Parenting Support - Aylsham Cluster

"I think this course should be available to all parents"

People often say that being a parent is not always easy and that it is a huge responsibility with no-one to tell you what you are supposed to do. The schools in the Aylsham cluster all recognise the vitally important role that parents play in the development of their children and have a real commitment to offer support whenever possible.

We have put together a range of opportunities for parents which are available throughout the cluster and delivered at different times and locations. These are not trying to tell anyone how to be a ‘good’ parent or make judgements about parenting skills. They aim to help parents to help their child to learn, to offer advice when dealing with common difficulties like temper tantrums or encouraging good behaviour. Many of the courses and sessions were created locally following requests and consultation with parents.

How our Children Learn

How our Children Learn is a 10 week accredited course first delivered in Aylsham four years ago and written and delivered by local tutor Sandy
Nunes Vaz. It has since been delivered to parents throughout Norfolk and increasingly throughout the UK. The course aims to help parents to understand HOW they learn and then how to find different ways to help their children learn at home.

Support for Parents

During the last year we have been delivering a programme of sessions aimed at supporting parents through transition from primary / junior to secondary school. During the sessions we have covered:

General transition issues focussing on parental concerns
Dealing with bullying issues and the help and support available to pupils and parents in school.
How to communicate effectively and the different ways to communicate with your child as they enter the teenage years.
Tips and hints on supporting homework and steps to take if this is challenging.
Issues for parents of children that have recently moved from Year 6 to Year 7.

We have also been devising a programme to help parents to deal with some of the most challenging aspects of parenting teenagers.

A further course that has received very positive responses has been ‘Dealing with difficult emotions – Anger’. This 4 week course is split into 2 sections. The first two weeks look at the role of parents, with particular emphasis placed upon how they deal with emotions, parental influences, triggers and coping strategies.

The following 2 weeks explore how to teach their child to deal more effectively with anger, recognising their triggers, introducing different coping strategies and then writing their own Anger management plan.

In the future we hope to expand this work and would really like to know what parents feel are the key issues and challenges from a parenting perspective.

If you have missed these sessions but would be interested in attending next time please contact Monica Harding at Aylsham High School.

Help with Maths

Gerry Dixon is a specialist mathematics teacher employed by Aylsham High School to help support the teaching of mathematics throughout the cluster. He has also been asked by many of the schools to run short sessions for parents to help them understand or refresh their memories about how maths is taught in school. The sessions are comfortable and delivered in a way that is easy to understand. Parents who have attended these sessions have told us how much they have enjoyed them and how much more confident they feel about trying to help with homework.