 1 and 3 and formal reporting at the end of each semester - is preferred by parents. This practice is not widespread, although it is more common in some States/ Territories than others. Parents expect early feedback on their children's adjustment to change at key stages in their education. The first year of primary and secondary schooling are particular times when parents want reassurance on how their children are settling in and early notification about any potential problems. Parents are very appreciative of schools that adopt this practice. In summary, the pattern and tradition of mid-year and end-of-year reports has become so entrenched in many systems that its educational basis is not challenged. There is an evident need for flexibility of approach to ensure that reporting practice is differentiated according to student need and circumstance. Schools that are responsive to parent and student needs are already varying the timing of reports and providing a mix of oral and written reports, some on a quarterly basis. The content of the reports varies according to purpose, with interim reports typically aiming to address specific issues as indicated above rather than detailing student achievement levels.
7. Schools support and encourage all parents to attend parent-teacher meetings.

Parent-teacher meetings are too often seen by all parties as ceremonial only. The extremely positive feedback, however, from parents who participate in meetings that are informative, constructive and interactive provides the blueprint for a reporting model in which the parent-teacher meeting plays an enhanced role in the reporting process. Such meetings should aim to clarify and expand on the formal written report, discuss test results and samples of student work, and then also agree how the child's further progress is to be supported by both the teacher and parents. The reported benefits from high quality parent-teacher meetings indicate that meetings should not be treated as optional by parents or teachers. While parents cannot be compelled to attend, there needs to be a strong expectation that they will attend. Schools have a responsibility to facilitate and support parents to attend. Because many parents lack confidence in this situation, schools and teachers, particularly, should go out of their way to ensure that parents feel comfortable and that the environment for the meeting is as non-threatening and confidential as possible. To achieve effective parent-teacher meetings it may be necessary for schools to adopt a practice of offering a number of alternative dates and times for parents to fit such meetings into their own schedules. Further there is a need to allocate more time for discussion and relieve the pressure to terminate the meeting before it has achieved its goals. It is critical that parent-teacher meetings are constructive, and parents have an opportunity to ask questions, to provide teachers with relevant information and to reach agreement on the future priorities for supporting the learning of the child. Additional meetings should be scheduled if required.
8. Parents are provided with comprehensible reports on student achievement in standardised tests.
It is important that parents are advised of their children's performance in the various tests and examinations that are commonplace in each State/ Territory. Parents report that the information provided to them from state/ territory-wide testing programs, in particular, is often difficult to interpret. Further development work is required to ensure parents can interpret the information provided. In most cases, the results from state/ territory wide testing programs are provided to parents independently of normal school reporting processes. This often leads to confusion as parents often find it difficult to reconcile the different reports from schools and state/ territory-wide educational testing authorities. Whilst expressing support for current testing programs, parents indicated they do not want an escalation of testing, particularly in the primary school years. Parents want reporting from these programs to indicate how their children are progressing against standards, but want classrooms to focus on broad based learning and not restrict teaching and assessment to the domain of such tests. Some parents indicated cases where they believe the test results were not consonant with a child's current level of attainment in the domain tested. The incidence of such cases suggests the need for research that can
provide parents with an appropriate explanation in such situations. Parents need to be provided with diagnostic information about their children's test performance and an opportunity to discuss it with teachers. Tests can be an impor-tant element in finding potential areas of learning difficulty. Sometimes the tests are able to detect problems before teachers are aware of them, especially in cases where the teacher has limited diagnostic experience. Test results should be viewed by parents and teachers as significant information about the attainment and progress of each child, and analysed in conjunction with teacher assessments of student progress.
9. Students participate in reporting processes. T

he trend to involve primary and secondary students in assessing progress and reporting to parents is strongly supported by parents. Students benefit from assuming responsibility for their own learning and for monitoring their progress. Reporting to parents on their learning progress can engender in students an increased sense of accountability and responsibility for their own learning. Involving students in discussions, either with parents at home or in parent-teacher meetings, enables affirmation to be given where appropriate and supports the development of commitment to learning. Parents from schools using processes that engage students in parent-teacher meetings report that this has been a highly successful innovation. They indicate that the processes allow students to demonstrate their achievements, discuss any problems in their learning, and be an integral part of planning for their future learning. The processes are generally structured to allow an opportunity for the parents and teacher to discuss issues without the child being present also.
Best Practice in Reporting on School Programs

