Successful Schooling Today - an innovative partnership between a researcher and the local school and its community

Mal Lee and Broulee Primary School  have worked together to create over 70 short  weekly articles  (click here) designed to assist parents, grandparents and carers of pre-primary and primary school children better understand what they can do to improve the success of their children at school in an increasingly digital world.

The series was conceived as part of the move by Broulee Public School (PS) to create a more collaborative mode of schooling (http://www.broulee-p.schools.nsw.edu.au/Collaborative_Schooling.html).

Broulee PS understood that by pooling its resources with those of its homes and community it could very rapidly become a 'resource rich school' able to provide the children of its community a holistic education previously unimagined.

However before it could make best educational use of those expanded  resources it needed to support parents and carers of current and prospective students with the support and direction required to work collaboratively with the school in the 24/7/365 'teaching'.

The focus is on the key processes, thinking, social, emotional and digital skills and attitudes. 

Mal Lee and Broulee PS have generously agreed to make this series available through the ACE Website.  They hope is that the visitors to our site will find the universality of the topics covered and the advice drawn from the latest research equally applicable for other school communities.

The focus is on the key processes, thinking, social, emotional and digital skills and attitudes. 

Although written for the parents the titles have proven to be excellent for staff development dealing as they do with topics and research not often addressed in schools.

Broulee PS is a small and very normal state school servicing a coastal village on the South Coast of NSW but through this collaboration  it has become  a leading internationally networked school community (Lee and Finger, in press), where the everyday use of digital technologies has become normalized.  This includes

• teachers networking and collaborating with homes and community to provide a 24/7/365 holistic education from 0-12.
• an extensive involvement of grandparents and community elders
• a growing involvement in pre-primary 'teaching'
• ever smarter and more efficient pooled use of the home, school and children's technology.

This series is designed to help provide that support and is intended to use in conjunction with an on-going series of face-to-face meetings and workshops.

Mal Lee (http://malleehome.com) wrote the series in conjunction with the leadership and staff of Broulee Public. The graphics are by Greg McKay and the parent support materials are by Jesse Rowan. All have made this contribution as part of their service to the community.

If you would like to make use of these materials at your school do contact Sue Lowe, the Principal of Broulee Public at - sue.lowe4@det.nsw.edu.au

http://web1.broulee-p.schools.nsw.edu.au/groups/mallee/