School link workers:
we have a team of two full time school link workers who offer family learning opportunities in schools in the Braunstone area.
The overall aim of Families in Focus is to increase the percentage of adults engaging in learning opportunities, specifically in English, numeracy and IT in the Braunstone area of Leicester.
The added value of the project will:
- Raise aspirations and attainment in children and young people.
- Raise the profile of education within a community where historically education hasn't been seen as a priority.
The first challenge was to get parents in to schools. What could we offer that was more appealing than being at home? We did this by offering a range of fun, non-threatening, creative activities designed for families to work and learn together, for example:
- Coffee mornings and drop-in session
- Card making for all occasions
- Decorating plant pots and planting seeds
- Jewellery making
- T - shirt design
- Festive craft
- Making and playing traditional games
- Face painting
- Celebration events
- Mask making
- Art through nature
- Leaf collecting
- Pom pom shapes
- Kite making and flying
- Trinket box decoration
- Making and decorating badges, key rings and mirrors
- Make and design photo frames
- Paper mosaic making
- Making and designing placemats, coasters and bookmarks
- Door hangers and pencil toppers
- Candle holder design
- Family Fun and Crafts
- Garden candle holders
- Sparkling sun catchers
- Art in the park
Uncover Autumn and Step into Spring
These really exciting seasonal activities were held at Riverside Business and Enterprise College. Families from local primary schools were invited, they had a great time planting bulbs, pond dipping making bird feeders and all finished it all off with a much appreciated Bar-B-Q! All of these activities were offered in schools during the first year of the project!
The focus for the second year is to continue with the fantastic activities engage with secondary schools and attract more dads. We are getting more and more grandparents and older siblings along, enjoying activities and supporting younger children.
The second year has been more structured with activities being linked to form short courses. Each course is linked to the National Curriculum and has a skills outcome for parents. Due to outstanding success in the number of parents attending, places on the courses have been limited. Open sessions are also on offer for anyone to attend.
A series of Cook 'n' Eat sessions have been on offer in most of the schools and have been well attended throughout
Some parents have enjoyed learning so much that they have requested courses in literacy, numeracy and IT! There are also a number of parents attending an ESOL course at Riverside Business and Enterprise, this is a new area of work for us and we are very excited by its success.
To celebrate Family Learning Week, families were invited to a family learning event held at Queensmead Primary School. There were lots of activities to enjoy including, story writing, smoothie making, food tasting, fruit kebabs and most exciting of all, everyone had a go at circus tricks - great fun was had by all.
During November we held a celebration event at the Brite Centre on Braunstone. The aim of the day was to celebrate the creative successes of Braunstone families. There were some activities offered, but the main theme was to showcase how much families had achieved through creative activities.
Upcoming school link events:
December 8th, Festive Fun to be held at Braunstone Sure Start. Lots of activities will be offered including, story-telling, making decorations and the opportunity to contribute to a piece of artwork.