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example 1 - supporting children's learning at home

A nursery class attached to a primary school in Orkney has developed a range of leaflets to keep parents informed on what children are learning in the nursery and how they can support this at home. There is a welcome leaflet and a general leaflet which describes the Aims and Curriculum, illustrated with pictures of children in the nursery. These are available to all parents in a display for parents by the entrance to the nursery.

In addition there are leaflets covering specific topics being covered by the nursery throughout the year. Each leaflet (an A4 sheet folded to provide four pages) has four sections:

- At nursery we are learning about … (e.g. The jobs people do, night time)
- At nursery we will … (indicates what it is that children will learn)
- We will learn by … (describes the activities that will be undertaken)
- At home we can … (suggests activities that parents and children can do together at home to support their learning)

The leaflets are simple, clear and attractively illustrated and each one highlights three or four simple activities that all parents can undertake with their child at home.

example 2 - involving Gypsy and Traveller families in their children's learning

Fife Council developed activities that would involve parents from Gypsy and Traveller families in their children's learning and education.

A lending library of resources was provided for use either as distance learning materials for families to complete during periods of travel or as short-term loans to Gypsy and Traveller families staying in caravans and houses throughout the area. Materials were available for all ages from pre-school to teenage years.

Benefits of the project included:

• Initial consultation included parents and pupils to consider the types of resources that they would welcome in this project
• Many of the activities were specifically designed to involve fathers
• Parents realised the skills that they could share with a child (e.g. how to use a glue gun) which led to an increased confidence in their ability to support the child. One dad, on becoming involved with a project, realised for the first time the progress his child had made in reading. He went out and bought a bookshelf and books for all the children in the family
• The project gave staff a positive reason to visit and get to know parents. The staff contrasted this with the more usual situation of making visits where there had been a problem
• Children wanted to take part in projects and showed greatly increased motivation
• Extended family members supported children. In one instance a pupil said that the World War II project had given her something to talk about with her grandfather.

example 3 - support for schools from other teams

Following the introduction of easy-to-use cameras in the nursery schools in Midlothian, a course was piloted by MALANI (the Midlothian Adult Literacy and Numeracy Initiative) to encourage parents to learn to use the cameras and support their child's learning at the same time.

Parents were invited to come along and have some fun with the cameras. They took the cameras home and recorded their child's learning at home. On return to the school an IT tutor and a literacy tutor, using the school's computer suite, worked with the parents to use the software to create storybooks with text and special effects.

Most parents had no previous computer experience, but over the 6-week course learned how to produce storybooks including some of the pictures they had taken. Parents and children were thrilled with the results and their new found skills which were put to use in the nursery, where the parents are helping the staff and children to use the cameras more effectively.

Activity 1
reviewing and developing a home learning policy

Purpose To identify and build on how parents already support their children's learning at home To make clear links between children's learning in school and at home

Who will be involved? Pupils Parents Teachers

Different methods can be used to gather parent and pupil views about the school's homework/home learning policy including:

• Carrying out a survey of parent and pupil views on homework/home learning. This could even be carried out by some pupils as part of a homework task
• Parent Council and headteacher establish a working group of parents, pupils and staff. The group could run a survey or hold meetings to find out parents views about:
  - What they already do to support and extend their children's learning at home and how they do this
  - Any additional support and information from the school they would find useful to support their children's learning.

Collating information

Collate the views and consider:

• What the priorities might be to provide clearer more specific information for parents, for example, developing Home Learning Logs or Diaries
• Organising activities for parents and children around specific subject areas, for example, involving parents in devising and developing maths games; building up a science lending library; setting up a book/reading club for children and parents
• Whether there are any specific issues or support needs for some parents or children
• What other resources there may be to support learning at home, for example, family learning or literacy teams
• How a policy could be developed to address the priorities.

Implementing and reviewing the policy

Once a policy and actions to implement the policy are identified, the next step is to inform all parents and pupils.

