Supporting parents - Oriel High School

An NRF funded project which aimed to increase parental engagement in Oriel High School in Gorleston through a number of interventions:

Increasing the levels of parental contact and family support through coordinated and multilayered intervention in the Oriel High School.  The programme will identify and support parents of young people already identified as having difficulties.  Families will be targeted in year 7 before their child enters the High school and will be supported throughout the transition into high school (year 8). Additional support will be available to the young people through counselling and family advocacy programmes to help prevent build up of issues.  The process of engagement will identify joint opportunity to engage parents through activities such as summer schools, school productions and revision activities.

Project completed March 31 2008

 Lessons learned:

1. Counselling - Having the right person for the job is very important.  The counsellor first appointed by Benjamin Foundation was not matched to the needs of Oriel students and families. This hindered the service delivery whilst waiting for another worker to be appointed. Successful activity -Working with the school Support team to ensure referrals are appropriate and swift. Internal appointment of counsellor has made delivery and support easier still.
2. Summer Schools -Working with external providers for delivery of some aspects of the project. i.e. Animation skills and poetry increased participation. Cost of delivery was slightly higher than expected due to the higher level of staff willing to deliver the courses. Informal setting for family programmes important and this has had to be developed off site.
3. Evaluation/feedback was difficult to get from parents and a more relaxed system of comment - a 'feedback board' was adopted. Engaging with parents has proved much more difficult than first thought and parents participation in summer schools low.  A different approach will be used in future and more time allocated to the recruitment.
4. Recruitment will start much earlier and be approached in many different ways. We will use assemblies, parents evenings as well as direct mail shots to families to ensure parents get the information. ALL school staff will be encouraged to promote recruitment. 
5. Strengthening Families programme - first sessions were cut short due to lack of numbers and the location was changed fopr the second session to a more informal environment.

This project has demonstrated some of the difficulties in engaging parents and the school is learning lessons from this - mainstream delivery acknowledges the need to work with parents and this has helped to identify how this might be developed further.