Parents-in-education initiative

An educational initiative for parents whose children attend Valletta's St Elmo Primary School recently brought together the skills, enthusiasm and energy of families, school and community in a bid to promote family learning and self-esteem.

The project was co-ordinated by the Foundation for Educational Services (FES) through one of its educational support programmes, the Id f'Id Programme.

In May 2004, a group of parent members of the school council got together with other parents who had already participated in other FES family literacy programmes at the same school and contacted the FES.

Through the support of the head of school, Ray Cassar, a parent-to-parent course, entitled 'Helping our children build positive self-esteem to do better at school', was organised. The course, consisting of four sessions, was facilitated by Sharon Sammut, an Id f'Id programme animator.

Twenty seven parents took part. They expressed their ideas, shared concerns and gave continuous feedback as the project evolved.

The sessions focused on the educational strengths, expertise, needs and concerns expressed by all the Valletta parents involved. Parents were encouraged to develop an attitude of self-help and self-empowerment. Their potential as stakeholders and co-educators within the education system was highlighted as areas of co-operation between parents and teachers were explored.

A group of six parent volunteers together with their teacher-animator were actively involved in choosing the topic, planning, implementing and evaluating every session. The parent volunteers acted as 'parent leaders' and together with the teacher-animator organised and co-led the course workshops, acquiring knowledge and skills in planning, implementing and evaluating an educational project.

During the closing session, the participants took part in hands-on sessions with their children, giving them the opportunity to practice the skills they had learned during the previous sessions.

Participants and parent leaders were awarded a certificate of participation during a short closing ceremony.

Victor Galea, FES Id f'Id programme co-ordinator, explained how such parents-in-education initiatives can be further developed and followed up by the school, acting on the programme evaluations and results FES regularly presents to participating schools.

Mr Cassar appealed for parents' support in developing the school administration's long-term vision of improving school performance in the teaching and learning of Maltese, English and mathematics.

Carmel Borg, the dean of the Faculty of Education, a pioneer in the promotion of parent involvement in education in Malta, emphasised the fact that parent involvement is not just something we might like to hand on to our students but is theirs by right. It is a prerequisite for a quality education.

At the end of the course, the parents remarked that this initiative had helped to forge closer links between the community and the local school. They also expressed their strong wish to have similar parent-to-parent courses organised by the FES during the next scholastic year.