12 Ways Your Child Can Get The Best Out Of School

Dedication

Dedicated to the two best teachers I ever had,

Mum and Dad.

And to Sonia and our two works-in-progress,

Finn and Jasper.

Contents

DEDICATION

INTRODUCTION

1. MAKE THE MOST OF EARLY CHILDHOOD

Children start learning from birth

Getting your child ready to start school

Education and care options prior to starting school

Don’t feel guilty about sending your child to day care or preschool

The impact of early childhood on schooling

2. BE YOUR CHILD’S BEST TEACHER

Your child loves you – they will value what you value

Three ways you can have a huge impact on your child’s education

3. DON’T START YOUR CHILD AT SCHOOL UNTIL THEY’RE READY

What your child should be capable of before starting school

What happens during the first few weeks of school

Do not stress about your child starting school

There is no need for tutoring before children start school

The impact on children of repeating a year

4. FIND THE RIGHT SCHOOL FOR YOUR CHILD

What are the options

What to look for when choosing a school

Factoring in NAPLAN results when choosing a school

The pros and cons of changing schools

Other factors to consider

5. PARTNER CLOSELY WITH YOUR CHILD’S SCHOOL

Develop a strong three-way partnership

How to be a great partner with the school

6. SEEK ADVICE IF YOUR CHILD HAS SPECIAL NEEDS

Seek assistance as soon as you can

Schooling options for children with special needs

Your child has a right to enrol at school

Starting, changing and leaving school for children with special needs

7. SET HIGH EXPECTATIONS FOR YOUR CHILD

The importance of setting high expectations for your child

How to set high expectations with your child

Using disappointment as a teaching moment

Don’t add to your child’s stress

Help your child learn how to handle stress

8. UNDERSTAND THE ROLE OF HOMEWORK

The connection between homework and academic results

The benefits of homework

What to look for in homework

How best to support your child with their homework

9. STAY INFORMED ABOUT YOUR CHILD’S PROGRESS

It’s important to know how your child is going at school

What you need to know about your child’s progress

How to talk to your child about school

Speak regularly with your child’s teacher

School reports

Parent–teacher interviews

Five questions to ask in parent–teacher interviews

Work samples and progressions

10. UNDERSTAND NAPLAN

Does NAPLAN matter?

Supporting your child during NAPLAN tests

How to interpret NAPLAN results

The My School website

11. GUIDE YOUR CHILD THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL

Enjoy the experience

How to choose your child’s high school

Finding the ‘best fit’ for your child

Choosing elective subjects

Getting the most out of high school parent–teacher interviews

What happens in Years 11 and 12

What the ATAR means

12. MANAGE YOUR CHILD’S USE OF TECHNOLOGY

Why screens are so addictive for children (and adults!)

How much is too much screen time?

The impact of screen time on education and wellbeing

Tips on managing your child’s screen use

Why being bored is good for your child

Technology at school

FINAL THOUGHTS

GLOSSARY

ENDNOTES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INDEX

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PRAISE

COPYRIGHT

Introduction

Having been through the joys and stresses of my two children’s baby and toddler years, I thought supporting my children through school would be a breeze, especially considering that I’d been a state Minister for Education for three years before my eldest child even started school. How hard could it be? I’d been involved with schools and education for years and I had 65,000 education professionals to call on for assistance.

When my wife and I rocked up to the midyear parent–teacher interview with my eldest son’s kindergarten teacher, I soon found out how wrong I was and how little I knew. She was your typical lovely, young, bright teacher who just loves teaching little kids. My wife and I sat down and started talking to her about our son, asking things like, ‘How’s he going? How’s his schoolwork? Is he making friends?’

At the end of the interview the teacher said, ‘He’s doing really well at reading. He’s at Level 12.’

To not look silly, I said, ‘That’s great, thanks very much for the great work you do.’

Afterwards, when we got back to the car, I sheepishly asked my wife if she knew what ‘Level 12’ meant because I had no idea. She didn’t know either and I was quietly embarrassed by my cluelessness.

The next day I made a quick phone call to one of the thousands of education department members I had access to in order to find the answer. I was told that the levels the teacher was referring to are on the ‘Reading Recovery’ scale, which is one of many measures used by schools to judge how well a child can read in Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2. This would have been handy to know before I went into that interview. Having not known, my wife and I had no clue if Level 12 was good or bad or indeed what to do with that information. We’d just played along to avoid looking silly.

Our son’s teacher had given my wife and me a really important piece of information but without a broader explanation of what it meant. Not knowing the context, we didn’t know the critical question to ask her: What can we do to help improve our son’s learning?

Ironically, I knew enough about schools to understand from that experience that I didn’t know enough about my own child’s education. My wife and I had joined the very long list of parents who don’t know enough about how schools operate, don’t understand the complex language and jargon teachers often use and don’t fully understand what we as parents can do to help our children learn.

