An article about Gathered Together has just been published in the AHDS magazine- for those of you who don’t subscribe you can see the full article by clicking here: AHDS Parental Participation
This year we have been trying to share some of the good practice we’ve heard about from our work with schools and Parent Councils. It is really important that people who are doing a brilliant job are recognised and valued. Education Scotland have been running the “Scottish education awards” since 2005 and take nominations from members of the public- the awards are for “educational supporter of the year”, “head teacher of the year” “teacher of the year”, “parents as partners in learning” and many more.
For more details and to find out how to make a nomination go to http://tinyurl.com/y9gzf2g We would love to hear your stories about who you nominated and why- please get in touch if you are making a nomination
A couple of months ago we were invited to attend Oakgrove Primary’s Halloween community assembly. It was a brilliant morning- all the children and teachers were in fancy dress and after the primary six class “Thriller” dance we had the song in our heads for the rest of the day. Community assemblies are a chance for families to come into the school, find out what the children are doing in school and to recognise the achievements of the children.
After the assembly we were able to speak to the head teacher, Jane Cerexhe about why it started. “The community assembly was really an attempt to engage with families in the wider community. We had a newsletter that was going out monthly but I was quite concerned that not all families were able to access it. We thought if we did a community assembly monthly we could have things in the community assembly that were also features of the newsletter. . . We just feel getting parents in over the door is a good starting point, and welcomed with a smile and seeing their children happy and engaged and seeing the teachers engaged with the children is important. The wonderful thing about today is you can see all the staff be part of it as well it’s not just my idea, it’s what we do here.
We give out a lot of certificates linked to the school values, and this has a very high profile at these community assemblies. Sometimes it is difficult for children who are arriving say in Scotland, new to the Scottish education system to be able to access the curriculum because English is in the early stages of acquisition but we are looking at the whole child. We celebrate all the traditional achievements in literacy and numeracy but we are also looking at wellbeing things how children are getting on with one another. There was a really nice award handed out today for a child who was looking after another child who was new to the school and new to English. Actually a year ago he was that child, struggling with a new culture and new language, so that’s a really lovely opportunity to recognise that.”
Don McPherson- Head Teacher Denny Primary School
We just spent an afternoon at St Albert’s Primary school in Glasgow with their bilingual story-telling group. These are parents who are being trained to read stories in English and their mother tongue (Urdu) to children. St Albert’s has a huge ethnic minority population with most children coming from Pakistani and Asian families where both English and Urdu are spoken in the home.
When we met the group several of the parents spoke about their children not valuing Urdu and believing that English was “better”. The school has made a real effort to celebrate the different languages in the school- there are signs in Urdu all over the school and the bilingual story telling lets children hear their native language be used in school. We were able to join a group of children hearing “the very hungry caterpillar” in English and Urdu, the children were enthralled and eager to show that they knew words in Urdu. One of the ladies said that her daughter has started to boast to everyone that she speaks Urdu.
As well as encouraging children to use their mother tongue the bilingual story telling sends an important message to the parents. It shows that the school values and respects their cultures and helping them to feel a real part of the school community. To hear from the parents themselves and to see some of the story telling go to http://gatheredtogether.bemis.org.uk/?p=854