Agree when the policy and actions will be reviewed and evaluated to assess the difference it has made to parents and pupils.

example 4 - communicating with parents about their child's progress

A primary school in Dumfries and Galloway sent out questionnaires to get a clearer idea of parents and children's views of homework and what information they wanted from school.

A workshop for parents, the home link worker, teachers and pupils to explore purposes, expectations and communications in relation to homework was held. This was followed up with a small working group to develop a homework policy and communications system for home school links. Parents and children from P3 - P7 are involved in a weekly review of their learning using a new home school diary. The school also bought a number of books on learning and learning styles for the parents' library and the staff library.

The benefits were:

• Parents had a greater understanding of what goes on in school, could communicate regularly with the school and had a clearer idea of the school's expectations of homework
• Parents had a starter for discussion with their children about what they had been learning in school
• Children had a weekly opportunity to review their learning, assess their achievements and highlight their learning needs
• Staff had a clearer idea of the sorts of activities that parents wanted for home learning and had an easy and routine means of communicating with parents
• The home link worker had been involved in workshops with parents, provided links to Community Learning and Development and organised family learning events, giving the opportunity to make initial contacts with parents.

example 5 - including all parents in a playing with maths project

A Glasgow primary school in an area with many ethnic communities developed a project to help parents support their children's learning in maths.

School staff received training on the maths programme which was going to be used and P1 parents were given a personal invitation to attend an informal meeting about the programme. The headteacher, class teacher and the tutor who had developed the resource spoke to parents at the meeting. Interpreters were provided for Arabic, Polish, Mandarin and Urdu speakers.

Parents agreed to come to the school for an hour each week (for 6 weeks), to play maths games in school with their child. Interpreters were available to help communication between parents and school staff. Having helped their child to choose a game, parents took it home and agreed to play with their child for 10-15 minutes each day.

The benefits for parents were that they:

• Felt more comfortable in the school environment
• Became aware of the importance that school staff place on the parental role in children's education
• Gained input from staff that enabled them to support their child's learning
• Identified opportunities for learning that were not previously apparent
• Learned that helping to educate their child was fun
• Saw that school staff valued their first language.

The benefits for staff were that they:

• Became aware that links could be built with parents - it simply required the right kind of activity
• Saw that involving parents requires effort and good planning
• Valued parents involvement and saw them in a new light.

The benefits for children were that they:

• Enjoyed quality time with their parents
• Saw that staff valued their first language
• Experienced games that they may not have had at home
• Gained confidence in basic mathematical concepts
• Understood their parents are valued when they saw them working in partnership with staff.

This project helped the school identify other ways in which parents can be involved and it has already embarked upon a programme of book and toy lending. Since an initial session led by the Bi-lingual Support Teacher, a Polish parent in the school has led the project.

Activity 2
developing parent prompts

Purpose To develop home learning worksheets - called Parent Prompts - linked to various areas of the curriculum for parents to use at home with their children To provide information to parents on what is being taught in school and suggest activities to support this at home

Who is involved? Teachers Pupils Parents Local Authority Quality/Service Improvement Officers

What is a Parent Prompt?

The two questions that parents ask most frequently are:

• What is my child learning at school?
• How can I help at home?

Each Parent Prompt outlines the topic areas being covered in school, the skills that are being developed, what the child is doing at school and how the parent can support this with activities at home. The tasks can be undertaken by children and parents together at home using everyday objects and activities.

Step 1: Teachers identify the learning topics that will be covered in a term/year. Activities are identified that parents can undertake at home with their child that links with and extends the learning taking place in the classroom. The activities should be fairly short but encourage dialogue and discussion between parents and children.

Step 2: Teachers discuss with parents (possibly through the Parent Council) what prompts are most appropriate and develop a range of parent prompt activities to be issued throughput the term/year as a shared activity for children and parents. It is important that parent prompts avoid jargon.

Step 3: Parents and children undertake activities at home and discuss what is being learned and how it connects to what is being taught in school.

Step 4: Parents and children give feedback on the parent prompt activity to the class teacher.

Sample Parent Prompt

Parent Prompt

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