Introduction Much of best practice in reporting on student progress is applicable also to reporting information that schools provide to parents about programs. The essential elements centre on the partnership that the school has with parents, the role that each partner has, and how this is evidenced in its communication. Unilateral decisions by schools about what parents should know and how parents can support schools do not accord with best practice. Many secondary schools, in particular, could benefit from a reappraisal of their relationships and communications with parents. More than anything else, parents want schools to be approachable and to be positive, warm and responsive to their needs for information. They want schools to recognise their significant role in the education of their own children. Parents require information from schools to enable them to have a discussion about progress and future plans in relation to their children's learning and to provide effective assistance and support for them. Parents want this information in practical and easy to understand language. Parents prefer to receive information about school programs through face-to-face meetings such as information evenings, meetings with teachers and training sessions. This provides opportunities for interaction, questioning and clarification. Not all parents, however, are able to attend scheduled meetings at schools. They would like more flexibility in the scheduling of meetings, and other ways to access information they may have missed. School publications have a role in providing information to prospective parents so that they can make an initial selection of schools to follow up with personal visits. Parents want communication to be two-way. Most schools now provide opportunities for parents to provide feedback on school policies and practices at an operational level. Parent contributions to curriculum policies and teaching programs, however, are not as extensive as in other areas of the operation of schools. Parents want schools to involve them in teaching and learning policy decisions as well as in areas such as uniforms.
Best Practice in Reporting on School Programs 10. Schools have a planned strategy for informing parents about their programs.
11. Schools facilitate opportunities for parents to receive advice and discuss their child's progress and how they can support their child's education. 12. Communication strategies are tailored to meet local school community circumstances and conditions. 13. Parents are encouraged to interact with school staff and other parents on an informal basis. 14. Parents participate in providing input to school decision making and feedback in reviewing the effectiveness of school policies and programs. 10. Schools have a planned strategy for informing parents about their programs.
Strategies for informing parents about schools and school programs should make provision for both publications and meetings. A publications strategy is especially important for parents whose opportunities for personal interaction with the school are limited. Publications need to complement face-to-face interactions and other meetings called to disseminate information to parents. Some parents, however, will rely more than others on published information to inform themselves about the school, and so school publications should provide all the basic information required by parents. The publications provided by schools should make provision for the following: A prospectus to provide general information about the school for potential parents and other interested parties. A handbook for parents of students enrolled in the school. The handbook should provide detail about school policies, curriculum, teaching and learning approaches, extra curricula offerings, special programs, school rules, and other expectations of students. Parents can use this document as an ongoing reference. A regular newsletter which informs parents about current programs and future events. A calendar of events, often incorporated into the newsletter. The calendar of events for the year should enable parents to organise their diaries. An update of the calendar should be issued at the beginning of each term. Parents should expect to receive ample advance notice of events. This is especially important if the event entails parent expenditure, such as excursions, or involves a time commitment from parents, such as an activity at the school. Information on the school's goals and priorities for the year. Handouts, yearly and termly, that provide parents with information about the planned learning program that their children will be undertaking and information about ways in which parents can support the learning in the home environment. Additionally, schools should consider, if they have not already done so, establishing a website aimed at providing parents with the information contained in its publications. Parent access to the internet will increase rapidly in the next five years.
11. Schools facilitate opportunities for parents to receive advice and discuss their child's progress and how they can support their child's education.
The benefits of parents and teachers meeting to discuss a school's learning programs were evident from parent contributions to this research. At their best, such meetings provide a depth of understanding that cannot easily be gained from school publications; they enable parents to seek clarification about information, be provided with examples and to ask questions. They are also important in assisting parents to develop a relationship with the teachers of their child ren. Merely providing such opportunities, however, is not sufficient. Many parents reported that they have attended information evenings that have been boring or where the information provided had not been useful. The types of meetings that are most beneficial include the following: Group meetings for parents considering enrolling their children at the school, usually held at the end of the year prior to enrolment. A small group meeting at the beginning of each school year with parents new to the school and individual meetings during the year for parents enrolling a student after the commencement of the year.
A small group meeting of parents and the children's teacher( s) at the beginning of each school year. Some schools arrange these as class parent meetings as frequently as once a term. Parent development sessions to assist parents in the support of their children's learning and to present other information relevant to student development. Small group meetings of Year 10 and 11 parents to provide a framework to guide decision making about course and subject selection, particularly for Years 11 and 12. The first meeting described above is often called an 'open day' or a 'school information day'. The formal meeting may be one component of the activities on the day. The second meeting type is most typically held for parents at the beginning of the first year, respectively, of primary and secondary schooling, although there is an evident need for a similar opportunity for parents whose children enrol at other stage s of schooling also. The purpose of these meetings is to introduce parents to the school and to provide information about its policies, programs, and goals. These meetings also have an important role in establishing positive teacher-parent relationships. The meeting with teachers at the beginning of the year is considered very important by parents. These are held most commonly at the first year of both primary and secondary schooling; however, parents strongly supported the idea that these opportunities be available for each year-level. Their purpose is to provide a curriculum overview and give detailed information on the planned learning program and the teaching methods to be used. Secondary schools are currently less likely than primary schools to provide parents with an opportunity to gain an overview of their children's learning program. If parents are to provide effective support at home for their children's learning they need to know in advance about the planned learning program. This assists them in planning resources and experiences, enables them to discuss learning with their children, helps them to become effective monitors of homework, and assists them to ensure that children having difficulties receive appropriate support. Additionally, parents need an opportunity to gain a broader understanding of the curriculum context of each learning program- for example, how each term's learning program fits within the overall curriculum objectives for the year-level. They also need to have an understanding of homework expectations, how they can help, and an overview of teaching methods. There is significant variation in the success of teachers in making information sessions relevant and interesting. The parent contribution to this research indicates that the most successful sessions focus on a specific class and have a practical orientation. To be successful, teachers must genuinely want to communicate information to parents, and to receive and answer their questions. They, thus, do need to give all parents a warm welcome and make the sessions friendly and useful. The most effective schools with hard-to-reach parents make additional efforts to involve those parents. In many schools, liaison officers take on the task of reaching out to such families- providing information in the language of the parents and acting as a conduit between school and home. It may be more effective in some cases for meetings to be held away from the school. Information about teaching methods, particularly in primary school are important to parents who want the support they provide at home to complement school learning. Parent support for secondary students is often associated with providing advice and engaging in a discussion about learning, rather than direct help with learning. Parents of students at secondary school need to meet with school staff to discuss subject selection. Because of the significant implications for post-school options, parents need to be as fully informed as possible when they are assisting their children in their choice of subjects in the latter years of secondary schooling. Some parents feel that current processes do not adequately inform them about the implications of particular choices. Parents indicate that they view the decisions about the selection of subjects as an important part of the management of their children's educational development. The most effective practice in providing information to support subject choice is a multi-layered approach. This involves parents perusing literature or handouts on course selections, attending meetings to discuss subject availability in more detail and meeting teachers, possibly one-on-one, to ask questions that will enable parents to understand more fully the options for their children and the implications of particular choices.
In some secondary schools there is a prevailing culture that teachers and students alone determine choices in the senior years. While recognising that their children are young adults and should themselves be responsible for their final decisions relating to subject choice, parents indicate that they are responsible for offering guidance and advice.
12. Communication strategies are tailored to meet local school community circumstances and conditions.
Tailoring of communication strategies is required whenever the usual approach is not appropriate or effective. Schools that are responsive to the needs of their parent community monitor how well their strategies are working, and modify or change their approaches to ensure success. Such schools are less likely to blame parents for not responding and seek alternative solutions to take account of their particular context. The instances cited by parents where a tailored approach is required were of two major types: where sections of the school community have cultural and educational differences or a language that is different to that of the school, and situations when the current approach by the school is not achieving the intended outcomes. Families from non-English speaking backgrounds have fairly obvious needs for either very plain language, translated publications, or for others in the community to interpret publications for them. Many schools are clearly making a major effort to meet the communication needs of these families. For other families, English may be their preferred language of communication, but they have special needs for the language of publications to be plain and for concepts to be clearly explained. Parents described many schools where the language was intimidating because of its use of professional jargon and confusing to them. In these cases, the language used had the effect of excluding parents rather than including them. Where parents feel threatened or intimidated there is clearly a need for schools to go out of their way to facilitate their partic i p a t ion for the bene fit of their children. Whilst many schools have achieved a high degree of effectiveness in their communications with parents, others need to review the effectiveness of their school-level and teacher-level communications. Schools need to take action in cases where teachers have an inappropriate attitude towards parents or where individual teachers lack experience and skills in dealing with parents. The skills of teachers in communicating with parents represent an under-acknowledged aspect of teacher training. There is a need for professional development programs and for initial teacher training to provide support for teachers to develop skills in communicating with parents, especially in initiating discussions about matters of student learning that need to be addressed. In addition to responding to the differences within their community, the most effective schools find solutions to communication problems they have experienced, eg. by mailing selected communications direct to parents, or designating volunteer parents to liaise with other parents with children in the same year-level. Within the overall framework of best practice there is a need for schools to continually monitor and refine their practices by responding to changes in local circumstances. Many schools accept too readily that parents will not come to school meetings, or do not want to be more involved, and attribute this to a lack of desire for involvement by parents. Other schools with histories of a low level of involvement and participation have proven that with changed attitudes and practices on their part, parent participation in their children's education can be transformed in both primary and secondary schools.
13. Parents are encouraged to interact with school staff and other parents on an informal basis.
This practice may not at first appear to be directly related to the quality of communication between schools and parents, but schools that are very effective in communicating with parents actively encourage parents to be 'at' the school as often as possible. This is in contrast to schools that give informal messages that parents are not required to actively participate unless invited to do so by the school. The nature of informal participation varies. Parents may go to the school to meet other parents and discuss issues of common interest. Some schools provide a venue for parents to meet at any time, but in lieu of such a venue the school canteen, by default, is usually a centre for parent discussion and the exchange of information. Parents who participate as classroom volunteers are also more likely to meet informally with other parents and with teachers when they drop-off or pick up their children. Once parents are at the school, they are more likely to meet school staff and keep in touch through brief discussions. Such interactions enable teachers to build up
relationships that parents find helpful. Repeated interactions with parents sensitise school staff to parent concerns and perspectives and, hence, allow them to take into account the needs and expectations of parents in general. Informal interactions are not limited to personal visits. Supposedly simple practices such as treating parent phone calls with courtesy and respect and seeking to ensure that someone at the school responds to parent inquiries are a vital part of building a quality relationship with parents. This research found evidence that some parents felt that schools treated their inquiries or requests as a nuisance. Other schools unknowingly make it difficult for parents to make an inquiry. Schools need to have a person designated as the main contact point for parents who are unsure where to direct their inquiry. The school contact person is then responsible for ensuring that the enquiry is followed through to the satisfaction of the parent. Parents have a much higher degree of satisfaction in their informal interactions with primary schools than with secondary schools. Secondary schools provide a significant challenge to parents. Their structures are more complex and more disparate than primary schools. The descriptions provided by parents of secondary schools with effective communication are those in which parents feel comfortable when they are at the school, are recognised by staff, and feel that they are welcome. The participation of parents in these schools is little different from that in primary schools, except that parents are not directly engaged in helping in classrooms to the same extent as in primary schools. Many parents themselves cannot participate in the daily life of the secondary school to the extent that they had in primary school. The greater independence of older students enables parents to take up paid employment and have other responsibilities, hence the smaller proportion of parents who have intensive interactions with secondary schools. The amount and number of times that parents interact with a secondary school is less important than the quality of the interactions when they do occur. Schools that are welcoming of parent participation in their children's learning make courteous efforts to respond to parent needs, and are generally more responsive to their concerns.
14. Parents participate in providing input to school decision making and feedback in reviewing the effectiveness of school policies and programs.
The best schools are not just responsive to parent needs and expectations, they actively seek parent advice when formulating school policy and developing school programs, and they demonstrate that they listen to that advice. Some schools fail to consult parents. Some consult parent organisations but then ignore their advice without providing the courtesy of explaining why they have made an alternative decision. Some schools ask for input on particular issues from parent organisations, but nothing occurs as a result. In these circumstances parents are aware that their input is undervalued. On the other hand, parents value schools where major decisions are made only after seeking the views and comments of parents. These schools convey a sense to their community that parents are important to their children's education. Schools also need to strike an appropriate balance between consulting with school parent organisations and the broader parent community. Parent organisations play a significant and valuable role in supporting schools. While their advice is valued, there are times when the wider parent community wants to participate directly in matters that are central to their concerns. An important element of participation by the wider parent community to emerge in recent years has been their role in reviewing schools. However, few schools provide feedback from such processes to their parent community in a way that provides them with accessible information about the effectiveness and performance of the school.
Best Practice in Reporting on School Achievement

