Creating a Community Language School
Our step-by-step guide will help you set up a Community Language School in your area, from gathering students to setting up the school structure.
Planning a Community Language School
Here is our guide to help you start a new Community Language School in your area.
There are five key steps to follow....
5 Steps
Find students
Ask around in your community; are there parents with school age children who are willing to participate and want to enrol their children in your school?
You may want to put up posters in your local library, community notice board, and of course on social media.
Funding under the Community Languages Schools Program is for students from K-12.
Create a ‘Student’s interested in enrolling’ form to keep track of interested families.Once classes are set up, each parent then fills out an Enrolment Form.
Find a venue for your school
You can choose your own premises. Some schools teach in their community hall, club or religious building.
You can apply to use NSW Government School facilities for your school program. Registered Community Languages Schools have free use of Government School facilities. It can take at least 1 year to get registered, so you may need to hire facilities for at least 12 months.
Decide on the most convenient suburb for your students to attend your language school - look at student details of where they live/go to school). Then find the government school (primary or high school) and prepare to approach that school to request hosting.
Read the guide about Approaching a School to seek use of its premises.
Please note: Schools which are teaching the same language cannot operate within 2km of each other.
If a public school agrees to host your CLS, you will be required to sign a Community Use Agreement. This is a contract between your organisation and the host school, so it is important that you familiarise yourself with the Terms of this contract - have a look at one here.
Plan your financial management
You will need to track your income and expenditure. This is an example of how you can set up your bookkeeping with an Income, Expenditure and Petty Cash sheet.
After receiving a grant from the Department of Education, at the end of the year you will need to have information on your income and expenditure to complete a Grant Acquittal Report. You can see the Grant Acquittal Forms here.
Prepare policies and procedures for your organisation
Now that you have an Incorporated Association you need to have some Policies and Procedures that say how you will run your organisation, so that your actions are legal and ethical.
This Governance Toolkit is an excellent place to start planning your organisation's policies and procedures.
Hunter Community Languages has a members-only course for the development of vital policies and procedures - Code of Conduct and Child Safe Policy.
We also offer this free Risk Management course for all community language schools.
Plan your teaching
Teaching resources are a very important part of excellent teaching in your school.
There are several ways to find resources for teaching your language:
- Ask others who are already teaching your language in NSW - you can look for schools that teach your language here.
- Produce your own materials
- The Sydney Institute for Community Languages Education (SICLE) portal houses resources in various languages that other teachers have shared - openlanguage.org.au
Once you have some resources, you can start planning your Teaching Program. Click on this button to access the course Planning What to Teach, it includes templates for you to use as you plan.
Funding a Community Language School
The NSW Government, through the Department of Education (DoE), provides funding for community language schools that meet the requirements of their Community Languages Schools Program (CLSP).
At any time of the year you can submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) to apply for funding for your school, via the Department of Education's Portal.
To complete this EOI, you will need to provide these documents:
- Your organisation's constitution (which says that one object is to teach your heritage language and language to children and youth in your community)
- Certificate of Incorporation from NSW Fair Trading ABN & GST registration
- Public Liability Insurance Certificate of Currency
- Workers Compensation Insurance Certificate of Currency or, if you don't need this insurance for your workers, an exemption letter from a lawyer or accountant, or this Statutory Declaration
- Your organisation's bank details on the organisation's letterhead (you can't use a personal bank account - you must have one for your organisation)
- A Teaching Program
More details on some of these are below.
For help with writing a Teaching Program please do the course Planning: Writing a Teaching Program.
Please read the Terms and Conditions Guidebook: If your application for funding under the Community Languages Schools Program is successful, you’ll be offered a funding agreement. By signing this agreement, you are committing to its terms and conditions. This Terms and Conditions Guidebook is a vital resource to help you understand your responsibilities under the funding agreement. It’s crucial that you read this guidebook as a starting point and also review all the terms and conditions in full to ensure you’re fully informed about your commitments.
To help you prepare
Becoming incorporated
You must set up an incorporated association before you can register with and be funded by the NSW Community Languages Schools Program (CLSP).
Under the terms and conditions of the CLSP, your incorporated association must be able to demonstrate close links with a community whose first/heritage language is a language other than English.
You can read more at NSW Fair Trading: Setting up your incorporated association.
