A partnership between home and school
Holton St Peter is a primary school in Suffolk, who are in their third year of using Learning with Parents. We sat down for a chat with Acting Headteacher, Charlotte Hammond, who particularly wanted to share the success they’ve had using our Digital Reading Log.
The school strongly believes that education is a partnership between home and school, therefore they encourage their parents to become involved in their children’s learning, as they are their first educators. Charlotte thinks that Learning with Parents fits nicely with this ethos, as it is a great form of communication between parents and teachers.
She explained that at Holton St Peter the future of the child is the most important thing and this all starts with reading, because reading is the key to learning. She went on to say that all types of reading are encouraged through the Digital Reading Log. They do not mind if children are recording the school books that are sent home or the back of a cereal box – all reading is valued and celebrated!
“One of the things that we love about the reading log is the fact that you can literally just snap a picture of a child reading, upload it and it’s there.”
Charlotte said one of the best things about it is the reduced workload for teachers, as they don’t have to check all the paper logs. Parents can write comments and share the reading taking place and teachers can respond to that really easily. They can reply with comments or leave stickers. The audio clip feature has also been useful because teachers can actually hear the progress being made.
According to Charlotte, the Digital Reading Log has been more successful than the paper logs and more families engage with it. It is easier for teachers to manage and monitor reading as they can see what is happening at the click of a button.
“I love the symbols that show if the child has read at school or home, it makes it really clear.”
She thinks it’s especially helpful to support those families who face barriers to reading at home. By easily being able to see who hasn’t read at home teachers can then provide extra support, for instance by reading with them in class and counting it towards their target. Those children can then also be celebrated and feel successful. They also use it during their parent meetings as it’s easy to have on an ipad and show the parents the engagement level and support them.
“We’ve seen more children be successful with their reading as a result.”
Charlotte went on to reiterate how hard they work at fostering their parent–teacher relationships:
“We have an open door policy and every class teacher has their own email address, so parents can contact us directly. We also hold regular learning cafes where parents can come in and see what their child is learning in class. We changed the time of these to see if it would help more families attend – and it did. We now run them at the end of the school day and after school and when now over 90% of our families attend. We invite families in for events throughout the year and they are invited every Friday to our celebration assembly. We always try to thank the parents for their time and support and remove any barriers between teachers and parents – we’re just people too!”
Finally, we asked Charlotte if she had any advice for schools using Learning with Parents for the first time?
“Think carefully about how you celebrate reading and engage with parents before you launch the programme, and ensure you have a proper plan in place. Don’t assume that just because you’re buying into it, everyone else will. Take the time to do it properly: create a structured plan, set a launch date, and arrange meetings with parents to introduce the initiative. Make sure you show it to the teachers and pupils as well.
With this approach, you’ll achieve a really good launch and it will be a more successful programme.”
* None of the pupils pictured attend the featured school