Introduction Parents have three purposes for receiving information on school achievement. The first is to provide them with information to assist in choosing the most appropriate school for their individual children. The second is to
better enable them to monitor the quality of the schools that their children currently attend, and the third is to focus their efforts on areas of effectiveness requiring school improvement. In choosing schools, parents develop lists of prospective schools on the basis of information obtained through networks, personal experience and from published sources. Parents make their final choice after visiting a short-list of these schools. The information and criteria on which they base their decisions is derived from their analysis of the specific needs of their individual children. Parents monitoring the quality of the school that their children attend want objective and reliable information on how the schools is achieving its goals and how effective it is compared with other schools. Parents require this information to monitor and provide reassurance about the quality of the school they selected for their children. Some parents also believe that they have a responsibility to use school performance information to improve aspects of a school's operation. The fact that relatively few parents see this as a reason to have access to information on school achievement is in many aspects not surprising. The idea that parents can use information as a basis for working with staff to improve schools, or for applying pressure for school improvement, is not well developed in Australia. This is due in part to the fact that most schools and school systems in Australia do not routinely allow parents to access school performance information. The research literature provides strong support for parents and school systems to apply pressure as an essential component of successful strategies for school improvement. The success of schools in achieving performance targets needs to be a central focus of the information made available to parents. Underlying the desire of parents to access such information is a hope that action will be taken to resolve the problem or improve performance. Parental desire for information on school performance was more marked among the parents who were least satisfied with the quality of schooling their children received. Satisfied parents tend to be so because either their children are achieving at the expected level or the school has a good reputation for being effective. The latter perception, however, is often based more on the marketing and media efforts of schools than on real data, as the data on the performance and effectiveness of schools is normally not made available to the parents and the public generally. Parents want information about school achievement that is objective, reliable and credible and not presented as a "sales pitch". They want the information to capture all aspects of schools, and in particular to cover the full range of goals they have for their children. They also want information that they can easily comprehend. Parents expressed a desire to have access to guidance and advice on the characteristics of effective schools. They seek such information to supplement their own concepts about 'good' schools. Although some systems have the capacity to provide much more relevant information on school achievement, few schools in Australia currently report to parents on their achievement in a way that provides a comprehensive and balanced account. Systems generally have not yet introduced policies or developed and implemented the necessary frameworks, information systems and training programs that would enable schools to report a balanced and comprehensive account of their achievement.
Best Practice in Reporting on School Achievement 15. Schools report annually to parents on their success in achieving goals and performance targets. 16. Parents are provided with benchmarks against which to assess the achievement of schools on a range of outcomes. 17. Parents are provided with a range of accurate and reliable school performance and effectiveness information. 18. All schools in receipt of government funding report accurately to parents on their achievement in accordance with an agreed public reporting framework. 19. Schools and school systems promote a culture of accountability by providing parents with access to school achievement information.
15. Schools report annually to parents on their success in achieving goals and performance targets.
School annual reports should be prepared for an audience that includes both current and prospective parents. Most schools currently have some form of annual reporting, but the audience, content and rigour of such reports varies considerably. Reporting to parents should include information on a broad range of achievements. It should reflect the full range of goals that parents want schools to achieve and take account of the context of individual schools. A number of education systems specify areas, and some specify details within those areas, of what schools are expected to report on. This specification should occur in all systems and parents should also be advised of the range of information schools are expected to report on. Reporting frameworks guide schools in preparing their annual reports and encourage the establishment of systemic benchmarks 24 and indicators by which schools can assess their progress. Annual reports are most likely to include information on how schools are achieving their academic goals for the range of students at the school. Parents believe that they are often given biased and irrelevant information, because it focuses mainly on the high achievers at the school. Parents want to know how well schools are catering for the needs of children like their own. Information on the academic achievement of students needs to be presented in the context of each school and provide ways of assessing expected achievements against appropriate benchmarks. In addition to academic achievement, school annual reports should report on how well schools are achieving social, affective and physical development goals for students. Considerable further work is required to develop and refine goals and targets in the areas of social and affective development. Some systems have developed frameworks for reporting on behaviour, though further development is required. Whilst parents are most interested in learning about how successful a school is in achieving its goals for students, they are also interested in information on other aspects that have a bearing on the capacity of schools to achieve their goals. This includes management practices, encompassing aspects of leadership, school culture, and teacher development; and resources, encompassing funding sources and the allocation of staff resources. Some school systems in Australia currently evaluate data on school achievement in the areas noted above for accountability purposes. They therefore have the capacity to report to parents on the success of schools in achieving goals and targets. Parents in some schools, and a limited number of parents in others, may have access to this information, but parents are not the primary audience for these accountability reports. Where parents in systems that have comprehensive school review processes do access such reports, they find them to be too wordy, use too much jargon, and expressed in a language that parents cannot readily access. It is evident that reports prepared for systemic accountability and school improvement purposes are not appropriate for distribution to parents. Parents want concise reports, which are at the same time expressed in clear everyday language, and report succinctly on achievement against school goals. Reports produced for systemic accountability purposes could serve as a source of the information for reports prepared for parents.
16. Parents are provided with benchmarks against which to assess the achievement of schools on a range of outcomes.
The annual reports described earlier need to provide statements of school performance against a range of specified targets. This information should be presented simply with a concise interpretation of what it means in terms of the school and the achievements of other schools serving similar populations. In the academic domain, the reports should provide a profile of school achievement in relevant KLAs. Parents want to be able to access information against benchmarks for a range of other aspects of school achievement for the behavioural and social development of students. A small number of the systems in Australia have or are developing benchmarks for school achievement for both academic and non-academic outcomes. The standardised test information that is currently available for some year-levels provides readily obtainable benchmarks from which schools can assess their achievements against value-added indicators and specific attainment targets. Year 12 end of schooling assessments also provide some basis for such assessments. Care is needed in determining the way in which such information is presented. Many parents indicate that they
cannot interpret the test information that they currently receive for their own children. School test information should also be reported in a way that indicates both school performance and effectiveness. The latter acknowledges school context and indicates the impact of the school on student learning outcomes. The former simply indicates the school achievement of students, which is due to a range of influences, including socio-economic background and ability in addition to the impact of the school. Just as information on individual student achievement is of limited value without accompanying and appropriate interpretation, so too school achievement information requires interpretation that is cognisant of each school's context. Teacher assessments, when accurate and meaningful, are highly valued by parents. Systems that have implemented criterion-based outcomes reporting have the capacity to develop system-wide benchmarks for school achievement in the relevant KLAs. Such benchmarks allow schools to assess their achievements against systemic benchmarks and against other schools serving similar populations of students. Relevant 'like-school' populations can be defined on the basis of student intake characteristics that classify schools into 'like-groups'. For example, schools that have a selective intake would be more usefully compared with other schools that have a similar selective intake. Similarly, schools in rural areas could also be classified into 'like' groups of schools. Frameworks for collecting and publishing 'like-schools' data need to be established at system level. A small number of systems currently provide their schools with 'like-school' benchmarks. The other type of information required by parents is that which describes the achievement profile for each school over time. Parents want this so they can monitor performance of schools and evaluate whether they are improving, declining or stable. Any change in their achievement profile is best interpreted against the longitudinal profile for other schools in the same 'like' group. Considerable care needs to be exercised when setting targets for individual schools that are in 'like' groups with below-average levels of student achievement. In particular, care must be taken not to lock these schools into entrenched lower expectations and lower standards. Parents do not want simplistic information on school achievement to be presented in league table format. They are rarely interested in knowing the relative achievement of all schools in the State/ Territory. They want benchmark information about the small group of schools that are of interest to them. Parents want school achievement information to be provided in a format and in sufficient detail for them to assess how well children like their own are achieving at each school. In particular they want the information to tell them how children of average potential or with interests and abilities in a particular area are achieving in each school. In essence, they want a multi-faceted consumer guide to the schools that are of interest to them. League tables based on a single indicator are of little interest to them as they are far too narrow in terms of the information they provide. Hence they are also viewed as presenting a partial and unfair picture of the comparative performance of schools. To achieve best practice in this area will require substantial development work in most schools and systems. This will need to expand upon current school-level assessment processes in academic areas, establish assessment practices and bench-marks in non-academic areas and provide relevant information against performance indicators for management processes and school resource allocations. The total set of information to be provided to parents needs to be carefully considered. Swamping parents with too much information will be no more useful than the present situation of inadequate information. The information that parents want focuses on the basic skills areas, literacy and numeracy in particular, and on student behaviour and social development. Surveys of parents own assessments of the school their children attend should also contribute to the information on school achievement.
17. Parents are provided with a range of accurate and reliable school performance and effectiveness information.
Parents firmly indicated that they want the information that they receive to be credible and reliable. Parents criticised some of the information that they currently receive on the grounds that it is reported for marketing purposes or lacks integrity. 'Marketing' type publications are often selective in what they report, typically
reporting positive or high achievements only, many of which may be of no relevance to the majority of students in the school. Parents also indicate that some reports on schools are inaccurate in their assessments and lack integrity because they report a very misleading assessment of the situation in specific schools. Parents referred to such reports in terms that reflected poorly on the schools and systems concerned. They consider such reports to be a waste of time and resources. Effective models of reporting on schools follow simple rules to ensure accuracy, integrity and reliability. The first step is to provide schools with frameworks against which to report required information. This eliminates schools alone being able to select what they place in reports. Such frameworks need to specify the standards or benchmarks against which schools report. The second step is to ensure that there is independent verification of the information in school reports. This is in essence an auditing process undertaken by a person with no material interest in the information in the report. External verifiers need access to verifiable information to adequately undertake their task. They require adequate time in schools and access to the appropriate verifiable information. Using an external verifier is important to ensure credibility and integrity of the information provided in the report. This, however, is not of itself sufficient. The process of independent verification needs to be subject to periodic audit to ensure that any corruption of the process can be identified and rectified.
18. All schools in receipt of government funding report accurately to parents on their achievement in accordance with an agreed public reporting framework.
Parents need and desire accurate reports on school achievement that are also thorough and succinct. This demand was put forward by numerous parents with children in both government and non-government schools. One of the factors that inhibit schools in being frank and honest about their achievements with their communities is that they operate in a market environment with increasing levels of active choice behaviour by parents and students. Schools themselves have little incentive to publish anything other than information that supports a positive image, especially if their competitors do not have the same pressure to provide fair and accurate information. Even without the issue of competition among schools there is an argument for all schools in receipt of public funds to account to the public, including parents, for the outcomes achieved through such funding. Nongovernment, and government, schools are accountable variously to the Commonwealth and State/ Territory governments for their expenditure of Commonwealth and State/ Territory funds, but this does not extend to accountability for student outcomes or the provision of information about the achievements of schools.
19. Schools and school systems promote a culture of accountability by providing parents with access to school achievement information.
Reporting on school achievement should require schools to account directly to the parent community. A culture of school accountability would see the current focus on accountability shift from a focus on reporting primarily to funding agencies to one with dual objectives to report appropriate information to funding agencies and parents. Information provided to parents needs to be extensive, but need not encompass all the current financial information reported to funding agencies. [Return to Top]
Discussion and Concluding Comment

