How to use the student journey
The student journey is full of opportunities and challenges. Here's how to uncover your own opportunities by using it in your project.
Overview
The in-depth student journey is available in its original form [In-depth student journey (PDF 212.32KB)] to be used in your project. For full functionality, open in Adobe Acrobat and use as follows:
- Go to the bottom row and read through the Opportunities. [An accessible version is also available on this page.]
- Decide which opportunities will have the most impact and still be feasible.
- Examine the Challenges row and decide which ones can be solved by your projects. [An accessible version is also available on this page.]
- Reframe your challenges as How might we questions.
- Think about solutions that might fit the problem.
- Explore other parts of the journey to uncover your own opportunities. Remember to keep in front of mind the jobs students are trying to get done at whatever stage they're in.
Note: Not all stages have been assigned Opportunites and Challenges.
Challenges
The challenges faced will vary throughout the student journey. These can be viewed in broad terms in three stages:
- Years 0-Kindergarten
- Years 1-6
- Years 7-12
Age 0-1
- Parents make decisions for their child based on advice from other friends and family members with children in day care.
- Parents draw on their own school experience to help inform where and when their child might go to day care.
- For parents there is a tension between getting their child into “a” day care or the “right” day care.
Age 2
- Parents are unsure of how to gauge if the child is developing normally.
Age 3
- child not being socialised
- parents unclear on suitable materials for first learning experiences (see quote below)
P2 (parent): “We got Benjamin started on exercise books from Office Works.”
Age 4
- relative cost of kindergarten over preschool
- parents appraising schools in a different way to the department
- no qualitative comparison of schools
- parents unsure of what to expect from schools (see quote below)
P6 (parent): “I haven’t been in a classroom since high school.”
Age 5
- Parents (rather than a childcare professional) making a decision about the school readiness of a child.
Year 1
- parents become decreasingly engaged with the education process of subsequent children as it grows increasingly familiar
- a lack of transparency about how development issues are identified by teachers can lead to mistrust and stress.
Year 2
- lack of soft-skills curriculum or metrics makes progress in social development difficult to gauge.
Year 3
- substandard teachers have the potential to let down the system and curriculum.
Year 5
- mismatch in student/parent ambition.
Year 6
- responsibilities are given to students as they get prepared for the autonomy of high school
- limited interactions with the teacher
- students exposed to generic structure/methodology of the school
- parent’s expectations of high school can influence how a student prepares for transition.
Year 7
- schools not helping shy high school kids integrate
- academic decisions impacting social experience
- no single point of contact for parents looking for information on the student (expectations set by primary school experience)
- parents lose visibility on child’s social experiences as students stop sharing
- parents concerned about child being lost in "the system"
- students in selective streams fearful of being downgraded.
Year 8
- student feeling in control of own education by making choices on courses
- students lack a sense of the impact education will have on their life
- students feeling of independence not matched by the ability to provide input on education.
Year 9
- modes of learning restricted to teacher’s abilities
- students not being challenged become disengaged.
Year 10
- students being prepared for HSC rather than future
- parents, students and teachers have different ideas about when school gets 'serious'
- parents have been taught differently to students, so have difficulty helping with studies.
Year 11
- students feeling the overload of homework assignments and study.
Year 12
- teacher/principal expectations adding excessive pressure to students.
Opportunities
Each challenge is seen as an opportunity to positively impact the student journey. These can be viewed in broad terms in three stages:
- Years 0-Kindergarten
- Years 1-6
- Years 7-12
Age 0-1
- How does a day care centre match my beliefs or behaviours?
- Should I send my child to day care at all?
Age 2
- Educate parents on the breadth of “normal” development.
Age 3
- guidelines/stimulus for parent-led education.
Age 4
- Alignment of parental enquiries and the department's guidelines for school websites.
- Identify important qualitative measures and metrics for school.
- Start a conversation with parents about school before the selection process begins.
Age 5
- Official guidelines/entry criteria for entering Kindergarten.
Year 1
- evolution/maintenance of the Transition to School Statement
- transparency about progress for identifying social issues and measures for parents
- coping strategies for parents of children with issues.
Year 2
- educating parents on how to assist with social development
- embedding key values and principles within the curriculum
- empower teachers to actively coach personal and social development.
Year 4
- provide parents with the knowledge to deal with social disruption.
Year 5
- supply extra materials and advice
- handover process from primary to high school
- help parents understand the skills and value of tutors in a standardised way.
Year 6
- customisable parent-teacher meeting agenda.
Year 7
- standardised/recommended student socialisation drawn from best practices across all schools
- help students better understand the importance of early academic decisions.
Year 8
- create closer ties between the curriculum and the real world.
Year 9
- translate the curriculum into multiple learning modes.