70th Annual Report 2017-2018 Connect is a trading name of Scottish Parent Teacher Council Mansfield Traquair Centre, Edinburgh EH3 6BB t: 0131 474 6199 e: [email protected] ConnectScot @connect_scot The Scottish Parent Teacher Council is a Company Limited by Guarantee, Company No SC151086, Scottish Charity No SC019168 Connect’s Mission and Values Connect’s mission is to support the development and maintenance of high quality parental engagement in children’s learning and school lives. We will achieve this by: • sustaining Connect as a robust, parent-led, independent membership organisation with a focus on research and evidence-based development. • working with parents and carers to build their confidence, knowledge and skills so they feel able to engage in the way they wish, with their child’s school and wider education services. • working in partnership with organisations and individuals in the educational and wider Scottish community, to build awareness of and engagement with parental involvement and its benefits for children, families and communities. Our Values We are a membership organisation committed to treating all Members and stakeholders with respect, honesty and integrity. • The Directors and staff work tirelessly and passionately to create productive, creative partnerships which support positive educational outcomes for all young people. • We engage with our employees respectfully and flexibly, supporting their learning and progression and encouraging their enthusiastic involvement in the development of the organisation. • We support parents and carers to be involved in the way that is right for them: with their own child’s learning; the local school; local authority or at national policy level. • We are committed to equality and dignity for all parents, carers and children. • We utilise evidence and research to advance our work and to support policy and practice. Convenor’s Report A very warm welcome to the report of our 70th year. We continued to grow and diversify, while keeping firmly focused on our purpose as a charity – supporting effective family engagement in learning. Our AGM in 2018 was a very special event: we looked back at our first 70 years, launched our new Connect brand and website and looked forward to an exciting year. We hope you enjoy reading about it all! We were delighted to begin Our Projects working in partnership with the Partnership Schools Family Learning Team in North Scotland Ayrshire, introducing the PSS model into twelve primary 2017-2018 was the third year and secondary schools in the of the Partnership Schools authority in the coming year. Scotland (PSS) programme with funding and support from Skills We also started discussions with Development Scotland. Using Early Years Scotland to involve the model of school, family and early years settings in Glasgow children. Their work was also community partnership, we saw in Partnership Schools, with the recognised and celebrated how it was making a difference aim of rolling the programme during the visit of John Swinney to schools as more and different out to early years settings in MSP, Deputy First Minister and families become engaged other participating authorities. Cabinet Secretary for Education with children’s learning. There The Reference Group continued and Skills in January 2018. Mr was also evidence of parents to provide great support and Swinney heard how parents are becoming an important part of advice to the PSS team. The now part of decision-making improvement in schools. group is a mix of representatives and the school’s improvement In 2017-2018, we expanded from across education, schools, planning process. the programme to eight local universities, early years, authorities to include Fife, government and third sector Stirling and North Ayrshire and organisations and comes 30 schools in total. When teams together twice a year to review struggled, we supported them the work of the programme. to find a way forward to The Group also discussed the re-join the programme in the impact of education reforms future. on family engagement and heard about the challenges and We redrafted the Evaluation learning opportunities from the Toolkit for the teams to use in programme. their planning and evaluation. In the coming year, we will We were delighted to have Finally, we redesigned our run online and face-to-face our submission included in the Information Session Helping sessions to support teams to National Network of Partnership to Support your School which use the Toolkit effectively. Schools 2018 publication we offer to our Member Parent The evaluation team at Skills Promising Partnership Practices. Councils; this session presents Development Scotland visited We detailed the work of the PSS a condensed version of the PSS three Partnership Schools to team at Maisondieu Primary model to help parent groups find out how the model had in Angus and their three-year work in partnership with their worked and whether it was strategy to raise awareness of school to set goals connected making a difference to parental mental well-being and to equip to