Organization: Australian Schools Plus
Country: New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria
Education level: Primary, Lower Secondary, Upper Secondary
Organization type: Nongovernmental organization
Family involvement: Not engaged
Overview
Schools Plus is a nongovernmental organization in Australia that partners with philanthropic trusts and foundations to provide schools in disadvantaged communities with funding, coaching, and resources to improve students’ learning outcomes. With support from the Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation, Schools Plus launched the Fair Education program in 2016. The goal of Fair Education is to equip school leaders and teachers in areas with low socio-economic status with the resources and knowledge needed to more effectively engage families and communities in student learning. Since its founding, the program has launched 46 projects across 132 schools in New South Wales and 15 projects across 35 schools in Queensland. Two additional pilot projects were launched across smaller clusters of schools in Victoria in 2019 and 2020 (K. Robertson, personal communication, May 30, 2021; Schools Plus, 2021a). As of 2021, more than 50,000 students across 175 schools were involved in the Fair Education program. Schools Plus aims to widen the program’s reach in the coming years (Schools Plus, 2021b).
Schools design and implement their own programs based on their knowledge of local conditions and challenges. This flexibility and adaption of the overarching program structure based on local needs is key to successful implementation. Fair Education supports schools in their development of innovative engagement strategies primarily through funding and project coaching. Funding is provided for three-year projects. Individual schools receive up to $70,000, and school clusters receive up to $250,000. Fair Education coaches advise project leadership teams each term of the project. Participating schools are brought into the Fair Education community of practice, a space to share lessons and new approaches and build collective knowledge across the network. Examples of projects that schools have designed and implemented include a program in Queensland that provides local families with English language learning opportunities that help them participate in their child’s learning, and a student learning hub to support vulnerable students in New South Wales (Schools Plus, 2021a).
Three central objectives guide the Fair Education program: family and community engagement, school leadership capability, and a community of practice. These objectives are both beneficial intermediate outcomes and necessary inputs for a final result of improved student learning outcomes. Program evaluations indicate that Fair Education projects are contributing to more effective family and community engagement: 53 percent of participating schools in Queensland achieved their family and community engagement objectives at the end of their first year in the Fair Education program. Encouraging impacts on leadership development have also been found in Queensland, where over 70 percent of schools reported improvements in leadership capabilities after one year in the program. Evidence also shows a growing community of practice among Fair Education schools. In 2019, 171 teachers and school leaders representing 71 schools and 41 projects in New South Wales and Queensland participated in Fair Education conferences, where they shared successes and challenges of projects, crowdsourced solutions, and established connections and partnerships with other schools (Schools Plus, 2021a).
Resources and testimonials
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On the community of practice: “The (Fair Education) project has provided us with a framework to work collegiately. Everything about the project has allowed this to happen, the money allows teachers to be trained, the time allows things to come together and the coaching allows us to reflect and develop.” – Dubbo College AVID project (Schools Plus, 2021a)
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Fair Education in New South Wales: Final Evaluation Report 2020
References
Schools Plus. (2021a). Fair education: Engaging families and communities to improve student outcomes. https://www.schoolsplus.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/SP_Fair-Education_Final-Digital.pdf
Schools Plus. (2021b). Fair education: Engaging families in student learning. https://www.schoolsplus.org.au/what-we-do/fair-education/