Parents' Collaboratives
Through this project Sage has been outreaching families, with collaborative groups based in three areas of Downham and Bellingham. Each group has met to identify its priority areas. All the parents who attended the meetings were excited about taking this work forward and have agreed to meet every half term to do so. All the groups stressed the importance of communication and the Sage newsletter, school newsletters and the Sage Website will be used to keep everyone informed of progress.
Following the discussions the following activities are being planned:
- A number of family learning activities will be developed, including reading with children, basic maths and basic computer/internet skills
- Family support will be made available through the Sage Family Support team
- A series of family workshops will take place, to help parents with behaviour management
- Sage will review with local people and partner organisations the way agencies communicate and work together and how we get information from and feed information to local people
- Sage's behaviour management in-school projects will continue and will be supplemented by new work, which will focus on support for parents around behaviour management.
The last meeting of the Parents' Collaborative took place in February 2011, with parents from Athelney, Forster Park, Haseltine, Launcelot, Marvels Lane and St John Baptist school attending. The collaborative linked in with the work of the Children's Collaboratives and like them, they discussed Aspirations. Click here to see what the Children had to say about their Aspirations.
At the end of the meeting, the parents answered the following questions:
What was the best thing about today's Collaborative meeting?
- Finding out about all the services available to our children and people who can come into school and run workshops
- There are a lot of programmes and activities for family and children, but depending on funding
- The helpful and useful information about things you can do with your children
- The opportunities Sage is providing
- Being informed of the services that are available to the children and parents
- Accessing information about resources and opportunities available
- Listening to the views of other parents
- Gaining knowledge, I didn't know what was happening in my area.
What did you learn?
- That being more positive when talking to my children can have a better effect
- That there is a lot more help and advice for us if we need it and want to get involved with other families
- That we could do more activities etc.
- That Millwall run young leadership courses
- That Millwall come into schools
- Milllwall's role in the community
- I learnt about all the opportunities for schools and young children
- The good things provided to help children and parents evolve better
- About positive re-inforcement with children
- We need to get better at sharing information
- Where I can go to when I need something.
The day could have been better if:
- There had been more parents representing our school (Haseltine)
- There were more groups/organisations speaking about what they do
- If it was longer
- More parents to represent our school and other organisations to be here to talk about the workshops they provide (like Millwall did)
- More parents get involved, as with our school it is always the same people that attend.
Parent Volunteer / Local Community Activity Grants
In preparation for the Family Matters work Sage had provided grants for local parent volunteers, in order to encourage parents' involvement in schools and local community activities. Through the Family Matters project Sage will be able to continue to offer more grants. These grants focus not on one-off events and visits, but on encouraging new volunteers to take part and to maintain their involvement over time.