Educational Purposes, Principles and Values
It is anticipated that each school will develop an overarching philosophy to guide all aspects of school operation from whole-school policies and programs to day-to-day classroom practices, relationships within the school and relationships with the community and parents. In doing this the school will need to consider the educational purposes and principles and the underlying social values on which their school is based.
Purposes
The Victorian Essential Learning Standards propose that students need to develop a set of knowledge, skills and behaviours which will prepare them for success in a world which is complex, rapidly changing, rich in information and communications technology, demanding high-order knowledge and understanding and increasingly global in its outlook and influences. To succeed in that world, students will need to create a future which:
Is sustainable – developing an understanding of the interaction between social, economic and environmental systems and how to manage them.
Is innovative – developing the skills to solve new problems using a range of different approaches to create unique solutions.
Builds strong communities – by building common purposes and values and by promoting mutual responsibility and trust in a diverse socio-cultural community.
Each of these purposes is embedded within the three core strands of the Victorian Essential Learning Standards, and each will be the subject of both specific standards and associated sample teaching materials.
For example, environmental sustainability will not only draw on the full range of interdisciplinary domains but will also be embedded within such discipline areas as science, geography and economics, and programs to develop students' physical, personal and social capacities. Similarly, community building is likely to be a core component of the civics and citizenship and the interpersonal development domains.
Principles
A clear set of educational principles which reflects the community's expectations for schooling in Victoria underpins the Victorian Essential Learning Standards.
Specifically, these principles are:
- Learning for all – proceeding on the basis that all students can learn given sufficient time and support, and that good schools and good teaching make a positive difference to student outcomes
- Pursuit of excellence – seeking to accomplish something noteworthy and admirable individually and collectively, and performing at one's best
- Engagement and effort – acknowledging that student ability is only one factor in achievement and that if students work hard and make an effort, they improve
- Respect for evidence – seeking understanding and truth through structured inquiry and the application of evidence to test and question beliefs
- Openness of mind – being willing to consider a range of different views and consider different ways in which evidence is perceived and solutions can be reached.
This set of principles infuses the Victorian Essential Learning Standards and the associated support materials, and should also inform the detailed implementation decisions made by schools.
The language of purposes and principles is inevitably contentious, which means school communities will need to clarify the values which guide their work. Some have, for example, expressed concern that the 'pursuit of excellence' may result in the exclusion of some students from curriculum programs of worth. While the definition proposed is clear, it does illustrate the need for local discussion to determine how best to proceed.
This implies a need to discuss the principles at the school level, with the involvement of the whole school community, as a precursor to determining how best to use the Victorian Essential Learning Standards to meet community expectations and the full range of student needs.
In doing so, schools should bear in mind that they are embarking on an educational exercise aimed at improving the learning experience for each and every student in the school.
Values
This approach to educational purposes and principles is located within the broader community understanding of shared personal and social values such as those found in the Adelaide Declaration on National Goals of Schooling in the Twenty-First Century, adopted by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) in 1999 for all school sectors and those included in the Draft National Framework for Values Education in Australian Schools, developed from the outcomes of the Values Education Study commissioned by the Australian Government.
The set of values outlined in the VCAA's original consultation paper - tolerance and understanding, respect, responsibility, social justice, excellence, care, inclusion and trust, honesty, freedom and being ethical - are not proposed to be the subject of specific, stand-alone teaching or the focus of assessment of individual students. They are a statement of the community expectations within which schools develop their curricula.
