2008 winners

This year's LEAPP (Learning, Education and Parental Partnership) Award winners, will receive their £1,000 award from Jim Knight MP, Minister for Schools & Learners. Read all about their inspirational projects:

Anchorsholme Primary School, Thornton Cleveleys, Blackpool: PATHS - Play at Home and School

The importance of play for early learning and to help children settle into school is now well recognised.  Anchorsholme Primary School will tackle a lack of effective play skills and the concerns of parents about the need for more play opportunities by supporting play skills at home and school.Initially targeted at children and families in Reception, a series of play resources and activity cards will be developed.  New activities will be sent home at regular intervals with parents offered the opportunity to come into school and work alongside their children to develop their play skills.The involvement of dads is a key target for Anchorsholme.  Like many primary schools, whilst it has an active PTA, few dads get involved in classroom activities.  Pupils, who are trained to support children’s play, will help to promote and monitor the PATHS initiative. It is hoped that this will reduce poor behaviour at playtimes.

Ash Croft Primary School, Sinfin Moor, Derby: Maths Lending Library

Building on a highly successful maths workshop for parents, Ash Croft Primary School will help parents to support maths learning in the home by extending its existing Maths Lending Library. The idea of the library was originally suggested by parents and has already been successfully made available to Early Years children.  A group of highly motivated parents will again work in partnership with the maths coordinator to develop a new range of fun and interactive resources to support the Key Stage 2 maths curriculum.  These aim not just to support children’s learning but to show parents how they can encourage learning in the home.

Cardiff High Cyncoed, Cardiff: Partnership for All

This PTA led initiative impressed judges with its sophisticated plans to increase the number of minority ethnic parents actively involved in the school. Cardiff High has the second largest ethnic minority ratio amongst Cardiff schools.  The PTA, concerned about poor levels of engagement with minority ethnic parents, aims to encourage significantly greater involvement with school life.  Minority ethnic parents will be targeted with a tailored offer explaining the value of their support both to the school and their children’s learning.  This will be accompanied by a programme of activities focusing on key religious festivals, cuisine, music and dance which will enable the school to better reflect the ethnicity and culture of all parents. To deliver this exciting project, the PTA has already secured the support of local community leaders and has established links with a local school, which has experienced many of the same issues and can advise on best practice.

Mordiford CE Primary School, Lugwardine, Hereford: Knowledge Bank

This is another PTA led scheme which impressed the judges with its creativity.  Knowledge Bank will harness the wide and diverse range of parent occupations to give primary aged children an insight into working life and demonstrate at a very early stage of their learning the wealth of opportunities available to them. LEAPP funding will be used to host up to 20 events over the year.  These will be proposed and delivered by parents with support from the school.  It is hoped the vast majority will take place in the workplace and lead to a greater dialogue between parents and their children.

St Peter's Church of England Primary School, Cleethorpes:All Parents are Partners

St Peter’s has an unusually high number of students from a minority ethnic background: five times the local average, mostly of Bangladeshi heritage. The All Parents are Partners initiative aims to increase involvement in school life along with children’s learning and development. Tailored support will be offered to Bangladeshi parents.  They will be encouraged to build relationships with other parents to stop them being isolated within the school community.The school’s efforts to get to know Bangladeshi parents and the barriers that prevent their participation will underpin the initiative.  This will start with a series of small scale meetings deliberately designed to build familiarity and confidence.

Wade Deacon High School, Widness, Cheshire: Parents Road to Success

Research has shown that home access to the technology and specifically the internet has a positive impact on children’s learning.  However, this can be undermined significantly where a lack of parental ICT skills affects online learning at home or means that there is no home access to the internet.

Wade Deacon High School plans to tackle this issue head on by offering the European Computer Driving License qualification to parents. The objective is to increase parental ICT skills to further empower them to support their children’s learning.  This will also enable a greater number of parents to use the school’s online learning platform to understand more about their child’s progress and even to directly contribute to personalised learning plans.  The school will become an accredited centre offering the qualification after which parents of Year 6 pupils in feeder primary schools will be targeted to participate.