PARENTAL ENGAGEMENT
I’m Stacey Brook, VHS’s new Parental Engagement Officer. I’ve only been here since 28th September, and there’s already been so much good stuff I’ve been able to do in such a short time! One great event everyone remembers is the Christmas concert; the kids put on such a great show and the parents really supported the event by providing delicious home-cooked food for the night, and packing out the house! That couldn’t have been achieved without the good work of the parents’ focus groups Villiers has launched. Our Somali Focus Group has really taken off, with regular coffee mornings where our significant minority of Somali parents get together to share experiences and generate new ideas for Villiers. We also have a forum for all Villiers parents, Parent Power, that is beginning to take shape in the same way. As well as great food for our events, other contributions from these parents have been fantastic. Some have run workshops for the kids, for example African Drumming and Indian Dance, and many have volunteered to provide
We’ve also been able to provide valuable services and support to our parents in return, especially with the support of Extended Schools. Villiers has hosted a 10-week beginners ICT course for parents, which was hugely successful and gave parents the confidence boost they needed to start using email and internet. Parents’ ICT will definitely be regularly featured at Villiers from now on. We have had specialist nurses in to raise awareness about diabetes and asthma, and our reception area now features information points about all kinds of services our parents need. We have launched a text messaging service that has greatly improved our ability to communicate with parents, leading to much better attendance than in the past at important events such as parents’ evenings and our options information event.
sTACey BrOOK
There’s loads to come in the future too, from parenting courses and family learning to parties and celebration events. I am currently working with the EAL department to develop a Villiers translation service that will allow us to communicate more effectively with our non-English speaking parents, and aiming to have all our standard documents and letters available in our significant minority languages. We hope this provision will extend to providing ESOL lessons. We have also recently re-launched our website which is under ongoing improvement works to become a great method of communication with our parents, including email and interactive features.
All this fantastic parental engagement has the ultimate aim of supporting each student’s education so that they achieve their full potential. New government targets require schools to recognise that ‘Every Parent Matters’ in response to significant studies which show that parental engagement has the most influential effect on a child’s achievement, much more so than the school or other environmental factors. Building a community that is closely involved with the school and providing extended services to support our parents is only a part of the journey towards successful parental engagement. We do want our parents to become more actively involved in supporting their child’s education and working with us to improve behaviour, attendance, and exam results. We have started to put new procedures in place to meet these aims and look forward to the support and interaction from parents that will inform and solidify these decisions and procedures; look out for consultation and information events in the future that encourage our parents to give their valuable advice and input. I am so excited about the upcoming opportunities for the building of interactive partnerships with our parents and our community that will ultimately improve the provision of education to the children. I look forward to meeting you all!
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