APPA's 4 Priority Resourcing Papers Released

• Science - Primary schools are recognised by Australians as the key institution for later academic success. Attitudes to learning, subject disciplines and future careers are shaped as children progress through these years. A particular focus is required on science provision in the primary years especially in the mid and late primary years of schooling where research confirms urgent attention is required.

• Social and Emotional Learning - Fostering a new generation of healthy, resilient and well‐educated young Australians represents an economic, social and moral priority for our nation. Yet young Australians are now required to deal with a vast array of pressures not confronted by previous generations. While parents remain the prime educators of their children, research confirms repeatedly that primary schools represent social institutions where both the social and academic foundations for later success are laid.

• Students with Disabilities - Australian primary teachers are experiencing a dramatic increase in the diversity of the children that present; including increasing proportions of children with disabilities, learning difficulties and highly disruptive behaviour. Managing this change requires more than just the extraordinary level of commitment already offered by primary teachers. It requires support in the form of financial investment and effective policy to enable primary schools to continue to deliver on a guarantee of learning for every child.

• Transparency - The foundations of a successful life are laid during the Primary school years. While both state and federal governments have invested in the early and secondary school years there should now be a national commitment to a sustained and fully accounted investment through all years of primary, the period where achievement gaps widen.
  

APPA will be working with our lobbyist to campaign for these in the upcoming federal election.

Copies of the four papers will be sent to members of our Parliamentary Friends of Primary Education group and State/Territory Ministers in the first instance.