Information on the performance and effectiveness of schools in Australia is not as comprehensively or publicly accessible by parents as it is in some other countries, such as the United Kingdom and the United States of America. In overseas countries, the purpose of publishing information on the effectiveness and performance of schools is to provide a basis for improving schools and raising standards. Further, parents make use of the publicly available information in making their decisions about choosing schools for their children. The information publicly available in other countries is normally drawn from one of three sources: information reported by schools themselves, information reported by educational authorities on the achievement of students as measured by testing programs and public examinations, and reports from intensive evaluations of the
effectiveness and performance of schools by designated review authorities. The information that is presented includes quantitative information and qualitative information, in addition to professional interpretations of data on individual schools. In contrast to Australia, school systems in other countries publish a relatively extensive amount of information that relates to individual schools and to system wide and national benchmarks and standards. The parents interviewed for this research indicated a clear preference for more rather than less information about the schools that their children attend or might attend. Further, they expressed a clear statement that, in general, they see themselves as the individuals with primary responsibility for the management of their children's educational development. They view individual teachers as essential professional partners who provide a range of vital services as their children develop. Parents indicated that many schools, however, view the relationship between teachers and parents somewhat differently to this. In particular, teachers in some schools appear to view themselves as the managers of the educational development of the students who attend their school. In many cases, this view does not include parents as partners in the process, but ascribes particular non-educational roles to parents. Many parents during the course of this research have pointed to the fact that they are responsible for the educational development of their children over a period of many years, whereas most individual teachers contribute to this for relatively short periods, often for no more than about two hours a day for nine months of the year. Because parents have the long-term role in children's development, they take seriously their tasks in monitoring their children's progress. Hence, they believe they have a fundamental responsibility to enquire about teaching strategies in schools and other issues central to other aspects of educational development. Parents, particularly, want information that will support their role in ensuring that their children have access to assistance and support for their learning at home. A significant proportion of the parent population expects to provide support for their children to achieve at their potential, and go out of their way to provide additional support in any areas of identified weakness. Not all parents have the time or the knowhow to provide the additional learning support that they would like to at home, and they may not have the financial resources to acquire this support from other sources. This should not be taken as an indication that parents do not have a deep interest in the educational development of their children. Most parents frequently discuss progress at school with their children and seek to provide a home environment that encourages and motivates their learning. It is inevitable that some of the decisions that parents make may be less than optimal, or even bad, but this of itself does not change their role in being responsible for their children's educational development. As children move towards their teenage years, parents seek information that will allow them to shape expectations for the future and to assist their children to gain the education required for their career choices. This involves monitoring progress in specific subjects, knowing the standard required for particular career options and applying both pressure and encouragement for children to achieve the required standards of learning. The central role of parents, in partnership with teachers, in managing their children's educational development is strongly supported in the research literature which shows that active participation by parents in children's education is strongly related to student outcomes from schooling. Some parents view the parent-teacher partnership from the perspective of consumer and service provider, respectively. In many such cases, parents either directly through fees or indirectly through taxes, believe that they are paying for a service and expect teachers and schools to account to them for the delivery of the service they require. There is a significant level of convergence across State/ Territory and non-government schools in how they currently report to parents on student achievement. However, there is less commonality in reporting on school achievement and in the provision of information on school programs. Most systems are moving towards reporting processes that are based on the assessment of students against criterion-based curriculum outcome statements that are related to specific standards and benchmarks. During this research, parents recounted numerous examples of exemplary reporting practices by individual schools. They clearly indicated that they wanted their child to attend a school with such practices. Parents in all systems receive written reports and the opportunity to discuss these with teachers. In the main, these reports
focus on aspects of academic achievement, with only peripheral focus on other aspects of educational development, such as affective, social and physical development outcomes. There is considerable variation in the effectiveness with which school reporting practices meet parent needs and provide useful, relevant and appropriate information for the parent role in managing children's educational development. Parents expect reporting to provide regular updates on a range of academic and non-academic outcomes for students. They are more satisfied when this reporting is related to an external standard, as this assists them in understanding their children's progress. Parents are further assisted when teachers provide examples of children's work in the form of corrected homework, work samples, or marked tests and assignments. Parents have indicated that they wish to see an extension of current reporting practices to include advice about how they can support their children's learning in the home environment. They also seek reassurance that they are welcome to approach the school at any time if they wish to make further enquiries about their children's progress and that they will be notified at the earliest possible time if teachers become aware of any impediments that might mean that individual children are not progressing as expected. The primary purpose for which parents use information reported by teachers on student progress is to monitor their own children's learning in terms of their expectations and the child's potential. Parents use knowledge of their children in addition to comparative information about other students to gain a wider understanding of the educational development of individual children. In order to support the monitoring of progress for individual children, parents also seek information about the specific learning programs that their children are engaged in at school. This includes gaining an understanding of the curriculum, the expected progression of learning, and knowledge of what they can do to prepare for and support the learning program in the home environment. Parents seek information beyond the standard academic program, so that they can also monitor the affective, social and physical development of their children. A significant proportion of parents indicated a strong preference to receive information about student progress in the form of criterion-based assessments of student learning. In most cases, these assessments are presented as teacher-judgments based on the continuous assessment of student progress at school. Some systems have developed benchmarks that provide information to assist parents in assessing whether their child is progressing at the expected rate. Some systems have also sought to develop a convergence between these teacher-based assessments and state/ territory-wide testing programs. In particular, they have developed a structure for reporting student achievement on the same measures for both forms of assessment. Where both assessments relate to similar curriculum outcomes this approach has the additional benefit of providing a basis on which both teachers and parents can interpret student progress simultaneously in terms of the outcome statements and state/ territory wide benchmarks. Such an approach to assessment enhances the validity and reliability of the information provided to parents. In addition to the reports that teachers provide for parents each year and the opportunity for parents to contact the school at any time to discuss their children's progress, parents would like to see a further enhancement of the reporting process. The opportunity to discuss the written report in a joint face-to-face meeting with the teacher and the child is the model preferred by a significant proportion of parents. Parents have indicated a number of areas in which they believe the parent-teacher meetings could be enhanced. First, they seek additional flexibility by teachers in providing alternative opportunities to meet and discuss the progress of individual children. They have also indicated that they would like schools to make greater efforts to create a more conducive environment for parents to meet with teachers. Parents seek more interactive discussions with teachers, in which parents report to teachers about the development of their children and discuss with teachers the next phases of their children's educational development. Many parents have indicated a desire to engage in a more equal partnership with teachers, but currently feel somewhat intimidated and lacking in confidence to participate in in-depth discussions with teachers. One area in which parents seek greater engagement is in the interpretation of their children's school reports. In particular, they would like more discussion than at present about the implications of individual reports for their child's learning in the period immediately ahead. Part of the problem with interpretation stems from language in reports that is lacking in precision and inaccessible to parents. They do not necessarily seek more detail than
