Newsletter
What's new - March 2006
Welcome to the second ‘What’s new’ of the Values Education website for 2006.
Events
27 March – 3 April 2006, UNESCO at 60 (60 weeks, 60 themes): Combating racism week 3 April – 7 September 2006, Dialogue Australia seminars: 2006 Senior Students Ethics Seminars, various locations in Australia and New Zealand
18 April 2006, Australian Red Cross National Poster Competition: ‘One Red Cross, Many Faces’
28 April 2006, Values Education Good Practice Schools: Final reports due
14 June – 15 September 2006 Dialogue Australasia workshops: ‘Towards an understanding of all faiths’, various locations in Australia and New Zealand
31 July 2006, Queensland Values Education Conference
30 August 2006, Dialogue Australia: Spirited Art in Australasia Competition
18 – 24 October 2006, Celebrating Democracy Week
See individual States and Territories links below for workshops and seminars within your State or Territory.
States and Territories
There are some new Contact Officers in States and Territories, and in the ACT and South Australia there are special contacts for school forums. Lots of professional learning to support school forums is happening.
In the ACT Ms Amanda Day is the new Values Education Forums Officer. A professional learning session on school forums was held for ACT teachers on 5 April 2006, and a successful professional learning update was held in December 2005.
In Queensland there are full-day workshops and breakfast seminars coming up and the Queensland State conference will be held in Townsville on 31 July 2006. Wide Bay/Burnett region held a conference to try and link the new Code of School Conduct and the National Framework for Values Education in developing their ‘Responsible Behaviour Plan for Students’.
In South Australia a twilight seminar will feature prominent South Australians presenting their views on values education. Ms Mary Hudson is the contact for school forums.
In Tasmania Jan Kiernan has prepared some rich support materials for Tasmanian schools for values education.
In Victoria briefings and professional learning activities are still happening around the State and schools continue to apply for grants for school forums.
In Western Australia there will be an induction session on school forums in May. Boddington District High School reports on its school forum. Clara Deans has compiled a list of values education resources for schools in Western Australia.
Good Practice Schools
Good Practice Schools – Stage 1
A number of schools in the Good Practice Schools project have started to incorporate information about their values programs into their websites.
Case Studies: Good Practice Schools
As the schools involved in the Values Education Good Practice Schools Project – Stage 1 carry out their projects they have been generating many useful ideas, tools and other examples of best practice. The following three examples have been added to the case studies:
- Merrylands High School Cluster – three surveys
- Penola Primary School – case study
- Case writing – Margarita Fair
Values for Australian Schooling Newsletter
The latest edition of the Values for Australian Schooling Newsletter (volume 3) has been distributed to all schools and is also available for downloading from the website.
Resources
Case studies
The Values Education Good Practice Schools Projects are proving a valuable source of case study material on values education in schools. However, other schools in Australia are also tackling the sometimes thorny, but often rosy path of values education. We would like to highlight on the website some of these ‘other’ schools’ achievements, such as those of Murtoa College.
If your school is involved in values education and you would like to assist others on their journey by providing information on your school’s achievements, please email Curriculum Corporation.
School forum resources
Copies of Discovering Democratic Values: Teaching and learning civic values are still available. This professional development DVD allows teachers and schools to examine a variety of perspectives in civic values education.
To obtain a free copy of the DVD, schools can contact their State or Territory Values Education Contact Officer or email Curriculum Corporation.
Articles
Two new articles have been included:
- ‘Values education through thinking, feeling and doing’ by Thomas Nielsen (Social Educator, Vol.23, No.2, August 2005)
- ‘The school where pupils rate their teachers’ by Hilary Wilce, (The Independent, 16 February 2006)
Survey and data-gathering tools for values education
A survey and data-gathering tool from the Character Education Partnership, the Character education quality standards self-assessment tool.
Links
New web links for values education resources include: CEP (Character Education Partnership), Choose Respect, MindMatters and Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.