Your first meeting will be the Annual General Meeting (AGM), when the committee members are voted in. The minutes (a transcript of the meeting) of this meeting are often needed for opening a bank account.
Minutes have to be written in English.
The on-going governance of your incorporated association is a big responsibility. Learn more about Governance here.
Getting an ABN number & registering for GST
Your Community Language School needs to have their own Australian Business Number (ABN). To apply for an ABN visit the Australian Business Register.
To apply for a CLSP grant, the DoE requires that you are registered for GST.
You can register for GST in your ABN application.
Opening a bank account for your school
Open up a bank account for your non-profitable organisation. To open a bank account you will need the minutes of your Annual General Meeting.
The Committee members who will be signatories have to go and meet at the bank together with their identification papers. Please ask your bank for further details about what is needed.
Organising your public liability and volunteers' accident insurance
Your Community Language School needs to have Public Liability Insurance and insurance for your volunteers.
Members of Hunter Community Languages are able to purchase their Public Liability Insurance and Volunteers Insurance at a much reduced cost. Contact us for more information.
Planning your financial management
If you are successful in your application for funding and you receive a grant, in the year following the grant payment you will need to acquit the grant. This means you fill in a grant acquittal form and tell the DoE how you spent the money. You must spend all of the money in the year that it is give to you, according to the terms and conditions of the grant, or you will be required to give the money back.
It is important that you plan and track your income and expenditure, this will make the grant acquittal much easier. You can learn how to do this in our Financial Management Courses, available in multiple languages.
Staffing a Community Language School
It takes a community to run the school. You will need committee members, volunteers, teachers and parents to come together and bring the school to live.
With a little planning, it can all be done.
2 Steps
Find teachers
Each School has to fill out a Teacher Profile Form for each teacher.
This form is submitted when you apply to register your school. It records your teachers' teacher training and experience.
If you don’t have an experienced language teacher, the committee can agree for him/her to teach, if he/she agrees to undergo training.
There are free Language Teaching course being offered by NSW Department of Education and Sydney University's Sydney Institute for Community Languages Education; you can read about them here.
All teachers and volunteers who interact with students without their parents being present, have to do a Working with Children Check.
Plan your relationship with your workers (teachers)
Will your teachers be volunteers, employees or independent contractors?
Generally speaking the ‘attributes’ of each category of worker are:
- Volunteers are not paid for the work that they perform, they work without a legally enforceable obligation to do so and the volunteer relationship can end at any time.
- Employees are paid for time worked, must perform the duties of their position, perform ongoing work under the supervision and control of an employer and are entitled to certain types of paid and unpaid leave.
- Independent contractors have control over how they carry out their work, are paid for results that they achieve, are contracted for a set period of time or a set task and are free to accept work from the general public and other businesses.
Merely labelling a worker a ‘volunteer’, ‘employee’ or ‘independent contractor’ does not mean they are in fact a ‘volunteer’, ‘employee’ or ‘independent contractor’.
If the matter went to court, the court would look beyond the label to the substance of the work relationship as a whole.
Sometimes the distinction between workers can change over time. For example, a worker might start out as a volunteer teacher but later become an employee or independent contractor when the organisation has more resources and is able to start paying the teacher regularly. Be aware that this might happen in your school.
Different laws apply to volunteers, employees and contractors. For example, employees are entitled to a high level of protection and benefits under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), superannuation and workers’ compensation laws. Work health and safety laws generally apply equally to employees, independent contractors and volunteers overall.
Understanding the legal differences between volunteers, employees and independent contractors is crucial for determining the obligations that you owe and protections afforded to your workers. You need to be clear with your workers about the basis on which your organisation is engaging them, and the legal entitlements owed to them.
Other organisational matters could be impacted as well. For example: whether someone is covered by your organisation’s insurance may depend on their worker status (a volunteer or employee).
Source and more info: 'National Volunteer Guide', Justice Connect. May 2020. Accessed November 2020.
If you are going to pay your teachers regularly, you will need to decide if they will be employees or independent contractors. More info on what this means at the ATO's website here.
You might also find this Hunter Community Languages webinar recording helpful: Paying CLS Workers
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What can we help you achieve?
Join Hunter Community Languages and be a part of our community. We provide access to coaching and skills-building to help plan, manage and grow your Community Language School.
