Are families hard to reach or are schools not reaching hard enough?

Schools often have families that they find hard to reach. These may include parents/carers who have:

• English as an additional language
• low literacy skills
• a family member in prison or who has been remanded in the past
• had negative experiences at schools
• experienced bullying or discrimination in an educational establishment.

These families, who for whatever reason, are not engaging with schools will often miss out on crucial opportunities to benefit from the whole school offer such as attending parents’ evenings, school events such as fetes, performances, curriculum and sports days, their children may not be accessing extra curricular activities.

It is the school’s responsibility to monitor parental engagement and remove the barriers that may be adversely affecting some parents from actively participating in the life of the school.

The Equality Diversity Inclusion Team (EDIT) can support schools to overcome some of these barriers to family engagement by offering:

• A six week programme of workshops
  For targeted parents/carers and their children for 45 minutes at the end of the day. Starting with a shared story, always a good place to start. Families will be asked to participate as much as they can, sharing their own experiences and if they speak a language other than English, share key words in their home language. This will be followed with theme related fun activities that families can to together, practicing and rehearsing the vocabulary covered in the story.
  
  
• Family learning training
  For schools who would prefer to deliver this themselves. This course will demonstrate how Family Learning can improve parental engagement with schools and illustrate how 'use of first language' can be promoted to parents to value diversity.
  During the session delegates will:
  • explore strategies which accelerate learning of EAL, GRT and Vulnerable groups
  • understand how 'use of first language' can be promoted to parents to value diversity
  • examine underpinning pedagogical principles and research on benefits of Family Learning
  • develop a bank of, practical activities and explore resources that have a proven record of promoting interaction between children, their parents, and the school
  • be able to implement Family Learning in your school or setting and to gauge impact,

Family learning is a programme that can be delivered using Pupil Premium funding.

For more details and information on how EDIT can help, please click one of the boxes below.

Research has shown that children whose parents support their learning and take a keen interest in their education do better at school and in later life. 
Family learning leads to improvements in:

• children's learning and behaviour
• adults' own skills and their awareness of opportunities for further learning
• adults' abilities to help their children learn
• adults' job prospects
• confidence for both adults and children to enjoy learning together
• positive attitudes towards education for adults and children
• has a huge impact on health, family relations and lifelong learning.

You can get in touch with us using our designated contact page - contact EDIT here!