Up and Away - National Council for Curriculum and Assessment

3. Involving the parents
Don’t forget to make invitations and notices of informal events as clear as possible to those parents who
have little English. If parents expect that they will not be able to understand, then they are unlikely to
make the effort to attend.
Possible means of making invitations to informal occasions understandable are:
Section 1 General information for schools
‘Visual’ invitations.
Getting another parent who speaks the language to explain.
Getting an older child to explain. (This is not appropriate for formal communication
between school and parents.)
When parents have ‘broken the ice’ they are more willing to involve themselves in school events.
Invite newcomer parents to:
School concerts and plays.
Coffee mornings.
Give talks to different classes in the school.
Help supervise class activities and outings.
The school open day.
Meetings of the Parents’ Association.
The Christmas party and other festival
days/celebrations.
Graduation day for 6th class.
Attend existing parent/toddler groups.
Pre-Confirmation classes.
Work with the home-school liaison teacher
to:
Set up language classes for newcomer
parents.
Run short courses for all parents on various
themes through the school year.
Organise a project for newcomer pupils and
parents which focuses on their own countries.
The finished work can be presented in school
at the end of the year.
Organise guest speakers to talk to all parents
– e.g. speech therapists, child development
officers.
Organise parent-children swimming lessons.
Organise:
Weekly meetings between all the parents,
language support teacher and home school
liaison teacher in the language support room.
Meetings of individual parents, language
support teacher, principal and classroom
teacher.
An Ethos Committee made up of parents
from different cultures/nationalities.
Night courses for all parents, such as IT,
cookery, yoga, art and craft, languages, etc.
Cookery classes. Ask them to give
demonstrations of how to make typical food
from their countries.
A cake sale.
A ‘flavours of the world’ event for all parents
who cook traditional dishes for an evening
for everyone.
‘One world day’.
‘World book day’.
A parents’ room which can be used as a
meeting place.
A breakfast club.
Encourage:
Interaction between parents waiting to
collect their children.
Newcomer parents to organise social events
in their dispersal centres.
13