that which they currently receive, but should like to have school reports broadened to include more information on student development in affective, social and physical development areas. Much of this information could be conveyed by teachers interpreting student outcomes in the extra-curricula programs of schools. At particular stages of children's educational development, parents seek detailed information from a range of schools in assessing which schools might best suit the needs of their individual children. In essence, parents seek to match the individual needs of children with the environment and programs offered by particular schools. For this, they require information about the educational programs and performance of a range of schools that might be suitable. They gather this information from a number of sources, by "shopping around", from a number of informal sources and from formal sources of information provided by schools. Because of the paucity of information available about most schools, parents generally resort to ad hoc and impressionistic ways of evaluating which schools might be most suited to individual children. Personal networks and parent's impressions from visits to schools are the most valued sources of information they use in this decision making process. Published information provided by schools is treated with some scepticism as parents recognise part of its role as that of marketing, which in their eyes usually means presenting information on the best aspects of the school, but not necessarily providing the information required to make an all round judgment. Part of the reason why parents rely so much on impressionistic and informal sources of information is because there is relatively little public information available on schools. The information that is provided through the press is often viewed as lacking independence and credibility, because it is likely to present only one angle, and the information published by schools themselves is seen as lacking independence. Although many school systems across the country now routinely gather a wide range of information about individual schools, there is significant reticence in making this information available to the public. In their submissions to this research, some systems and organisations argued that it would be unfair to schools if the general public had access to such information. School systems tend to use information collected from individual schools for accountability and school and system improvement purposes, rather than for the purpose of providing the public with information. Most systems are yet to develop a methodology for providing public information on student achievement in a way that takes account of the different student profiles of schools. Technically, there are a number of ways in which this could be accomplished, hence the reason for the lack of information that is provided to the public must lie elsewhere. Even where individual schools provide annual reports containing significant amounts of information about the performance of the school, these are often not widely distributed. Such reports are generally required as part of the accountability processes between the central administration of systems and individual schools. Further, reports from school review programs, which are also designed to serve systemic accountability purposes, are not generally accessible to the public. It is the case that most annual reports and school review reports about individual schools are not written with the public as a significant audience, but there is no reason why they could not be used as a basis to prepare information for a public audience. Accountability reports that contain information of interest to parents are more likely to be prepared for schools in the State/ Territory sector than for schools in the non-government sector. Although, by international standards, accountability requirements for reporting on school performance in Australia are relatively weak, they tend to be stronger for schools in some State/ Territory systems than they are for schools in the non-government sector. In the context of the limited information publicly available about the effectiveness and performance of individual schools, parents have indicated that they have to take on 'trust' what many schools say about themselves. Further, because of the limited information publicly available, parents have not been able to develop their understanding of the concepts of school performance and effectiveness. They have a set of basic understandings about what makes a 'good' school, but have indicated that they would appreciate guidance and further advice about such matters. In particular, they have indicated that they would be interested in a comprehensive and structured framework for making judgments about the performance and effectiveness of individual schools. During the course of this research, parents indicated a number of characteristics which they consider to be important for schools to be effective. These include: a warm, friendly and secure environment, a broad curriculum and wide range of extra-curricula opportunities, high academic standards, continuity in the provision of programs, a focus on an 'all-round' education, effective discipline and social welfare practices, a focus on parents as partners in the education of their children, and a focus on respecting students as responsible
participants in their own education. Parents indicated that they were not in favour of simplistic measures of school performance and effectiveness, particularly where the measures take no account of the differences in student intake between schools. Further, parents view information about the successes and achievements of schools as partial and incomplete information about school performance. They seek information about the effectiveness of individual schools for students from different types of backgrounds and for students with a range of different post-school aspirations. In essence, they seek information that might indicate how well their own children might achieve in each individual school. Parents generally have very well developed understandings of the capacities and potentials of their individual children, and therefore, seek information that might be of specific relevance to their individual children. In seeking to make a choice among schools, parents undertake direct comparisons on the basis of whatever information they can access. However, they find that 'league tables' based on one dimension of school performance (such as Year 12 examinations) to be of relatively little use in their decision making about the choice of a school for a specific child. In interpreting information about the progress of individual children and evaluating information about the comparative offerings and performance of different schools, parents often find that they would like to access assistance and specific support. Many parents have indicated an interest in attending training and information sessions that would assist them in managing the educational development of their children. Although some primary schools offer training in aspects of education associated with the work of parent volunteers in classrooms and other programs, there is little available to support parents in the areas noted above. There are extremely few programs of any type available to parents in relation to the secondary years of education. The formal accountability systems that are in place for state/ territory schools and schools in other systems are mostly geared towards providing information for system bureaucracies with little focus on the provision of relevant information to parents. Given the strong interest of parents in having access to more and better information and the interpretation of information about schools, it would be appropriate for formal accountability processes to focus more on their role in this area. A large proportion of the parents who participated in this research indicated that they had a high regard for the teachers of their children. Nevertheless, a high proportion also were able to recount experiences of poor or unsatisfactory teaching at some time during their children's schooling. In reflecting on this, they often expressed frustration at not being able to have a greater influence on the quality of teaching. Parents generally seek to glean information about the quality of teaching from children's reports. Because of their commitment to ensuring the best possible education for their children, they express a strong interest in having access to information about the quality of teaching in individual schools. Parents accept that there will be variation in the quality of teaching in schools, but a number of the parents in this research indicated that they had taken action to have a child moved from a particular class because the quality of teaching was below acceptable levels. Some parents also indicated that they had to ultimately take the decision to change schools because they were unable to influence the quality of teaching for a particular child. The previous chapter has set out a series of statements of best practice, developed from the findings of this research. Practices described embody the experience and learning from all parties involved in schooling. Specifically, the practices that parents find most effective are the result of a combination of developments by individual teachers, schools and the initiatives of school systems. On the basis of the findings from this research, however, only a minority of schools in Australia would currently be able to say that they have practices across all relevant areas that are of a quality that would satisfy all of the statements. [Return to Top]
