They say it’s good to talk. No doubt the Parent Council at St Patrick’s Primary School in North Lanarkshire would agree. But it’s also good to listen. At St Patrick’s, good communication is key and its Parent Council is working hard on behalf of parents and carers to make sure everyone’s voice is heard.
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It’s all very well telling parents and carers their voices need to be heard - but how do you get that message across? The Parent Council at St Patrick’s was keen to dispel some of the myths about what a Parent Council actually is and to show families how easy it is to get involved. With these key communication aims, the Parent Council worked together to produce a reader-friendly leaflet called The Parent’s Voice.
Listening to the Parent's Voice
The leaflet highlights all the ways in which families can contact the Parent Council, how it can help families get the most out of their child’s school and become more active participants in their children’s learning. Patrick is chair of St Patrick’s Parent Council: 'I don’t know the statistics but I know children’s education improves when parents are involved. It isn’t just about the 9 am to 3 pm during the day; it’s also about what happens at home, homework, getting involved, assisting with other educational issues - and having fun!'
While the Parent Council at St Patrick’s already had the support of around 12 parent members, it was felt that encouraging a wider range of parents was vital if the Council was to accurately reflect the opinions of the families it served.'Twelve parents on a Council is very narrow… you need more people coming in and saying ‘that’s an issue for me’,' explains Patrick.
Putting this ‘all inclusive’ ethos into practice meant encouraging more parents to come forward and get involved, either by joining the Parent Council or simply by making better use of it as a resource and a sounding board for their own ideas. With this in mind, the leaflet has also been translated to allow members of the school’s large Polish community to more easily access the information.
Making parents realise how valuable their input it
Kathleen sits on The Parent Council and says it’s important to make parents realise just how valuable their input is and how much their voices count: 'We want to show parents that it’s there for them and to really listen to their points of view… we want to make sure we can expand, it shouldn’t just be about having the same people attend every week. We’d like to see more subcommittees, and for more parents to get involved to make decisions about the school.' Patrick agrees: 'You’re only going to get the wider issues when you have the bigger collective.'
While there’s still a long way to go in terms of getting more ‘voices’ involved, much has been achieved at St Patrick’s. Good communication is already helping challenge any perceptions that the Parent Council is just about speaking eloquently in front of a crowd or being educated to a certain level. 'It’s about ordinary people having a say and taking part in their children’s education. That’s what it’s all about,' Patrick smiles.
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