FAFT – Principal Initiative Transcript
Stan Sheppard – Principal Atherton State School: “Family as First a Teacher was first set up in Kuranda after I became the principal there and visited all the communities, the Indigenous families in the five communities. It was established around an early learning model. I wanted to get children and ready for school, but give the parents the power, the skills, the expertise so they could work with their children before they got to school”
Rosetta Brim – Community Teacher Aide Kuranda: “Most of the time I had to go around and talk to families and parents about the benefit that this program will give their kids, so slowly, slowly, they all started coming and now we do a good enough number, most of the community are coming, most of the parents come and sometimes we have some of the fathers come.”
Michael Hansen – Principal Cairns West State School: “The Family as First Teachers program is a really, really positive program for our school. What we have had is a situation where parents are now engaging with us and with the teachers at a much earlier stage. We have got three groups operating and in some of the groups we have mums and dads who will bring kids in more or less from child birth up until the age of four and a half and these kids and their families they get to learn how to play educational games and how to get used to school and take away all those misconceptions and negative stories that might be out there in the community, meet with the teachers and then transition into prep school.”
Gary Toshach – Principal Kuranda District State College: “The first you must do if you’re starting a program such as our Family as First Teachers program is to make sure you have very clear intentions. Make sure that you know what you’re trying to achieve. Our intentions are to mainly close that gap between home and school, make sure the kids and the families have a relationship that they’re building with our school, we also have to whilst doing that, build the parents confidence in the education program and their ability to contribute to that program, and that’s what FAFT stands for its about families teaching to kids when they’re at home when they.”