Parents’ Integration through Partnership

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The Parents’ Integration through Partnership (PIP) project was an innovative multi-strand project which was carefully designed to support the language learning and integration of non-EU mothers of school children at partner primary schools and children’s centres in Haringey and Lambeth. It was funded through the GLA (Greater London Authority) using EIF (European Integration Fund) funding.

PIP had 6 main strands of activity
1 ESOL short courses
– PIP into the kitchen, the Haringey PIP cookbook
– winner of the Supporting Sustainability Award
2 Family Activity programme
3 ‘Parents supporting parents’ volunteer programme
4 CPD workshop programme for primary school and children centre staff and volunteers
5 Good practice toolkit
6 Project impact assessment

Films

1 ESOL short courses

The PIP project ran short 5-week topic-based ESOL courses which were contextualised to meet the overarching aims of the project and the interests and needs of mothers. Across the project, 193 learners were engaged on 51 short courses at 6 partner settings and of the learners engaged, 125 attended at least 80% of one short course and 108 attended 3 or more short courses.

The main themes for the ESOL short courses were

  • Introduction to primary school
  • Childhood in the UK
  • Education in the UK
  • Communicating confidently
  • Happy, healthy families
  • Supporting children’s learning

Important underpinning skills and knowledge in relation to Early Years and primary education in the UK were embedded within the ESOL courses to enable the PIP learners to become more confident and empowered to support their children’s learning and get more involved at their children’s primary schools and/or children’s centres. Course content included:

  • understanding the primary school curriculum, language and maths
  • making games and activities to support children’s learning at home
  • language for learning, play  and praise
  • speaking confidently  with school staff and volunteers
  • talking about children’s well-being, learning and progress
  • expressing concerns and seeking support
  • reading and understanding letters and newsletters from the school
  • filling in forms about children’s health, diets, trips etc

PIP cookbook
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PIP into the kitchen – the Haringey PIP project cookbook

Learners in the Haringey classes shared their recipes in PIP into the kitchen, a collection of over 20 recipes from 12 countries.

A pdf of the cookbook can be downloaded here, there are limited free hard copies available too (postage and packing applicable), for more information please contact [email protected]

The project won the Supporting Sustainability Award at Haringey Council’s second Outstanding for All Awards ceremony.

PIP project wins an Outstanding for All Award
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2 Family Activity programme

Between April 2014 and May 2015, 75 different families participated in 10 different Family Activity workshops, trips or events, with several families attending more than one. These included a Family Activity day at Welbourne Children’s Centre, trips to the seaside at Frinton-on-sea, Southend-on-sea and Brighton, the Museum of London, the Docklands museum and Clissold Park.

In addition, pre-school children joined their mothers with many other term-time PIP class trips and activities, including trips to local libraries, messy play workshops and story time and trips to local parks.

3 ‘Parents supporting parents’ volunteer programme

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23 parents were trained as parent volunteers from both Haringey and Lambeth – they were all speakers of other languages and most had the experience of settling in the UK themselves as adults.

They supported the PIP learners and programmes in a wide range of ways, including supporting PIP classes and class trips, encouraging PIP participants to attend school events and assemblies, supporting with ESB exam preparation and helping to facilitate conversation clubs.

The conversation clubs were an opportunity for learners and volunteers to meet up informally to chat in general, about what they had been covering in PIP classes, to have additional ESB exam practice and sometimes to host visits from external service providers like dental nurses, local domestic violence charities and volunteer bureaux.

4 CPD workshop programme for primary school and children centre staff and volunteers

PIP ran 8 workshops, the topics of which were negotiated with identified needs and priorities at the relevant settings. In total, 48 participants attended one or more workshops, which included topics like Language awareness, Communicating effectively, Skills for life awareness, and Working with bi-lingual families.

5 Good practice toolkit

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The Parents’ integration through Partnership toolkit was developed to support ESOL providers working with children’s centres and primary schools in the UK to run contextualised ESOL programmes for parents/ carers. This toolkit is aimed at ESOL teachers and children’s centre/primary school partners who:

– may not have run an ESOL programme before and would like to set one up
– may have run generic ESOL or Family Learning programmes and would like to develop a
programme which specifically targets parents and carers who:
are new to the UK
−need to develop their skills in English
−would like to develop their skills and confidence in supporting their child’s learning
−would like to get more involved in the children’s centre and/or primary school.

This toolkit shares ideas, resources and lessons learned from the PIP project. All the materials and activities in this toolkit were piloted on PIP courses taught by Learning Unlimited teachers and trainers.

A pdf of the toolkit can be downloaded herethere are limited free hard copies available too (postage and packing applicable), for more information please contact [email protected]

6 Project impact assessment

The impact of the PIP project has been reviewed and evaluated and the final impact assessment report can be downloaded in pdf format here.

Film premiere – Let’s Fight for our Children’s Centres

Learners on the Parents’ Integration through Partnership (PIP) Project have been working hard on a participatory video project and the film that they planned, filmed and directed themselves, with facilitation from InsightShare, received its premiere at Tottenham Town Hall on Thursday 21st May 2015.

In the face of large cuts soon to be made by Haringey Council, the film made by mothers to show how important the Children’s Centres are to their lives and the lives of their children. The film caused lots of local buzz with newpaper reports in English and also in Turkish making the pages.

Two of our learners also appeared on London Live’s morning news programme to talk about the film. Their interview can be seen here.

 

If you would like to find out more about the PIP project, please contact Karen Dudley, PIP project manager at Learning Unlimited: [email protected]
Tel: 020 3700 1161

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