| How might we help parents of young children take a more active role in their learning? |
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Research taster
Parents’ active involvement in children’s learning at home, particularly the conversations they have with their children, is a key factor in children’s development. Some parents don’t get involved at home as much as they might because they don’t know how they can help. Parents often become more involved in their young children’s learning if you encourage them to:
Sharing educational aims with them, and giving regular reports on their children’s progress helps too. But the most important help you can give is encouragement to parents to find opportunities to talk to their children  .
Your evidence
You might like to use naturally occurring opportunities to strike up conversations with your pupils’ parents or carers to learn about the kinds of activities they do at home. You could for example, ask parents to tell you which their child’s favourite books or rhymes are and the kinds of activities their child likes doing most with their parents, such as baking cakes or drawing etc. You could record what they say in a notebook. Moving forward When you have gained a picture of the ways in which the parents engage in learning activities with their young children and perhaps reasons why they don’t get involved as much as they might, you could consider how you can best help parents to become more actively involved. You might, for example, decide to invite them to come early to collect their children and join in with a story or nursery rhyme session with their children. Or you might send home a weekly class newsletter which explains the activities the children are doing at school and ask parents to help their children choose relevant artefacts to bring into school to enhance the school activities. Find out more  You can find out more about effective early years practices on the TLRP Effective Pre-School and Primary Education (EPPE) project website at: http://www.tlrp.org/proj/phase111/AssocEPPE.htmThe GTC’s Research of the Month summary ‘Researching effective pedagogy in the early years’, available at: http://www.gtce.org.uk/research/romtopics/rom_curriculum/pedagogy/ The GTC’s Research of the Month summary ‘What makes the difference in the early years of children’s schooling?’ Available at: http://www.gtce.org.uk/research/romtopics/rom_curriculum/childrens_schooling/ The Research Informed Practice Site on the DfES Standards website at: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/research/themes/early_years/ |
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