FAMILIES CONNECT IS SAVE THE CHILDREN’S NEW AND EXCITING INITIATIVE, DESIGNED TO HELP PARENTS SUPPORT THEIR CHILD’S LEARNING AT HOME.
This eight-week programme provides a series of creative activities, techniques and games that parents and children can participate in together. It focuses on three key area; language development, numeracy & maths and social & emotional development.
Activities include ‘Snack & Starter’, encouraging parents and children to spend quality time together, as well as Talk Topic, Reflection Time and ‘The Science Bit’ – helping parents to understand how a particular topic will support a child’s learning. ‘Doing it Together’ gives parents simple take away activities to try with their children at home.
We know that the home learning environment can have a huge impact on a child’s learning. As well as being the place that provides for the basic needs of a child, an effective home learning environment will encourage strong parent and child relationships that help build self-esteem and security and help every child to fulfil their potential.
Research shows that parental involvement in their children’s learning positively affects the child’s academic performance leading to greater problem solving skills, greater school enjoyment, better school attendance and fewer behavioural problems at school. School quality only accounts for 14% of educational attainment, so the better the home learning environment, the greater the child’s attainment can be.
Building a home learning environment – and crucially, increasing parents’ skills and confidence to support their child’s learning, can have a huge impact on a child’s future.
The informal workshops focus on getting parents to reflect on what they already do to support their children’s learning, and inviting them to explore new activities, games and approaches that might enhance this.
We are really excited about Families Connect and can’t wait to see it rolled out in Murrayfield over the next year. We look forward to working with as many of you as possible. Come along and join us for our informal coffee morning on Friday 22nd September at 10.00am to hear more about this programme and to register your child/ family in the programme.
Please see the links below for further details about this great initiative:
Families Connect Film: https://player.vimeo.com/video/224672230
Mrs Abigail Waugh & Mrs Angela Mackie
