CARERS AND TEACHERS

Carer interactions with the school

Almost all primary carers of Aboriginal students (95%) reported that they felt welcome when going to their child’s school, and almost all primary carers of Aboriginal students (95%) felt that if there was a problem at the school, they could sort it out. Also, primary carers of over 80% of students were either ‘very happy’ or ‘a little bit happy’ with the overall job the school was doing.

Comparing teacher and carer ratings of student performance

Both teachers and carers were asked to independently rate the school work performance of the students within their care.

Primary carers were asked the question: ‘Is the child doing OK with his/her school work?’ — ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Teachers were asked about the academic performance of students, using a 5-point scale from ‘far above age’ level to ‘far below age’ level..

To enable primary carer and teacher ratings to be compared, a carer response that their child was doing OK with their school work was assumed to indicate that the child’s school work performance was at least comparable with the teacher category ‘average or above average academic performance’.

Primary carers of Aboriginal students aged 4 to 17 years reported that 90% were doing OK with their school work. However, when school teachers were asked to rate the overall academic performance of students in their class, a significantly lower proportion — around 42% — were reported to have average or above average academic performance.

Looking only at the primary carer responses, the impression is one of tremendous success. Carers feel welcome at the school, are able to work with the school to solve problems and have a high level of satisfaction with the job that schools are doing. Additionally, the overwhelming majority of carers report that their children are doing OK at school.

The data collected from classroom teachers and through independent national benchmark testing shows that the majority of Aboriginal students are behind in their school work. In fact, on average, Aboriginal students are performing at levels far below that of non-Aboriginal students.

In almost 50% of cases there was a discrepancy between the carer and teacher ratings of academic performance, with carers rating their child as doing OK at school work while teachers rated the child as having low academic performance. For non-Aboriginal students, the level of discrepancy was significantly lower, at 16%. Carers of non-Aboriginal students appear to be more in tune with the true academic performance of their children than carers of Aboriginal children.

ABORIGINAL STUDENTS AGED 4 TO 17 YEARS — SCHOOL TEACHER AND CARER RATINGS OF SCHOOL WORK PERFORMANCE

TeacherCarerTotalRescaled_SB.png

NON-ABORIGINAL STUDENTS AGED 4 TO 16 YEARS — SCHOOL TEACHER AND CARER RATINGS OF SCHOOL WORK PERFORMANCE (1993 WA CHILD HEALTH SURVEY)

CHS93TeacherCarerTotal_SB.png

Factors associated with a discrepancy between primary carer and teacher ratings of school work performance included:

  • Students who were assessed only by their teacher as being at high risk of clinically significant emotional or behavioural difficulties were over one and a half times as likely to have their school work performance rated differently than students assessed by both the primary carer and teacher as being at high risk.
  • Students whose primary carers had attained higher levels of education (i.e. completed 13 or more years of schooling) were almost two times less likely to be rated differently than students whose primary carers had left school after completing Year 10.
  • Students whose primary carers were employed were one and a third times less likely to have their school work performance rated differently than students whose carers were not in the labour force.
  • Students of primary carers who had been forcibly separated from their natural family were one and a half times as likely to have their school work performance rated differently than students whose carers who had not been forcibly separated.
  • Students of primary carers who were conversant in an Aboriginal language were almost twice as likely to have their school work performance rated differently than students whose carers who did not speak an Aboriginal language.
  • As unexplained absences increased, primary carers were more likely to differ from teachers in rating the child’s school work performance. Primary carers of students who had 1 to 10 unexplained absences were one and a half times as likely to differ from teachers than carers of students who had no unexplained absence; while carers of students who had more than 10 unexplained absences were twice as likely to differ.
Last updated 5 September 2007