Hello and welcome to the start of a new school year. Already 2012 is shaping up to be a busy one for Council.

Firstly I would like to extend a warm welcome from the executive to those of you who are new to the ACT public school system or becoming involved with your P&C for the first time.

Parent’s involvement with their child’s schools has consistenly been shown to be linked with better educational outcomes. P&Cs are important and as the collective voice of P&Cs, the P&C Council is also important. We do not just go to meetings and help at sausage sizzles because we like cooking sausages. We want to help our child’s school and through Council push for system wide improvements in public education.

Since our last edition we have welcomed Steve Crilly’s replacement Jena Dobie. Jena is doing a great job on this edition of Feedback and working with Sheree Henley on Council’s new website.

Sheree has been tireless in exacting out of Executive what we needed from our new website. We also finalised our submissions on the 2012-13 Budget, Schools Workforce and Geography Curriculum. Policy Officer Tim Lawley is also completing our submissions on ETD Canteen Policy, a Disability Awareness Curriculum and responses to the Gonksi Review of Funding for Schooling.

Council members have been involved in various Gonski related activities (see article). Our goal was to stress that parents in public schools want a greater slice of the funding cake. The limited educational budget must be directed to where it will have the greatest effect and the public education system is where there is the greatest need.

Council has also been working on getting more help for our canteens, buses for our schools, promoting disability awareness and parents reading regularly to their children.

I hope to see you all at our next meeting.

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