Bibliography
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The Brookings Institution. Epstein, J. L. & McPartland, J. M. (1979). Authority structures. In H. Walberg (Ed), Educational environments and effects . Berkeley: McCutcheon. Epstein, J. L. (1983). Longitudinal effects of person-family-school interactions on student outcomes. In A. Kerckhoff (Ed), Research in Sociology of Education and Socialization, 4. Greenwich, CT: JAI. Epstein, J. L. (1987). Parent involvement: What research says to administrators. Education and Urban Society, 19 (2), 119-136. Fullan, M. (1991). The new meaning of educational change (2 nd Ed). New York: Teachers College Press. Gaines, G. F. (1991). Report cards for education: Accountability reporting in SREB states. ERIC document: ED 023 299. Glatter, R., Woods, P. A., & Bagley, C. (Ed) (1997). Choice and diversity in schooling. London: Routledge. Goldstein, H., & Speigelhalter, D. (1996). League tables and their limitation: Statistical issues in comparisons of institutional performance. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 159, part 3. 385-443. Goldstein, H., & Thomas, S. (1996). Using examination results as indicators of school and college performance. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, A. 159, pp. 149-163. Griffith, J. (1996). Relation of parental involvement, empowerment, and school traits to student academic performance. The Journal of Educational Research, 90 (1), 33-41. Herrington, C. D. (1993). Accountability, invisibility and the politics of numbers: School report cards and race. Paper presented to the American Educational Research Association Annual Conference. Atlanta, April. Highett, N. and Marsland, L. (1998). Accountability: making the connections. Paper presented at the National Seminar on School Review and Accountability, Hobart, Tasmania. April. Hill, P. (1995). School Effectiveness and Improvement: Present Realities and Future Possibilities. Inaugural Professorial Lecture. University of Melbourne: Melbourne. Holden, C., Hughes, M. and Desforges, C. (1996) Equally informed? ethnic minority parents, schools and assessment. Multicultural Teaching. 14( 3) 16-20. Hughes, M., Wikeley, F., & Nash, T. (1994). Parents and their children's schools. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Kirst, M. W. (1990). Accountability: Implications for state and local policymakers. Washington, DC: US Department of Education. Laughlin, A. (1997) Mount Druitt High School: A review of 1996 Higher School Certificate performance. Sydney: NSW Department of School Education. Leichter, H. J. (1974). The family as educator. New York: Teachers College Press. Lennox, P., Pitman, J. and Logan, L. (1994). Three papers presented in response to the review of the Queensland School Curriculum. Queensland Researcher, Vol. 10, No 1. 1-16. Lightfoot, S. L. (1978). Worlds apart: Relationships between families and schools. New York: Basic Books. Macbeth, A. (1995). Partnership between parents and teachers in education: In A. Macbeth, D. McCreath & J. Aitchison (Eds), Collaborate or compete: Educational partnerships in a market economy. London: Falmer. Manning, M. (1995). Understanding culturally diverse parents and families. Equity and Excellence in Education. 28 (1) 52-57.
Marjoribanks, K. (1979). Families and their learning environments: An empirical analysis. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Martin, J., Ranson, S., & Tall, G. (1997). Parents as partners in assuring the quality of schools. Scottish Educational Review, 29 (1), 39-54. Maryland State Department of Education. (1997). Criteria for Reconstitution. Matthews, P. and Smith, G. (1995). OFSTED: Inspecting schools and improvement through inspection. Cambridge Journal of Education. 1( 25) 23-34. McDill, E. L. & Rigsby, L. (1973). Structure and process in secondary schools: The academic impact of educational climates. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. McGaw, B. (1992). Parents in Effective Schools. In McGaw, B., Piper, K., Banks, D., & Evans, B. (1992). Making schools more effective . Hawthorn, Victoria: Australian Council for Educational Research. McGaw, B. (1996). Their future: Options for reform of the Higher School Certificate. Sydney: Department of Training and Education Co-ordination. McGlynn, A. and Stalker, H. (1995) Recent developments in the Scottish process of school inspection. Cambridge Journal of Education. 25( 1) 13-21. Ministry of Education, Western Australia (1989). School development plans: Policy and guidelines. Perth: Ministry of Education. Ministry of Education, Western Australia (1991). School accountability: Policy and guidelines. Perth: Ministry of Education. Mortimore, P., Sammons, P., Stoll, L., Lewis, D., and Ecob, R. (1988) School matters: The junior years. Somerset: Open Books. Munn, P. (Ed) (1993). Parents and schools: Customers, managers or partners? London: Routlege. New South Wales Department of School Education (1997). Strategies for assessment and reporting: Primary schools. Sydney: New South Wales Department of School Education. NSW Department of School Education, (1995). QA 20/ 20 report: What parents want from further participation and communication. Sydney: New South Wales Department of School Education. Nuttal, D. L., Goldstein, H., Prosser, R. & Rasbash, J. (1989). Differential school effectiveness. International Journal of Educational Research, 13 (7), pp. 769-776. Office for Educational Review, Department of Education, Community and Cultural Development, Tasmania (1997). Year 9 numeracy assessment and monitoring program: 1997 summary report. Hobart: Department of Education, Community and Cultural Development. Office for Educational Review, Department of Education, Community and Cultural Development, Tasmania (1998). Flying start program: Aspects of the behaviour of students in Years 1 and 2. Hobart: Department of Education, Community and Cultural Development. Office for Educational Review, Department of Education, Community and Cultural Development, Tasmania (1998). System data for school review 1998 2. Hobart: Department of Education, Community and Cultural Development. Office For Standards In Education (OFSTED) (1992). The Handbook for the inspection of schools. London: OFSTED. Office of Educational Research and Improvement, (1992). Parental satisfaction with schools and the need for standards: Education Research Report. Washington, DC: Office of Research. Office of Review, (1997a). An accountability framework. Melbourne: Department of Education, Victoria. Office of Review, (1997b). Guidelines for School Annual Reports. Melbourne: Department of Education.
Office of Review, Department of Education, Victoria (1997). Guidelines for school annual reports. Melbourne: Department of Education. Office of Review, Department of Education, Victoria (1997). Quality assurance in Victorian schools: An accountability framework. Melbourne: Department of Education. Office of Review, Department of Education, Victoria (1997). Victorian Certificate of Education: Benchmarks 96. Melbourne: Department of Education. Office of Review, Department of Education, Victoria (1997). Years Prep-10 Curriculum and Standards Framework Benchmarks 96. Melbourne: Department of Education. Pugh, G. (1989). Parents and professionals in pre-school services: Is partnership possible? In S. Wolfendale (Ed), Parental involvement: Developing networks between school, home and community. London: Cassell. Queensland School Curriculum Council (1997). 1997 Literacy and Numeracy Validation. Brisbane: Queensland. Ramirez, A. & McClanahan, R. (1992). Reporting to the public. The American School Board Journal. April. 33-35 Rowe, K. (1996). Assessment, performance indicators, league tables, value-added measures and school effectiveness: Issues and implications. IARTV Seminar Series, 58, October. Steffy, B. (1993), The Kentucky Education Reform; Lessons for America. Pennsylvania: Technovic. Tomlinson, S. (1991). Teachers and parents: Home-school partnership. London: Institute for Public Policy Research. Tomlinson, S. (1993) Ethnic minorities: involved partners or problem parents. In Munn, P. (Ed). Parents and schools: Customers, managers or partners? London: Routlege. Wilson, T. (1995) Notes on the American fascination with the English tradition of school inspection. Cambridge Journal of Education. 25( 1) 89-96. Wolfendale, S. (Ed) (1989). Parental involvement: Developing networks between school, home and community. London: Cassell. Wolfendale, S. (Ed) (1993). Empowering parents and teachers. London: Cassell. Woodhead, C. (1995) A question of standards: finding the balance. London: Politeia. Yap, K. O. & Enoki, D. Y. (1994). In search of the elusive magic bullet: Parent involvement and students outcomes. Paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association. New Orleans, LA, April. [Return to Top]
Appendices
Appendix A: Parent Participation Data Appendix B: Acknowledgements
Appendix A : Parent Participation Data

