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Making curriculum links with homes and communities

6c Case Study (i): Supporting parental awareness of curriculum and methodology

English Martyrs’ Catholic Primary School, Sefton, has introduced a system of curriculum workshops to inform parents’ questions at open evenings. The workshops take place on four consecutive evenings near the beginning of the school year and in advance of the open evenings. Each phase is allocated an evening which the phase teachers, headteacher and assistant headteachers attend. The occasion is treated as a social event with wine and soft drinks.

The evening starts with a simulated whole class session, the theme being the teaching of language and mathematics, with the active involvement of “the children” (in this case, the parents!) through smart board work, which the school uses extensively. An overview of the curriculum for the appropriate two year period is given and features particular to the school are described and explained, together with the policy for homework. Parents then split into subject specific groups for workshop sessions which follow the structure of the Literacy and Numeracy Hours, and come together at the end to contribute their understanding of what they have learned.

While there is a considerable workload involved, especially for senior management, staff feel that the approach is well worth the extra effort. Benefits include:

  • a much improved and productive relationship with parents (“a completely different atmosphere at parents’ evenings”)
  • better parental understanding of the curriculum resulting in much more informed questioning by parents at the subsequent open evenings (parental questions “went up a level”, as one teacher put it)
  • better understanding of some common classroom processes:
    • exposition of a topic,
    • interactive learning by use of a smart board
    • and group learning followed by feedback in a plenary session
  • much improved understanding of specific aspects of the curriculum, innovative features or practice unfamiliar to the parents
  • more effective help with homework e.g. through library and internet searches

Contact: http://www.englishmartyrs.co.uk/
More examples at: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/parentalinvolvement

Student teachers will not be in a position to set up such a programme but they should be aware of the general message here, that parents’ curricular knowledge is likely to be limited to what they know from their own school days, and what their children and other parents tell them. Parents from other cultures may have specific difficulties. Knowledge of the curriculum and how it is taught in the context of use contributes to real partnership between schools and homes

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Contents

  1. Introduction and Rationale
    1. Introduction
    2. Rationale
  2. Core Principles about Language and Learning
  3. Key Issues
    1. Key Issues in Language and Learning
    2. Key Issues in Assessment and Evaluation
    3. Key Issues in Management
  4. Suiting Links to Purposes
  5. Links to Inform Parents and the Community
    1. Overview of Informing Links
    2. What Student Teachers might do to Inform Parents
  6. Links to Support Parents
    1. Overview of Supporting Links
    2. What Student Teachers might do to Support Parents
    3. Case Study (i): Supporting parental awareness of curriculum and methodology
    4. Developing parents’ own abilities through Family Learning courses
  7. Links to Make the Curriculum Reflective of Home and Community
    1. Overview of Reflective Links
    2. What Student Teachers might do to Make the Curriculum Reflective of Home and Community
    3. Case Study (ii): Reconstructing a community scenario
    4. Case Study (iii): Using texts from the community culture
  8. References
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