their School Improvement engagement and outcomes for parents/carers and staff to Plan. children. support themselves and Our Projects continued Professional Learning Courses Our professional learning has been very well received, with 95% of participants rating nine During 2017-2018, we consolidated the different aspects of the courses as 8 or above success of our two-part Engaging Families (with the highest rating being 10.) Courses in Children’s Education module which is were delivered to 99 educators. endorsed by Scottish College for Educational Leadership (SCEL), the body which provides Feedback from Professional Learning school staff with opportunities for high quality ‘I enjoyed the discussions and sharing of ideas’ leadership development. We also introduced ‘The materials were high quality’ our second professional learning module, ‘The range and scope of ideas for engaging Family Engagement for Improvement. parents was great’ ‘Excellent ideas and discussions’ Our professional learning programme ‘Very useful handouts’ supports professionals in understanding ‘I thoroughly enjoyed the selection of activities, better the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of effective the pace of the sessions and the content’ parental and family engagement in children’s ‘A really useful and worthwhile course’ learning and school lives. Membership & Member Services Our membership offer remains popular and 1 2 3 4 Grand 2016 greatly appreciated. Members continue to put Star Star Star Star Total to their queries to us on a host of topics via our 2017 telephone helpline, through Facebook and by email. Club/ 12 5 17 12 Launched in February 2018, our new website Group hosts our wide range of leaflets and resources Parent 3 13 1636 196 1848 1537 which are always popular with Members. Council Website registration is required to access PTA some of these and we encourage Members to 1 5 88 94 188 202 register. This is open to all parents at Member Corporate 25 3 Parent Forums. Leaflets and resources are Grand 4 18 1736 295 2090 1773 regularly refreshed and added to, in response Total to Members’ needs and changing policy landscapes. A selection of these is taken to our Information and Training Sessions and are highly sought after at these events! Feedback from Information & Training We continue to build on the range of popular Sessions Information and Training Sessions available to ‘It was good to share knowledge and meet our Members. During the year, we delivered new people who are also Chairs’ 87 sessions in total, with 50 face-to-face ‘Very friendly and accessible’ sessions in 17 local authority areas (up two) ‘Lots of information and good advice’ to 615 attendees. We also hosted 37 online ‘A lot of the information presented was very sessions on eight topics, including new helpful’ sessions on anti-bullying behaviour with ‘Very informative and lots to take away’ respectme, Scotland’s anti-bullying service, to ‘I enjoyed the open discussions with Parent 209 attendees. Councils, sharing ideas and supporting one another’ Communications Communicating with remains an important parents/carers and with platform for parents to share parent groups is a crucial our informative posts and is part of what we do, so that increasingly used to contact parents are informed and us directly. have access to the support From SPTC to Connect Connect Directors in 2017 (with and information they need to Executive Director Eileen Prior, right) engage with their children’s In the months prior to the Partnership Officer Eleanor learning and school lives. relaunch and rebrand of SPTC Coner, who volunteered with as Connect, on 8 February We communicate via our SPTC for many years before 2018, much communications • monthly eNewsletters joining the staff team, was work related to the new • termly Backchat instrumental in sifting through website newsletter the archives for a rich and www.connect.scot and to • Facebook pages inspiring exhibition. • Twitter rebranding all the leaflets and • annual Members’ leaflet Member materials with our Press and Publicity fresh new logo and motif. We • Information and Training The 70th Anniversary and the sessions also wrote a new Connect Manifesto. The rebrand and rebrand created opportunities • Parents’ Voice surveys to generate publicity for • snap surveys. relaunch went very well, with positive comments about the both Connect and parental In 2017-2018, we ran six online clean new look and engagement in education. surveys: families experiencing easy-to-navigate website. Our surveys on families poverty; anti-bullying experiencing poverty and the behaviour with respectme, 70th Anniversary, AGM & impact of this on children’s Scotland’s anti-bullying Annual Lecture school lives, on anti-bullying service; the Education behaviour, on school travel In February 2018, we Bill; amendments to and on the P1 so-called celebrated our 70th the PVG scheme; fair ‘national tests’ in particular anniversary at the Royal funding in schools; and generated significant press Society of Edinburgh’s lovely Primary 1 Scottish National interest and publicity.