About Us

Calling Community Champions in Falkirk

i Jul 17th No Comments by

Come along to Training for Community Champions

After our incredibly successful first training in Edinburgh we have decided to keep the momentum going and start gathering champions all across our pilot areas. This next training will be in Falkirk and we encourage all those in the Falkirk, Stirling and Clackmannanshire who are interested to come along!

We need passionate and dedicated parents from diverse backgrounds who are actively involved in their community to volunteer with Gathered Together.Champions through the support being offered will empower ethnic minority parents to be more confident to get involved in their child’s education and school community.

Champions will gather evidence of parent’s experiences, share stories of parental involvement and be our link to the grassroots communities through the work they are already a part of and be able to engage with other local community groups and schools. They will gain skills to further their personal and professional development but most importantly have the opportunity to make a genuine difference.

Through the support being offered the volunteer will empower ethnic minority parents to be more confident to get involved in their child’s education and school community. 

Gathered Together are running training sessions for individuals interested in becoming Community Champions. Lunch will be provided and we can help with travel costs. Our second session has been booked for:

28th August at 11.00am

CSREC, Community Education Centre, Park Street, Falkirk, FK1 1REX

If you are interested in coming along, or if you have questions about the role or training in other areas then please contact Richard, our Training and Development Officer at Gathered Together who will be more than happy to speak to you  on 0131 474 6154 or email him.

Successful First Community Champion Training

i Jul 16th No Comments by

We had a great day with Shazia, Vivienne, Kouser and Zainab a few weeks ago. Can’t wait to share more of the great work we are doing in Fife and Aberdeen City.  Gathered Together are really lucky to have such an exciting group of people working with us!

Community Champions will be a positive force in their communities promoting why Parental Involvement is so important for your children. They will bring Gathered Together closer to you so we can help ALL parents have a voice. 

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Parent Session at the Russian School in Glasgow

i Mar 25th No Comments by

Here are some photos from a lively session with parents at the Russian school. Thanks to everyone who came and Nina for organising it!

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What can Gathered Together do for you?

i Mar 4th No Comments by

Have a look at the our FAQ page for some basic information on how the project came to be, why we are needed and what we can offer.

Gathered Together is about PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT and how every parent/carer’s voice matters when it comes to getting involved in school life and their child’s education. We offer different workshops to help tackle barriers, build confidence and get more parents involved.

What do we offer?

Information Session on Parental Involvement

We hold workshops for Ethnic and Cultural Minority parents that aim to discuss barriers they face when getting involved with schools, positive ways to overcome those barriers and inform parents of their rights and responsibilities to get involved with their child’s education. We want to hear from all parents and carers from all ethnic and cultural backgrounds about their feelings on education, schools and why learning is important for their child.

We gather this information and feed it back to schools and parent councils so they can improve their practice and become more inclusive. Gathered Together have been successfully working with different ethnic and cultural minority organisations to deliver this training in our 7 pilot areas.

We often deliver these workshops alongside community groups and organisations that work with EM parents, for example we have held successful sessions with Fife Migrants Forum, Karibu, the International Women’s Group and EAL/ESOL classes to name a few. If you are part of a community organisation or if you would like more information about this session – please contact us.

Involving and Recruiting More People to your Parent Group Workshop

SPTC have a long history of delivering successful and informative workshops to Parent Councils across Scotland and are working with us to deliver this training.

Our workshop gives Parent Councils the chance to think about why parents aren’t getting involved in the school community and provides the opportunity to develop practical solutions to help to overcome any barriers.  We want to share the good practice we are finding and offer constructive advice when it comes to involving parents.

If you are in our 7 pilot areas and you think that your parent council or group would benefit from our training – please contact us.

What else do we offer?

As well as working with Parent Councils, we are meeting with schools to gather evidence of good practice to be shared across local authorities. We have some wonderful examples of work that schools are do to create an inclusive atmosphere and support parental participation.

This blog will used to share case studies of schools and parent councils who are successfully reaching out to parents who would otherwise be marginalised or left out of the loop.

For example St Stephen’s primary school in Glasgow  holds an International week every year, parents from diverse backgrounds (including Iraq, Eritrea and Pakistan) are invited to teach classes songs or dances from their home countries to be performed on the Friday. All the parents are invited to attend the performance and bring food to be shared.

 

More examples of good practice to follow!