Randomly Selected Parents for Individual Meetings
By school sector/ system
State/Territory ACT NSW Vic. Qld SA WA
Government 4 68 74 49 24 32
Catholic 4 20 23 17 4 8
Independent 0 10 11 8 4 4
Total 8 98 108 74 32 44
Total
251 (69%)
76 (21%)
37 (10%)
364 Primary (52%) Secondary (48%)
Parent Participation in Focus Group Meetings By school sector/ system. (Each parent may represent more than one school sector because some have children in both government and non-government schools). Four of the fourteen focus group meetings were conducted in rural locations. Where two meetings were conducted in a capital city, each was in a different socio-economic location. In addition to the fourteen focus group meetings detailed below, 49 Aboriginal parents participated in two group meetings in their communities. State/Territory Government Catholic Independent Total No. of Groups Total Parents ACT NSW Vic. Qld SA WA 2 11 11 11 9 8 4 5 6 6 3 7 1 7 5 4 5 1 1 3 3 3 2 2 6 20 20 19 15 16
Total
52
31
23
14
96
Appendix B : Acknowledgements
A project of this magnitude cannot be completed without the support and cooperation of numerous people and organisations across Australia. Advisory Committee The project team was ably advised by a committee comprising: Lois Sparkes Department of Education, Science and Training Maureen Cashman Jo Lonergan Ian Morgan Australian Parents Council Australian Council of State Schools Organisations
Mark Askew Fergus Thomson Barbara Stone Neville Highett Ross Kimber Peter Cuttance Shirley Stokes
National Catholic Education Commission National Council of Independent Schools Associations Conference of Education Systems Chief Executive Officers Project Director & Chair Project Manager
Contribution of Information
Parent interviews The contribution of parents and education systems to our understanding of the issues reported and discussed in this report was crucial. Parents gave their views anonymously. Their cooperation and contribution is hereby acknowledged. The information provided by those parents forms the backbone of this report. To access parents to interview required the support and cooperation of both schools and education systems in five Australian States and Territories. The authors cannot individually acknowledge the schools as it was agreed that their identities would remain confidential. The schools were selected randomly and principals of the randomly selected schools were asked to provide names of randomly selected parents, approximately four per school. We acknowledge the support of the principals who co-operated. Malcolm Rosier of Survey Design and Analysis Services Pty. Ltd generated the random list of schools. We wish to thank and acknowledge in particular the colleagues who managed, conducted and reported on the interviews: Frank Crowther (Manager, Qld team) University of Southern Queensland Leonne Hann (Qld.) University of Southern Queensland Bronwyn Herbertson (Qld.) University of Southern Queensland Kate Khoury (NSW) Life & Learning Inc. Renate Kretcshmer (NSW, ACT) Caron Little (WA) Edith Cowan University Geoff McPherson (Vic.) EdScape Inc. Deidre Milde (SA) Harriet Olney (WA and Manager, WA team) Edith Cowan University Gaynor Sims (NSW) Life & Learning Inc. Shirley Stokes (Manager, NSW/ ACT team; Manager of interview process nationally) Parent focus groups The parent focus group meetings were arranged by Jo Lonergan, Executive Director, of the Australian Parents Council with the cooperation of the Australian Council of State School Organisations. Jo's initiative and support is gratefully acknowledged. Members of both organisations coordinated the workshops in each State/ Territory. The support in particular of Leo Dunne (QLD), Larry Eastwood (WA), Jenny Walker (Vic.) Rosemary Gregory (ACT), Nicky Mullins (SA) and Duncan McInnes (NSW) is gratefully acknowledged. The focus group meetings were extremely informative and pleasurable. Parents gave willingly of their experiences, beliefs, emotions and suggestions. Shirley Stokes led or was co-leader in all focus groups. The experience of Denis Muller (Denis Muller & Associates) was invaluable as a leader of focus groups in Victoria. Deidre Milde provided valuable support as a co-leader in South Australia as did Caron Little in Western Australia. Peter Cuttance was a co-leader in two of the three NSW groups and all Queensland group meetings.
Information on Australian school systems We wish to recognise the time and commitment made by education systems in Australia in providing information to the researchers. The following education systems provided the information that was used as the basis for Chapter 2: Government systems Department of Education, Community and Cultural Development, Tasmania Department of Education, Training and Employment, South Australia Department of Education, Queensland Department of Education, Victoria Education Department of Western Australia Northern Territory Department of Education NSW Department of Education and Training ACT Department of Education and Community Services Non-Government (Catholic) systems Catholic Education Office, Canberra-Goulburn Archdiocese Catholic Education Office, Parramatta Archdiocese Catholic Education Office of Western Australia Catholic Education Commission of Victoria Catholic Education Office, Brisbane South Australian Commission for Catholic Schools Tasmanian Catholic Education Commission Submissions An invitation to make a submission was forwarded to more than 100 organisations. The time taken by organisations to respond in a considered fashion to a request for submissions was appreciated. The submissions were read and reviewed with interest. Submissions were received from the following organisations: ACT Primary Principals Association Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia Australian Council for Education Administration (NSW) Australian Education Union Independent Education Union of Australia Lutheran Church of Australia NSW Federation of School Community Organisations NSW Secondary Principals Council NSW Teachers Federation Parent Organisation for Effective Teaching (NSW) South Australian Association of School Parents' Clubs Inc. Victorian Parents Council Inc. Additional Research and Analyses The following colleagues supported this project by conducting additional research, coding data, assisting in the analyses of data or assisting with editorial work and administration: Phyllis Ikin Leola Jacobs (Leola Jacobs & Associates) Sabine Ludowicz Christine Rakvin (University of Sydney) Therese Sullivan Dr Pat Bazeley (University of Western Sydney, Macarthur) provided valuable and time-saving advice on setting up and managing the data coding process using NUDIST software.
Footnotes 1. School reporting policies and practices in Australian education systems are described in more detail in Chapter 2. 2. The Commonwealth currently provides approximately 40% of the funding for non-government schools. The non-government sector provides accountability for the expenditure of funds through participation in the Annual National Report on Schooling in Australia, but to date this has not included information on academic, affective or social outcomes at the level of individual schools. The same is true for government schools. The development of national performance information against the new National Goals for Schooling, beginning with primary school literacy and numeracy, offers the potential of relating outcomes at the school level to national outcomes. 4. Year levels are not the same in all States. This report refers to the most common pattern in Australia in which Year 1 is the second year of schooling. 5. A number of systems are currently reviewing this area in Australia and overseas, with a view to developing tools that schools can use to assist in assessing and reporting social outcomes. 6. The term 'benchmark' is used here to refer to the standards by which schools measure their performance. In a pure sense there may be only one benchmark, but in a practical sense schools may benchmark against a number of standards, eg 'like-schools', or benchmark the achievements of subgroups against equivalent state level subgroups. 7. One employer organisation has argued in its submission that reporting on student learning should also embrace new dimensions of learning including key competencies, thinking skills and technology. 8. Whilst not disagreeing, one parent organisation in its submission urged that any broader framework for reporting not dilute in any way the focus on reporting on student academic achievement. 9. Many parents and schools refer to parent-teacher meetings as 'interviews', indicating that they view the objective of such meetings as a time to provide or seek information rather than as a discussion and opportunity to work together in supporting a child's progress. 10. Teacher organisations in their submissions indicated their belief that standardised tests are not a valid indicator of student learning and that where conducted the information should be used chiefly for improvement processes. For this reason they prefer 'sample' rather than 'population' testing. While improvement strategies at the school level could be based on sample testing, strategies for improvement at the classroom level probably need to be based on data for all students, as sampling within classes would not give sufficient information. Effective classroom improvement often needs to focus on strategies for explicitly addressing the learning needs of individual students. For this purpose learning outcomes data is required for each student. Present research in Australia and elsewhere shows that variation in individual student learning outcomes is influenced much more by variation in effectiveness among teachers than by differences between schools. Thus the most effective approaches to improvement will be those that focus on improvement at the classroom and program level within individual schools. The data on student learning that is required to support program and classroom level improvement needs to be reliable and valid and specifically address the particular learning outcomes that are the focus of improvement efforts. Such data may be drawn from a number of sources - including statewide testing, school-based testing and teacher assessments. 11. The practice of teachers placing consideration for student self-esteem ahead of reporting a student's "true situation" was also the subject of a critical comment by one parent organisation in its submission. 12. Curriculum learning outcomes based on the nationally developed Statements and Profiles and similar schemes refer to six or seven levels of outcomes from K-10. From Years 2-10 in most systems learning in each two-year period of schooling is assessed against a single level of outcome statements. 13. The overall view of parents is that 'outcomes' reporting is not yet working and that it is too early to determine the ultimate effectiveness of outcomes approaches. Submissions presented two alternate opinions. A
teacher organisation indicated that reporting based on outcomes is authentic and that appropriate resources and support must be provided to ensure that the approach is successfully implemented. An employer organisation in its submission queried the "validity and practicability" of measuring and using criterion-based outcomes approaches. 14. Parent, teacher and principal organisations reported that curriculum information resources by parents for parents had been developed and distributed in recent years. These were not mentioned by any parents in our discussions, which raises questions about the availability and effectiveness of these resources. 15. Submissions from principal and teacher organisations noted that effective school-parent communication requires extensive resources. Staff time, including time for training, and resource costs are substantial and need to be factored into school initiatives. In their submissions, these organisations indicated that additional resources may be needed to inform parents effectively. Enhancing the ability and capacity of schools to deploy resources flexibly to meet local needs is also an essential component of the development of better schoolparent communication. 16. The term 'school achievement' is used in this chapter to cover the concepts of both 'school performance' and 'school effectiveness' as described in Chapter 1. 17. One teacher organisation argued in its submission that parents should be encouraged to work towards school improvement rather than 'shop around' for another school. 18. Submissions received from teacher organisations in general indicate opposition to the release of this information in a way in which individual schools, students or systems can be compared. However, one parent organisation indicated that it supported the use of this information to identify ineffective schools, as it would enable systems to provide additional support and incentives for improvement. 19. Some parent organisations indicated that they support the public recognition of individual student achievement. 20. A point made strongly in a teacher organisation submission was that any information on school achievement should be presented and interpreted within the context of a particular school. The organisation was concerned that achievement information not be biased against less socially advantaged schools. 21. An aspect of this problem is that schools, in some systems only, are required to report openly on their performance, including areas for improvement, and others have no such pressure and may report their achievements as they wish. Submissions from principal and parent groups expressed the need for a common framework of accountability for all schools in receipt of public funds, be they in the 'government' or 'nongovernment' sector. 22. The submissions from some principal and teacher organisations argued that student and school achievement information should not be used to assess teacher performance. However, one parent organisation in its submission argued that teacher quality has an impact on student learning, hence accountability processes should address issues of teacher quality. 23. Teachers who teach a child for only one year during their primary school years have contact with students for only 8% of the total time. In secondary schools few teachers would have contact with an individual student for more than 2% of the total time that elapses during their secondary education. 24. The term 'benchmark' is used throughout this report in the sense of a 'level' against which to compare the measure taken for a specific school, year-level of students, subgroup of students etc. This use of the term can be employed for either quantitative or qualitative measures. 25. The bibliography includes references cited in the literature review (Chapter 1) as well as documents provided by education systems when submitting the information that was used as the basis for Chapter 2. [Return to Top] Email this page Print this page
IN THIS SECTION Attitudes to schooling Effective Mathematics Teaching & Learning Making Better Connections Parents have a say on schooling issues Participation in post-compulsory schooling PD 2000 in Australia Raising the Standards Reporting on Student and School Achievement Reports on grants to States Resourcing Australian Primary Schools School-based Arts Education Programmes Student Mobility Report Supporting Australian Science Teachers Taking Stock Skills at Work Teachers in Australian Schools The Cost of VET in Schools Successful Programs and Strategies for Children with Learning Difficulties School Students Making Education and Career Decisions: Aspirations,
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Reporting on Student and School Achievement

