American academic Joni Samples worked with parents, teachers and support staff from Eaglehawk, Bendigo North and Comet Hill Primary Schools ahead of a merger next year.

“We’re developing a plan to support learning at home,” Dr Samples said.

“It’s not about partly bringing in parent involvement, we want to bring in all parents – we want them to be involved and supported in the school.

“What we’ve found is test schools improve (and) behaviour is better.”

Bendigo North Primary School parent Belinda Seymour said it had been “brilliant” to be part of the talks.

“Its been very positive – a lot of people might say ‘I don’t know about it’ but it will be great to change a few minds,” she said. “Even if we can get one or two parents to increase their involvement to start getting things moving it will be worth it.

Ms Seymour has one child at the school and another three to go through.

She said she wanted to look at expanding the program back to kindergarten level to have parent involvement from early on.

Ms Rooney said she could see the program making a difference in the new school.

She and Eaglehawk’s Extended Schools Partnerships pilot program co-ordinator John Jones will visit the US next month to take part in a Family Friendly Schools conference in Las Vegas before visiting schools in Philadelphia and Baltimore where the program is already operating.

Dr Sample will continue to coach the schools over the next six months.