Who says school is just for children? At Debney Meadows Primary School, parents are learning too.
It’s a far cry from where the school was just a few years ago, with parents and students disengaged from the school community. Now, due to an innovative program, principal Koreena Carlton said enrolments had almost doubled.
Mulubirhan Worku with her three girls Sifan, 7, Zeynab, 9, and Hayat, 5, at Debney Meadows Primary School, Flemington.Credit: PENNY STEPHENS
The Flemington school, nestled between four public housing towers – two slated for demolition and redevelopment by 2031 – with the majority of students from migrant or refugee backgrounds, had 65 enrolments in 2022. That increased to 118 this year, with attendance rates also jumping from 82 per cent to 87 per cent in 2024.
In 2023, according to the Victorian Education Department’s enrolment index pressure, which measures the ratio of student enrolments against school capacity, Debney Meadows had 17 per cent enrolment pressure, as opposed to Kensington Primary with 81 per cent and Flemington Primary with 57 per cent.
Carlton, who started at the school in 2021, says the change is largely due to a community hub running courses for parents, delivered alongside Kensington Neighbourhood House. Parents can drop their kids off in the morning and spend the day learning, or parents and children can do courses after school together.
Those courses – which include cookery, micro business, digital literacy, early learning and English language – have led to qualifications and jobs. The hub is also open to the community and runs playgroups, a school readiness program – which has led to an increase in prep enrolments – and a homework club.
“For me, it opened my mind,” said 32-year-old mother Mulubirhan Worku, whose three daughters Zeynab, 9, Sifan, 7, Hayat, 5, go to the school.
Worku, who is the school council president, was born in Sudan, but her family is from Ethiopia. She arrived in Australia on December 7, 2004, after living in a refugee camp with her mother and siblings.
She did a year-long cooking class one day a week, starting from 9.30am and finishing at 2.30pm.
“The mothers, they don’t need to go home and come back, they can just pick up their kids,” she said.
Carlton said the impact of the initiative had been overwhelmingly positive, especially with families re-engaging back into the school community.
According to the school’s parent opinion survey, Debney Meadows had a 94 per cent positive response rate for community engagement. In the Attitudes To School Survey, 97 per cent of students said they felt a strong sense of inclusion. There was also a significant increase in the sense of connectedness from 64 per cent in 2023 to 91 per cent in 2024.
“I think it really does reinforce the importance of creating opportunities for our families to connect, and it really fosters a supportive and inclusive school environment,” Carlton said.
“It’s a very, very big difference from what it was four years ago. We’re not just a school for children, we’re a school for the community.”
Kensington Community House education co-ordinator Freyja Dixon said when the hub launched two years ago, parents and families didn’t feel comfortable to come into the school due to a range of factors.
“By trying to build that engagement in their children’s school, you see the overall holistic impact that can have in terms of their children’s learning,” she said.
Dixon, who helped secure a four-year grant for the hub from the William Buckland Foundation, said people who had done the business course had gone on to get their sole trader licence and had their own stalls at a weekly Saturday morning fruit and vegetable market at the school, which includes a Somali sambusa stall.
Dixon said some students faced exceptional challenges, so creating things like the homework club and engaging the whole family helped.
“We have a number of families that would have been living across three different places, so they’re essentially homeless,” she said.
“It’s so tricky to learn when you’re coming from that environment.”
The hub links families with essential services like NDIS and maternal and child health services, helps fill out forms and understand school procedures, and has helped with housing issues, referrals for health, legal aid and sports grants. Of those taking courses, 22 per cent never went to school. The hub has been so successful it won the 2024 Learn Local Awards, and as of last year 53 learners had enrolled in pre-accredited training and 16 completed linked accredited training.
Carlton said the level of engagement the school had with the community also promoted trust, and the success reinforced the importance of creating opportunities for their families to connect.
“It really fosters a supportive and inclusive school environment,” Carlton said.
“We need to find out what the needs are of our community, and based on what the needs are of the community is where we then create the supports and put them in place.
“We’re like a big family.”
Worku said parents were even welcome at school assemblies now, and they often had to drag in extra chairs to the space.
“My kids … they love school and especially Debney Meadows now. I want people to come and see it. Debney Meadows is the place to be.”
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