Welcome to the Principals and Values Education in Schools (PAVES) website - a resource and professional development site to support school leaders develop and implement Values Education in schools.

The Values Education for Australian Schooling initiative, funded by the Australian Government, encourages all Australian schools to provide values education in a planned and systematic way by:

• Articulating, in consultation with their school community, the school's mission/ethos;
• Developing student responsibility in local, national and global contexts and building student resilience and social skills;
• Ensuring values are incorporated in school policies and teaching programs across key learning areas; and
• Reviewing the outcomes of their values education practices.
  

Underpinning this  work is the National Framework for Values Education which provides a context, an underpinning vision for values education, a set of nine values for Australian schooling, and guiding principles, key elements and approaches to support schools implement values education.

Principals Australia has been contracted by the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) to develop an information dissemination strategy tailored to meet the needs of school leaders.

Hence this website provides leaders with quick and efficient updates in relation to current happenings in the Values Education Strategy, information about the latest resources as well as access to interviews with leading education experts.

The purpose of this site is to keep school leaders informed and to provide support as they develop and implement approaches to Values Education in their schools.

An exciting initiative is that Principals Australia is currently using the wealth of information contained in this website to develop an online module titled Leading Values Education which will become part of the L5 at Work Resource. The module will highlight the voices of school leaders as they articulate what leading Values Education might look like in schools, ways to engage stakeholders in the process and to develop leadership capacity in the school community and beyond. This module will be available to all Principals by October 2009.

Since the program began in 2004, Australian schools and academics have made a significant contribution to the international body of knowledge about Values Education. There is little doubt that effective Values Education can strengthen students' optimism, self esteem, commitment to personal fulfilment, ethical judgement and social responsibility.  There is also emerging evidence effective Values Education leads to measurable improvements in students' academic diligence.

Click on the Values On-Line menu button to access a series of four Internet events where you can listen to Australian and International academics and leaders. The fourth Internet event focuses on the L5 Frame and the creation of a strategic tool to assist Principals to lead schools with a values lens. A series of opinion pieces from education leaders around Australia give life to the joys and challenges of implementing values in their schools.

This site also provides leaders with practical strategies for implementation. The reports contained in the Cluster Projects menu button offers a variety of case studies from schools around Australia.

It is Principals Australia's belief that successful leadership in Values Education will provide a comprehensive framework for the intellectual, physical, social moral and aesthetic development of Young Australians and the creation of a more socially harmonious and just Australia.