Reporting on Student and School Achievement

1. A Review of the Literature

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Reporting on Student and School Achievement

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Reporting on Student and School Achievement

2. Policies and Practices of Australian Education Systems

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Reporting on Student and School Achievement

The Views of Australian Parents

3. Parent Views on Reporting about the Progress of their Children

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Reporting on Student and School Achievement

4. Parents Views on Information Provided about School Programs

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Reporting on Student and School Achievement

5. Parent Needs and Expectations for Information on School Achievement

Reporting on Student and School Achievement

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Reporting on Student and School Achievement

6. Best Practice in Reporting on Student and School Achievement

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Reporting on Student and School Achievement

Section 1: National & International Context

Reporting about School Programs

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Reporting on Student and School Achievement

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Reporting on Student and School Achievement

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Reporting on Student and School Achievement

Reporting on Student Progress

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Reporting on Student and School Achievement

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Reporting on Student and School Achievement

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Reporting on Student and School Achievement

Reporting on School Achievement

Reporting on Student and School Achievement

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Reporting on Student and School Achievement

Reporting on Student and School Achievement

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Reporting on Student and School Achievement

Reporting on Student and School Achievement

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Reporting on Student and School Achievement

9. School performance information as a form of assurance and accountability

Conclusions and Discussion

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Reporting on Student and School Achievement

Chapter 2: Policies and Practices of Australian Education Systems

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Reporting on Student and School Achievement

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Reporting on Student and School Achievement

Current Policies and Practices