If we knew to ask …

During the parent–teacher interview, if my wife and I had known what Reading Recovery levels were, we would have known to ask his teacher what level she was trying to get our child to reach and what we could do to help. Should he read Level 16 books at home, or is that too big a leap? Should it be Level 13 instead?

As you can see, like every other parent, my wife and I have struggled at times and questioned our own abilities as parents. Again, as we all do, we pick ourselves up and continue on this incredible journey – of being a parent.

Confession of an imperfect parent

I have screamed at my children to get them to stop screaming! I have ranted and raved at my children for ten minutes about something I was cranky about without realising that they had stopped listening nine and a half minutes ago.

I’m not an expert parent by any measure but during my time as a state Education Minister, I was in charge of the department responsible for the education of more than 1 million children. I had unique access to thousands of people who are experts in education and at preparing and supporting children at school. I have also had unique access to people who know a thing or two about what parents can do to help their child’s education, including parenting experts, teachers, academics, international experts, principals and students.

Most of these people agree that the best way to help a child get the most out of school is for their parents to become close and well-informed partners in that child’s education. Being a great parent is about establishing the right platform at home for your child to succeed and be happy, as well as being a great partner in their education and with their school.

Supporting your child during their time at school has become a lot more complicated over the years and it can be difficult to know where we can insert ourselves effectively as parents.

The reality is that parents are often the people who know least about what’s going on in their children’s education and as a result, we can often underestimate and undervalue our influence.

I have asked hundreds of parents how much they know about their children’s school. The vast majority of us have little understanding of reading levels,* how to help our children navigate the move from primary to high school and how best to support our children’s learning at home. [*There are several ways to measure reading levels, not just Reading Recovery levels. Ask the relevant person at your school to explain what method they use.] Most parents have no idea what deeper questions they should ask at a parent–teacher interview other than the superficial. Most parents know that excessive screen time is probably not great for their children but are not sure what impact it’s having on their education, who to ask or what to do about it.

Digging a bit deeper, I came to understand that parents are hungry for information and advice about how they can best support their children at school. There is a huge gap between what parents know about their children’s schooling and what they should know and want to know.

On the flip side, most teachers and principals want parents to be more active partners in their children’s education and with their school. They want parents to understand more about what schools and teachers do and what parents can do to assist them. Teachers may be uncertain about how much parents want to know and be reluctant to provide too much information.

Without understanding what’s required, it’s really hard to be a great partner in your child’s education. This book is about bridging this knowledge gap so all parents and carers of children can better understand how our children are going at school and, more importantly, how we can be more effective partners in helping our children flourish, develop and grow during their school years.

*

It’s important to recognise and accept that there is no guaranteed formula for success at school. Being a parent who ‘does all the right things’ doesn’t guarantee success – however we might perceive success. Children are too complicated to be that predictable so, as parents, we should stop stressing about it.

This book is intended to ease the guilt and anxiety parents often feel about their roles as parents and about their children’s education. Many parents feel guilty about what they don’t do with and for their children and are anxious about what impact that may have on their children’s education and future. Parental anxiety isn’t helped when parents are constantly bombarded by the perfect parent myth in traditional media and on social media platforms, such as pictures of someone’s perfect baby, their perfect holiday with the kids, their kids winning awards at school. I can’t think of any other polite way of saying it than ‘Don’t believe it.’ No one gets parenting perfectly right.

Throughout this book I use the word ‘parent’ in its most general sense in the knowledge that there are lots of different people caring for school children – from biological parents to grandparents, foster parents, friends, carers and so on. When I use the word ‘parent’ I mean the people who are doing the parenting and caring – the people involved in connecting with school and the people involved in a child’s education at home.

I have structured this book to address the key questions parents have asked me about school and their children’s education. It’s not a parenting book, but rather a guidebook for parents to better understand their role in their children’s education, how influential they are and how they can more confidently connect with schools. You may want to read the book from cover to cover or jump to the sections or chapters that are most relevant to you at different stages of your child’s life.

However you use this book, just remember that most teachers get the biggest thrill in their job when their students do well and are happy. These also happen to be the main things that thrill parents, so teachers and parents have every reason to work together to get your child’s education right.

Sometimes you just need to know the right questions to ask.

Enjoy.

1

Make the Most of Early Childhood

Children start learning from birth

The first five years of a child’s life are critical in determining how they will do at school.

Most experts in early childhood development, most doctors and most teachers agree that a child’s future education is being influenced even before they are born. How a child is cared for during pregnancy and the experiences a child has from the day they are born all have a strong influence on a child’s education and their adult life.

