What can parents do?
Research results
Recent research (Scottish Consumer Council/MORI, 2005), based on 1000 telephone interviews with parents, showed that reasons for not being involved in their child’s school included:
- lack of opportunities presented to them by the school
- difficulty in finding time because of work or family commitments.
This suggests that some parents might become more involved in helping in school if they had more information about what they could do if they were asked, or if there were more activities for which they could offer help.
Activities
What can parents do?
This is a list of some activities in which schools have involved parents:
- art, drama and other art-related activities
- the school library
- information technology
- breakfast clubs
- after-school clubs
- cycling and road safety
- school trips
- general help in the classroom
- school discos
- plays and concerts
- school fairs
- Saturday sports clubs.
Committees or advisory groups
Parents can take part in committees or advisory groups to discuss specific issues such as:
- healthy eating initiatives, for example from the Schools Nutrition Action Group (SNAG)
- enterprise and business links
- school safety policies, for example ‘safe routes to school’
- welcoming and supporting the parents of children who move to the school during the school year.
Parents can also take part in short-term parent advisory or focus groups. A representative group of parents can be consulted on new initiatives or school policy, for example homework, parents’ evenings, school uniform, anti-bullying measures.
This means they can contribute to the school by sharing their views but do not have to make a long-term commitment and the school can have feedback before introducing something to the whole school community.
Sharing skills
Parents, grandparents and other family members have been able to contribute by sharing their skills and life experience:
- gardening – in the school grounds or helping children grow bulbs and other plants in the classroom; some parents groups have developed vegetable gardens to help promote healthy eating
- painting – again in the school grounds, helping with school play areas or marking out the ground for games; or preparing scenery for school plays
- artistic talents – making a frieze on a school wall or helping with sculpture
- storytelling – either to a whole group or on a one-to-one basis; grandparents have become involved in helping with ‘paired-reading’ schemes
- costume-making – for drama in the classroom and also for school plays
- sports – helping with the school’s sports teams
- organisational skills – parents can help in the library. In one nursery, parents help prepare and keep ‘science boxes’ up to date; parents can take these to use at home and learn along with their children. In another they organise ‘Travelling Ted’ – a bear who ‘travels’ with the children and has its photograph taken, with the expeditions displayed in the classroom
- language – parents who speak minority ethnic languages can help by translating and interpreting for parents who need this support. In some schools parents organise ‘language exchange’ for both parents and pupils after school
- history – grandparents and older members of the community can talk about their experiences of some of the things young people learn as history, for example living through World War II or talking about the games they used to play. Children can be encouraged to identify their research questions and interview visitors
- other countries – parents who come from, or who have lived in, other countries can talk about their experiences. In one school, parents ran workshops on South American culture, Arabic writing, French cookery and Native American folktales
- work – parents can talk about their work and some may be able to arrange a visit to the workplace.
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