The link between Early School Leaving and lack of parental engagement is well established through numerous studies and research work (e.g. Tackling Early School leaving from Education and Training in Europe, Euroice, EACEA, 2014). Children from poor families are unlikely to get support from their parents/carers and are at a higher risk of becoming early leavers. In some cases, parents are intimidated by the school system because of their negative educational experiences or because they were educated outside of the local system. Other barriers are lack of expectations for their children, work and childcare commitments and lack of confidence. People from poor families particularly from migrant and refugee communities are at a significant disadvantage. Structured creative arts activities, developed with the involvement of the target group and delivered in a non-formal environment, can provide life changing opportunities; they will help beneficiaries to gain new skills and enable them to become aware of the skills they already have; boost self-confidence; and instill a positive attitude to learning. Some parents do not understand the value or the role the arts can play in improving young people’s achievement and employability skills, and undervalue their own creative skills. The Family Threads project aims to help break down the barriers and attitudes that result in young people dropping out of education and deny better career opportunities and social mobility; and also to enable parents and carers to realise their own potential as advisors, educators and a resource for their children. Each of the partners has identified specific challenges which they feel are imperative to address around the issue of family learning and which include the importance of family talk, enabling families to discuss common topics so that children can develop both listening and speaking skills. Although a well-developed concept, it is often poorly executed. It is essential to address this problem as families do require the support and opportunities that this project seeks to develop. The Learning Families project will target primary school children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, who are at risk of leaving school early because their parents are not able to help them with their school work and do not have high expectations for their children’s achievement. The partners will devise methodologies and techniques that will help to develop a strategic approach to tackle this problem as opposed to the common practice of intervening in a fragmented and uncoordinated manner. Partners will develop and adopt good practice models – a variety of activities that will help parents / carers to understand how the education system works, to improve communication with children, to advice and encourage them with their learning and, above all, enjoy quality time with their children. Key characteristics of the activities that will be tested with 400 parents and children in 5 countries are they are non formal, beneficiaries will be involved in the design of the activities and the activities have fun and enjoyment built in to them. There will be informal chats during which the activity leaders/ trainers will introduce topics that will raise parents’ awareness of the importance of their active engagement with their children’s learning; a better understanding of the world of work and how to help their children with their career choices. An incidental outcome will be parents developing key skills that are essential for finding employment. The target group will be from severely deprived neighbourhoods and probably themselves are early school leavers and long-term unemployed. The partners will maintain close liaison with the schools and attend some activities as participant observers. Learning Families: A Training and Resource Package: The partnership will analyse the outcomes of the pilot activities and the case studies in order to create a package of family learning toolkit that can be used to train school staff, parent groups, relevant NGOs (e.g. migrant and refugee groups and organisations working with single parents and children in care) in intervening early to help children and parents who need help; in integrating the strategic framework in their schools as a whole school policy and culture. The training kit will include a handbook on how to develop, implement and monitor an effective strategy and to use the good practice models to offer family engagement activities. The training kit will be an interactive, web based programme and schools and authorities will be encouraged to include the family engagement training in the schools’ training and development schedules. The results will be widely disseminated with the purpose of achieving maximum exposure in accordance with the Dissemination and exploitation plans. The partnership will integrate this are of work in their work plans.
The Learning Families project targeted primary school children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, who are at risk of leaving school early because their parents were not able to help them with their school work and do not have high expectations for their children’s achievement. The link between Early School Leaving and lack of parental engagement is well established through numerous studies and research work (e.g. Tackling Early School leaving from Education and Training in Europe, Euroice, EACEA, 2014). Children from poor families are unlikely to get support from their parents/carers and are at a higher risk of becoming early leavers. The barriers identified were: lack of knowledge of the education system; parents are intimidated by the school system because of their negative educational experiences or because they were educated outside of the local system; lack of communication between parents and children as well between parents and schools; lack of aspirations and low expectations for their children; work and childcare commitments; lack of confidence; intimidated by the school environment (or do not feel the school was welcoming. People from poor families particularly from migrant and refugee communities are at a significant disadvantage. The Partnership consisted of one school and 5 NGOs from five countries. For the applicant partner Selby Trust, this was their first involvement in a transnational school education project in collaboration wth Every Child an Achiever who has experience in working with schools on non formal learning activities. EuroED and FOUNDATION FOR DEVELOPMENT OF THE CULTURAL BPOCS have extensive experience in European transnational projects. ISTITUTO COMPRENSIVO "P. EGIDI" is a school with experience in transnational projects. The partnership developed and delivered a variety of structured creative arts activities, in a non-formal environment, to the target group (parents who did not get involved with their children's learning and their children at school). Workshops were held with the trainers/artists recruited in the UK and with the school as part of the development of IO2. The Family Learning Activities (FLAs) were then created and shared with the transnational partners. The partners were aware that the target parents were hard to reach and that they would be unlikely to take a list of advice and suggestions on the importance of their involvement with the children's learning and the type of activities they could do together outside the school times and act on those. The UK development FLA development workshops focused on the techniques that could enable parents want to continue doing things with their children and at the same time, help beneficiaries to gain new skills and enable them to become aware of the skills they already have; boost self-confidence; and instill a positive attitude to learning. Key characteristics of the activities tested with 257 parents and 355 children in 4 countries were that they are non formal, beneficiaries were consulted and encouraged to partake in the design of the activities and the activities have fun and enjoyment built in to them. Built into the structure were informal chats during the sessions where the activity leaders/ trainers will introduce topics that will raise parents’ awareness of the importance of their active engagement with their children’s learning; a better understanding of the world of work and how to help their children with their career choices. The Family Learning project aimed to help break down the barriers and attitudes that result in young people dropping out of education and deny better career opportunities and social mobility; and also to enable parents and carers to realise their own potential as advisors, educators and a resource for their children. The project achieved the above objectives through a structured approach using non formal learning methods with fun and enjoyment built into the FLAs created. The feedback from parents, children and schools have been overwhelmingly positive and that all the parents who completed the post FLA sessions questionnaire said that they intended to have quality time with their children and that they now felt comfortable talking to the teachers about their children's learning. The parents and children (95%) said they wanted their school to offer this types of activities on a regular basis. The Family Learning Activities were delivered to 257parents and 355 children in four countries. The partnership evaluated the results of the FLA pilots and the Working Group formed to put together the Training and Resources Kit adopted the definitive version of the train- the-trainer course in Iasi, Romania in July 2017.