A newborn child has most of the brain cells it will need through life but relatively few of the connections and circuits among the different cells.¹

Think of a newborn child’s brain like the box you bring home when you buy a piece of furniture from Ikea. Most of the bits are there but the critical part is to connect all the bits together. Unfortunately, children don’t come with instructions in 47 languages or an Allen Key.

Every day your baby’s brain is building connections between those brain cells. As a parent, you have the biggest single influence on how many of those connections are made and how they get made. You are the instructions and the Allen Key all wrapped into one. That’s why your role in these first few years is so critical.

‘The early years matter because, in the first few years of life, more than 1 million new neural connections are formed every second. Neural connections are formed through the interaction of genes and a baby’s environment and experiences, especially serve and return interaction with adults … These are the connections that build brain architecture – the foundation upon which all later learning, behaviour and health depend.’²

– Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University

This is what starts setting a child’s brain up for life. The better this first bit goes, then the better placed the child is for school and their future.

I always loved the look of fascination in my children’s eyes when they started to realise they could influence the world around them. I would hold my kids up to a light switch and as they flicked the switch they would watch the light go on and off. I could almost see the cogs in their brain turning and the sparks of learning flying – they’re making those brain cell connections. ‘I touch this button and the light magically appears – wow!’

The other critical area of early childhood development is a child’s ability to read people’s faces, especially their parents. Smiling and laughing with a child gets the laughing and smiling response from a child. All of these actions are building those brain cell connections, which are critical to preparing your child for school. This is why direct social interaction with family and friends is so important.

Children at this age are learning all the time and it is you who plays the most critical role in setting them up for their social, emotional and schooling future.

Your child’s brain is most sensitive to learning new things between that magic age from birth to five years old. As a result, it’s important to expose your child to as many positive new experiences, ideas and behaviours as possible.³ Because children’s brains are so sensitive during this crucial time, what you do at home – nurturing your child, helping them develop those essential brain connections through play and their interaction with you as parents – is critical.

‘A child’s brain develops rapidly in the early years, with around 85 to 90 per cent of brain development occurring in the first five years of life.’⁴

– Professor Deborah Brennan, University of NSW

Children’s brain sensitivity

Source: mitchellinstitute.org.au

But be warned. Even well-intentioned entertainment or educational programs on computer, tablet and smartphone screens can have a negative effect on a young child’s brain. Dr Aric Sigman, a Fellow at Britain’s Royal Society of Medicine, says when very young children get hooked on tablets and smartphones they can unintentionally cause permanent damage to their still-developing brains. Too much screen time too soon, he says, ‘is the very thing impeding the development of the abilities that parents are so eager to foster through the tablets. The ability to focus, to concentrate, to lend attention, to sense other people’s attitudes and communicate with them, to build a large vocabulary – all those abilities are harmed.’⁵

What makes screen time for little children so dangerous is that having ‘dozens of stimuli at your fingertips, and the ability to process multiple actions simultaneously is exactly what their little brains do not need.’⁶

‘Tablets are the ultimate shortcut tools: Unlike a mother reading a story to a child, for example, a smartphone-told story spoon-feeds images, words and pictures all at once to a young reader. Rather than having to take the time to process a mother’s voice into words, visualise complete pictures and exert a mental effort to follow a story line, kids who follow stories on their smartphones get lazy. The device does the thinking for them, and as a result, their own cognitive muscles remain weak.’⁷

– Dr Liraz Margalit, Psychologist, Head of Digital Behavioural Research, Clicktale, Tel Aviv

Getting your child ready to start school

While its natural and lovely to dote on your baby or young toddler, there are some specific and practical things you can do that have a particularly strong influence on your child’s future performance at school. Doing these things doesn’t guarantee a particular outcome, nor does not doing these things mean you are not a good parent. Parenting is not a science and there is no such thing as perfect parenting. Given all the pressures that parents and families are under, if you are doing your best then you’re being a great parent.

Research has shown a strong connection between the wealth and education of parents and how their children perform at school.⁸ The research suggests that the children of parents with higher incomes, who stayed at school longer and continued on to vocational training or university tend to do better at school ‘on average’.* [*Don’t get hung up on ‘averages’ because that’s all they are – just averages. Averages don’t predict how an individual child will do at school.]

When a child is born they have no idea who their parents are, how well their parents did at school or how much money they have. Yet, all of these factors relating to a child’s parents seem to have a strong influence on how the child does at school.

Given that our children don’t know any of this stuff about their parents when they’re born, why does income and education of the parents have such a strong impact ‘on average’? The answer is that it’s not the actual wealth or education level of a child’s parents that matters – these things are not genetic. Instead, the biggest influence on children are the different ways in which parents with these characteristics interact with their children and with their school.

A British study found that ‘[Low income] mothers with