A community initiative for the parents of children about to enter primary education
Taking your son or daughter to the school gate or the classroom door for the first time is a monumental occasion. It is prefaced by a build up over weeks and months: almost without knowing it, you find yourself checking the list for the right clothing and footwear; providing every piece of background information that the teacher could possibly need to make your child feel recognised and comfortable; and the purposeful accumulation of skills and experiences that would be useful for your child to have to make the best start to their educational career. On that first day, your child skips into school (hopefully) and you as a parent can relax, can’t you? You have done everything you can to choose a school which is a good fit, you have decided to trust the adults and you have turned up at every familiarisation going to help your child feel confident about the day.
You can relax, can’t you?
Well, you are now powerless. Furthermore, since you can’t experience the day first hand, your memory of your own start to school will be colouring your imagination. It won’t be any clearer when your son or daughter comes home from school, too tired to repeat everything that has happened let alone present it in ways to reassure you. And this is going to go on for how long? 15 years perhaps. Has anyone actually thought about how you feel?
At St Swithun’s Prep yes, we have. And not just because how parents feel and what they say about the school experience sets the stage for their child to either embrace opportunity and be confident to make mistakes free from paranoia in every form, or to worry and compare themselves unhelpfully to other people. But also because parents are part of our happy community and essential to the school-family partnership that makes for the most successful educational outcomes for children.
We decided to give parents some insights into what happens in a school day, what their children will be learning and how, and consequently the best way to support them and breed confidence for everyone concerned. So we ran Making a Brilliant Start to School, a day conference that blended a collection of practical, fun, interactive activities with informative sit-down listening sessions to replicate the pattern of a day in school for children. We invited parents from the local community, irrespective of where their child will attend school, to gain comprehensive knowledge and an understanding of what their son or daughter will experience in a modern primary school.
Our pilot event started with a collaborative mathematical game to demonstrate how children are helped to brush up on multiplications tables. Later on, there was a competition between delegates to build a ramp from Lego and code a robot to navigate it and an interactive gym-based session with our director of sport to introduce physical exercise in the primary years. Outside, parents used the Japanese technique of hapa zome to print onto fabric using the natural pigment in leaves that they collected in our outdoor classroom. They then headed back into the art studio and created some mindfulness-inspired mandalas on acetate. The final interactive activity of the day was baking soda bread and turning cream into butter, applying skills of English comprehension, mathematics and science.
In amongst the activities, delegates learned about decoding written text using phonics, the principles of maths mastery and the key elements of the High Performance Learning approach to education, which starts with the premise that everyone can achieve highly across all aspects of life by practising the right attitudes, attributes and habits of successful people. To round off the day, there was a lively Q&A about contemporary educational matters, the importance of a diverse curriculum and the balance between discovery and assessment for primary aged children.
As well as an understanding of such concepts as split diagraphs, part-whole models, fair tests and advanced cognitive performance characteristics, participants left with some useful insights into choosing a school for their child, helping to guide them through the primary years and nurturing their natural love of learning. Just as importantly, they learned what their child will experience on those vital first days at school and how they too can walk away confidently from the school gate, knowing that their children are in safe hands.
