The Horizons of Hope Families as Partners in Catholic School Communities Strategy Statement outlines the vision for family partnerships and engagement in a Catholic school. This statement is the latest addition to the suite of strategies under the Horizons of Hope Education Framework for the Archdiocese of Melbourne.

The three major contexts in which children learn are the family, the school and the community. Families are the first educators of their children, and when the child moves beyond the earliest years, families are joined by a school on their child’s learning journey. This is when a long-term partnership between home and school begins.

In choosing a Catholic school, parents enter a partnership with the school in which there is shared privilege and responsibility for the child’s faith formation, learning and wellbeing.

When Catholic schools and families work together for the formation of all children, the school community is strengthened, and the whole of society benefits as a sense of ownership and belonging to community grows for children and young people, and for their families (Bryk et al. 2010).

Families are honoured in a Catholic school community in three main ways:

• Encounter through partnership – encounter happens when the sacred dignity of each person in the partnership is honoured, with each person learning alongside the other
• Activating engagement – leaders, teachers, families and children each have a role to play to strengthen the relationship between school and home
• Three-way learning relationship – parents, teachers and children come together in a three-way learning relationship to support the full flourishing of each and every child.