The Horizons of Hope documents are an education framework for the Archdiocese of Melbourne which support our Catholic school community to engage in dialogue about the distinctive nature of learning and teaching, leading learning, and enhancing Catholic identity in our schools. The framework is a living document that is continually being added to with examples of practice from schools, as well as additional strategy statements in the areas of Leadership, Wellbeing, Diversity, and Religious Education.
The latest edition to this framework is the Foundation Statement titled, ‘Families as Partners in Catholic school communities. The publication of this document in July of this year is very timely given the rich partnerships we have embraced this year during remote learning. We always promote and recognise parents as the first educators of their children and place high value on strong partnerships between home and school.
The first question in this document is - What is the role of families in Catholic school communities? We recognise that the three major contexts in which children learn are the family, the school and the community. This has looked different this year with children spending more time within their family and less time on the site of the school and less time within the broader community. What a wonderful job our families have done taking the lead role as educators. It is now our turn as a school to guide and direct and facilitate learning from a distance as parents become involved in their child’s learning more than ever. If we were to issue a report card to our families this year (something you certainly all deserve!) it would definitely rate every family teaching their children at well above the expected standard. Thanks for the rich partnership. Thanks for your exemplary teaching practices. Thanks for taking on the very challenging role as teacher as well as Mum, Dad, Grandparent, Carer. We think you are amazing!
Speaking of amazing one of our former students Maddison L had a piece of her artwork chosen to be in this latest Horizons of Hope Document. Well done Maddison you are a published artist.
