1. Partnership Schools Scotland
School, Family and Community Partnerships
School, family and community partnerships to improve outcomes for children and young people
Eleanor Coner
Connect
Project supported by
Skills Development Scotland
Connect is a trading name of Scottish Parent Teacher Council
Company No SC Scottish Charity SC019168

2. What is Connect?
Charity, membership organisation for parent’s groups of more than 70 years’ standing
Parent Councils in all SEIC local authorities are Connect members
Member benefits include:
Information & Training Sessions
Public liability insurance
Access to leaflets and other information on website
and telephone helpline
Offers professional learning courses

3. What is Partnership Schools about?
ALL ABOUT IMPROVING CHILDRENS’ LEARNING
A national programme to form school, family and community partnerships to help school improvement
Five year pilot to test this approach; in Year 4
Currently working in Angus, Edinburgh, Falkirk, Fife, Glasgow, North Ayrshire, Stirling and West Lothian
Not just about parents
Different ways for different people to get involved
Everyone is equally important
The ways schools care about children is reflected in the way schools care about the children’s families
What if educators view children as pupils/students? Family is separate from the school and is expected to do its job and leave education to the school
What if educators view children as children/young people? They then see the family and community as partners with the school in a child’s education and development
The reasons for partnership:
Improves school programmes
Improves school climate
Provides family services and support
Increases family skills and leadership
Connects families with others in school and community
Helps teachers with their work

4. Aims
To form school, family and community teams within schools to work on goals from the School Improvement Plan
Parent and family engagement becomes part of the improvement planning process and decision-making
To raise awareness across the school of the importance of parental engagement for children’s learning
To increase the number of parents and families who are actively engaged in children’s learning
To increase the confidence of parents to guide and support their child through school
To create a culture in schools where parental involvement is no longer an add-on but it is how we do it at our school

5. Key tasks and messages This shouldn’t be school-led
It’s about setting realistic, achievable and measurable goals
Need to include people from across the school and wider community – think about others you could involve
How will you measure success?
How will you let others know about your work?
Should share leadership
Better to achieve something successfully and then move onto something more ambitious
Think about local groups/services that support the school; local employers/businesses; pupils; other family members
Talk about the guide to evaluation
Using PSS resources; making sure the work is labelled PSS?

6. What is family engagement?
Ask people to comment and write their comments on flipchart paper displayed on the wall.
Highlight it is not always about the visible involvement, ie those people who come into school for events and to help in the classroom.
It’s about families having the confidence, tools and guidance to help support their child’s learning at home.

7. Family-like school and a school-like family
What that means to us
Family-like school and a school-like family
This is what we would like to create

8. Overlapping spheres of influence
Strong Families
Excellent Schools
Healthy
Communities
Pupil is the main actor in their education, development, and success in school
Frequent interactions between schools, families and communities means more pupils receive common messages from various people about:
the importance of school
of working hard
of thinking creatively
of helping one another
and of staying in school
Separate spheres is where a school says, “if the family would only do its job, we could do our job” and where families say, “I raised this child; now it is your job to educate them”.
Overlapping spheres is where a school says, “I cannot do my job without the help of my pupils’ families and the support of this community” and parents say, “ I really need to know what is happening in school in order to help my child”.
REMEMBER “family-like schools” and “school-like families”

9. Why aren’t all families visible at your school?
Ask people to call out comments

10. Why aren’t all families visible?
Family issues eg work, childcare, other family members, money problems
Literacy/language problems
Their own experience of school
Don’t understand how they can be involved
Many need help to be involved in different and new ways in their childrens’ learning
As child gets older, they don’t want their parents in school
Child takes more responsibility/are more independent

11. The only solution is:
Carefully planned and deliberate activities to keep families involved
Ways of giving parents confidence and practical ideas of how they can help
Recognising everyone has something to bring

12. Six types of involvement Collaborating with the Community
How families can be involved ?
Six types of involvement
Decision-making (5)
Parenting (1)
Volunteering (3)
Learning at home (4)
Communicating (2)
Collaborating with the Community
(6)
Parenting: help all families establish home environments to support children as learners; help schools understand families
2. Communicating: design effective forms of school-to-home and home-to-school communications about school programmes and their children’s progress
3. Volunteering: Recruit and organise parent help and support
4. Learning at Home: provide information and ideas to families about how to help pupils at home with homework and other curriculum-related activities, decisions, and planning
5. Decision-making: Include parents in school decisions, developing parent leaders and representatives
6. Collaborating with the community: identify and integrate resources and services from the community to strengthen school programmes, family practices, and student learning and development
THERE IS NO ONE WAY OF INVOLVING PARENTS IN SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION!

13. What is involved?
Form an Action Team for Partnerships with family members, pupils, staff, members of the local community, family link workers, etc
Take part in Connect training sessions
Write an Annual Plan setting one or two goals for learning, health & wellbeing and partnerships
Think about how you will evaluate activities

14. Co-produce activities for each goal
Set goals
Goals for learning, health & wellbeing, partnership
Co-produce activities for each goal
Evaluate – are you making a difference?
Identify learning
Celebrate progress and share
Set priorities for next year

15. Maisondieu Minds Together
Year 3 goal targeted wellbeing
Action Team developed a three-year Wellbeing Plan
Aimed to raise awareness of mental wellbeing and equip pupils, families and staff to support themselves and others

16. Maisondieu – Ask Once; Get Help
Wellbeing evening and café
Library of resources
Training opportunities for parents to train more families
Training suite for staff with the help of external partners
Shared language of wellbeing, feelings and emotions across school community

18. St Francis Primary, Glasgow
Year 3 goals – team continues to improve relationships with families and the wider community
Focus on improving opportunities for parents, eg training, qualifications
Workshops on STEM, numeracy, phonics have increased parent’s confidence in supporting learning
EAL parent and child workshops
Parents helped develop maths homework packs

19. Carrongrange High School, Grangemouth
Secondary school for pupils with moderate, severe and complex additional support needs
Improving understanding of family challenges
Team has made significant improvements to their website and has developed their social media presence
Developing a family support area and a mindfulness programme
Making a film about parents night and the classroom environment to encourage more parents to engage
Explore skills parents may offer to the school

20. Secondary schools – a hard nut to crack?
Currently working with six secondary schools in Glasgow, North Ayrshire and Stirling
Have engaged with more secondary schools but many have disengaged from the programme
Engaging parents in partnership work is a challenge – do they change their perception of how they should be involved?
Challenge of changing relationships

21. Secondary schools – what works?
Engage young people – what support would they welcome?
Focus on family support, eg community hub being developed at Stirling High
Parent to parent communications, eg creating films about different subjects and skills in North Ayrshire
Parent Council should have a role in school improvement - allocate them a specific task

22. How could your school get involved?
Edinburgh and Fife – get in touch!
East Lothian, Midlothian and Borders think about hosting the Helping to Support your School session – get in touch!

23. Eleanor Coner Connect Partnership Development Officer Tel: