School Support

With recent changes to services, there is increasing pressure on schools to look after the ‘whole family’, yet staffing resources are already stretched to capacity.

Through working in partnership with schools across Hertfordshire, we have developed training and support resources to help staff to support parents.

Big Hopes Big Future (BHBF)

The program was developed by Home-Start UK and funded by the Department of Education

For many children barriers exist that mean they start school already behind their peers. That gap widens throughout primary and secondary school.

This programme prepares families for school, working with parents and children helping them build the skills they need to be ready for the first day of school. The BHBF family mentor delivers the program in the family home for up to 18 weeks, which based on research, ensures the progress continues after support has ended.

“ Good parenting at home significantly impacts on children’s school performance”

DfES 2003

Group parent workshops

These are focused on creating a more collaborative parent/school partner approach, which can improve outcomes for children.

They are usually run off site in a suitable local venue. They can be tailor made to address the need identified and the workshops usually last for a couple of hours.

Parenting Courses

We offer a number of nationally recognised, evidence based courses, which run over a number of weeks. Parents are required to commit to the full course.

They include:

• Parenting puzzle
• Families feeling safe
• Baby/teen Brain

They can be run in conjunction with another school.

School transition and readiness

We know that families can find transition phases particularly challenging and have designed sessions to target this.

Big Hope Big Future workshops

Based on the BHBF program, these are workshop style groups to help parents prepare their children for school

Preparing your child for secondary school

This two hour workshop helps parents to prepare their children over the summer holidays, to get learning off to a good start. We also help parents think about how they will build communication links with the school

Preparing an anxious child for school transition (primary or secondary)

A six-week intervention that involves the school and the family, and helps both parties to prepare and plan for the changes ahead

Supporting your volunteers

Increasingly school are using parents volunteers with varying levels of training and support.

Getting this right is so important; it builds confidence, embeds the culture of your school and makes volunteers’ work far more effective.

We provide:

• School volunteer preparation session/program
• Safeguarding initial training and updates
• How to keep yourself safe as a volunteer
• How to support reading and learning as a volunteer
• Bespoke workshops designed by your school