National Values Education Conference 2009: Report

Values in Action: Shaping Positive Futures: 30 April & 1 May: report from Sue Cahill

The conference bought together national and international speakers, stakeholders, curriculum leaders, teachers, principals and students. Keynote addresses, presentations and workshops celebrated values education and provided the impetus for discussions about leading and sustaining values education in Australian schools.

Keynote speakers included: 

• Dr Ruth Deakin Crick, University of Bristol, UK whose paper Learning Power and Values: Reconciling the personal with the public in an inquiry based curriculum opened the conference; 
• Professor Terry Lovat, Pro Vice-Chancellor, University of Newcastle who shared the findings of the DEEWR project: Testing and Measuring the Impact of Values Education on Student Effects and School Ambience; 
• Ameeta Wattal, Principal, Springdales School, New Delhi, India who gave us an insight into Values Education: An Indian perspective and 
• John Marsden, author and Principal, Candlebark School, Romsey, Victoria who talked about the Learning Experience that changed lives.

David Brown, Project Director for Values Education from Curriculum Corporation, spoke about the findings from the Values Education Good Practice Schools Project Stage 2 as published in At the Heart of What We Do: Values Education at the Centre of Schooling – The Final Report of the Values Education Good Practice Schools Project – Stage 2.

The final report states:

The principles of good practice in values education are:

1. Establish and consistently use a common and shared values language across the school
2. Use pedagogies that are values-focused and student-centred within all curriculum.
3. Develop values education as an integrated curriculum concept, rather than as a program, an event or an addition to curriculum
4. Explicitly teach values so students know what the values mean and how the values are lived
5. Implicitly model values and explicitly foster the modelling of values
6. Develop relevant and engaging values approaches connected to local and global contexts and which offer real opportunity for student agency
7. Use values education to consciously foster intercultural understanding, social cohesion and social inclusion
8. Provide teachers with informed, sustained and targeted professional learning and foster their professional collaborations
9. Encourage teachers to take risks in their approaches to values education
10. Gather and monitor data for continuous improvement in values education

Furthermore, to embed Values Education in our schools the pedagogies that have succeeded are:

1. Student-centered rather than teacher/content centered
2. Open, non-didactic, constructivist, risky
3. Engage students through thinking, imagination, feeling, activity and reflection
4. Empower students and share control of the teaching learning situation (student agency)
5. Engage student through real and authentic experiences
6. Enable student action and provide opportunities to enact the values in real ways
7. Consistent, congruent modeling of the values
8. Provide safe and supportive environments

He finished his presentation with current issues in the changing landscape. These being:

1. Values education (VE) in the Melbourne Declaration, the National Education Agreement and National Partnerships
2. VE in the National Curriculum – a place at the table?
3. VE’s role in fostering student well-being, student resilience
4. The quest for evidence-based outcomes and approaches
5. Closing the gap between indigenous education and low SES schools
6. Values education in the Digital Education Revolution
7. Getting beyond the school gates: VE in bridging the community-family-school divides
8. VE and better academic outcomes – reframing the function of schooling?

As always, one came away from the conference refreshed in knowing that Values Education, both explicit and implicit, in Australia is held in high esteem internationally and confident that we are making a difference.

Sue Cahill: Cluster Co-ordinator, Melbourne Eastern Region Values in Action Project

For copies of the above papers please e-mail me.