Extended School Hubs

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Australian Education Ministers' 2010 Biennial Forum

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The Victorian Government acknowledges that education is a collective responsibility and is committed to strengthening partnerships between schools, families, community and business. The Smarter Schools National Partnership Project in low SES school communities provides the opportunity to pilot a model of extended school hubs that will transform the way that schools improve learning outcomes, by working with extended agencies to reduce the barriers that children experience to learning. The Extended School Hubs are being trialled in four low SES locations involving 17 primary and secondary schools. The trials will support a place based approach that will link the needs of the school and community, and co-ordinate the delivery of activities and programs before, during and after school hours.

The Extended School Hub program for us is an opportunity for us to link with other agencies who have the same purpose in their organisation that we do. The Extended Hubs allows us to look at school activities that can happen before the start of the school day, and take us through to things that go into the evening.

We’ve identified, in particular schools, high need around student learning outcomes. In examining those needs and how we can best meet those needs and improve the learning for these students, it became absolutely apparent that we’ve got to get a better connection between what happens in the home and what’s happing at the school.

Eaglehawk Secondary College saw this as a very important opportunity to make the most of the chance to be resourced, to continue our work, to link with community, to find ways to improve the outcomes for students, student learning, increase the engagement of students in education in their families, and connect more strongly with community.

The Smith Family is the lead agency for the Extended School Hubs pilot in Wyndam, which is Werribee. The role that the Smith Family plays is a facilitation and co-ordination role, bringing together all the services and supports for a whole range of young people. So if we are to make a difference to young people in schools we know that there are a range of services and supports that we can provide them outside the classroom, and in this case, for this pilot, outside school hours, that actually support education outcomes. What we do is work very much with the community to bring all those services together, based on what the gaps are. So what do we actually mean when we talk about bringing all these services together and filling the gaps around young people? Well we’re really talking about understanding what young people need to be inspired by their education, enriched by their education, what they need to feel that their schooling, their learning, is actually relevant for them.

In our school at North Shore the projects that we run through our Extended School Hub include the Smith Family doing Homework Club, the partnerships with Ardoch who bring both two sides to it. They bring volunteers into our school and services we don’t otherwise have within our own school community. We have Blue Earth which is sponsored through Shell, the Red Cross with our Breakfast Club, that’s been a big part. We’ve got Active Afterschool Play, so communities can do sport here three nights a week. We’re looking at the opportunity for music lessons to be available for our families that other communities might say “Oh my child has violin lessons, or guitar lessons” and that’s just an accepted thing they do after school, got quite busy social lives. For our families, quite often, going home at the end of the day was it, they weren’t going to sporting clubs, they weren’t getting involved in other youth groups, that sort of activity. We see the Extended Hub as being able to provide a lot of that sort of opportunity.

Well the Outreach Program is one we identified as a support program for our students who are at risk, and who find difficulty with mainstream. The Family Friendly Schools Project is one that we thought would increase parent engagement.

The benefit of the Family Friendly Schools Program for Eaglehawk Secondary College are many and varied. We can see some real benefit for it for our students to basically raise the bar if you like, as far as their expectations and their aspirations are concerned.

One of the real benefits of the Extended School Hubs is the ability for children who might not thrive in a traditional classroom setting to find their own feet. Our academic results are starting to show some really positive transfers into some of the data that we’re getting from children. Previously we’d have 40% or 50% of our children below the national minimums. We’ve now got 2% to 3% to 4% of children at that sort of level, which for us is a huge turn around. So we’re getting 90%+ of our kids over or at those sorts of levels.

This is the way of the future. If we can use the schools as a place to bring all the rich resources of the community together as a platform for service delivery, we can actually transform young people’s lives.

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