Kingsley Community Primary School

It was our first time working in Kingsley Community School this year and we felt privileged to support two cohorts of parents who had English as an additional language (EAL). Kingsley parents are proud to have their children at the school, have the utmost respect for staff but were worried about supporting learning at home. One of the barriers parents faced was anxiety about helping their children with homework in case methods used conflicted with how their children were being taught in school.

With the fantastic support from Sarah, member of staff and interpreter, we were able to build warm and strong relationships with parents, actively promoting parental involvement and giving them practical guidance as to how they can support learning at home.

During our six week programmes, we maximised involvement with parents through the use of many visual aids, easy to follow steps and practical activities that parents could try out at home. With Sarah always present, we were able to provide parents with key information about curriculum and the methods teachers use in Kingsley to help children learn whilst at the same time emphasising the importance of bilingualism and multilingualism as an aid to children’s learning. Both cohorts were hugely successful and the impact is plain to see. We can’t wait to come back!

Impact

“Thank you for running such an amazing course. I would love to be involved in any you do in the future”

Sammaya, year 3 parent, Kingsley Community School.

“Your training was incredible! It is a pity tomorrow is our last session”

Latifa, year 3 parent, Kingsley Community School.

“The 6 weeks course for both reception and YR3/4 parents were absolutely fantastic. It was such an amazing experience for our parents to get involved with each aspect of their child’s learning. I loved that fact that parents were not just given a load of information but were able to do practical activities in the session with other parents. This really helped them completely understand parts of their child’s learning so that they can do at home with their child. Parents were so appreciative of the course and felt like they benefited so much. The tutors were very warm and welcoming and really made our parents feel at ease. Thankyou!”

Sarah Yafai, Kingsley Primary School

“I wanted to email you to thank you for the sessions you have recently completed with our school for Reception and Year 3 during the Spring term. 

The first thing to say is that parents and the staff who helped facilitate enjoyed it so much! For our Reception parents in particular the feedback has been very positive., and its brilliant that we have both Mums and Dads attending! Its clear that the parents were helped to be quite reflective about the skills they learned and are thinking about next steps for their children. You have some of the quotes from them already- but they are 100% positive and all expressing regret that there were not more sessions! It’s also given school some pointers for more follow up (maths and phonics!)

We will definitely be back in touch to see if we can repeat some of this with a new cohort of parents next year, but importantly, it’s also helped our school readiness officer decide on next steps and helped her to refine the follow up offer she gives in her permanent role”

Alison Whittaker, Headteacher, Kingsley Community School.