Short but sweet

Recognising these obstacles, the City of Edinburgh Council launched an innovative community-based learning project for parents and carers in North Edinburgh. The Family Learning Bite-size Learning (BSL) programme aimed to provide ‘short but sweet’ educational programmes. Since they did not require a long-term commitment and focused on making small steps towards building new skills, the BSL sessions offered an accessible approach to education.

Following close consultation with schools in the area, the Family Learning team designed a series of these bite-size sessions for small groups of adults. The sessions started with a free breakfast, which offered a friendly and sociable start to the course. By gathering around the table and discussing what they hoped to get out of the day, the attendees developed their social skills and quickly began to relax.

Now at their ease, they were ready to begin the first session, which focused on demonstrating how children learn through play. This first session was deliberately non-intimidating, since it did not require the use of maths or literacy. Instead, parents took part in a fun activity to make flowers out of tissue paper and pipe cleaners, and took the materials home to continue the activity with their children.

The second session highlighted how children learn to read. In this session, conducted in partnership with Book Start, tutors explained the importance of speaking and listening in developing early literacy. This was brought to life when the parents were asked to write their children’s most used words in a book. An animated discussion followed, which saw parents really engage with how their children learn.

The focus of the remaining sessions switched to building parents’ self-esteem and awareness. Session three used digital photography to raise confidence and session four, ‘Catch your dreams’, introduced an interesting and personal discussion about hopes, fears and ambitions. The day was rounded off with the presentation of certificates, by which time an atmosphere of warmth and a sense of community had developed.

The bite-size sessions had been so successful in demonstrating that learning could be fun and non-threatening that a series of follow-up programmes was quickly lined up. The Family Learning team arranged block learning events, which took the form of a half-day session every six weeks at schools across the north of the city, and this was followed by the BSL Academy, which featured full-day courses covering children’s book-making, local politics, photography and confidence building.

What all the BSL courses offered was an insight into how children learn, which empowered parents and carers to support their education at home. As one headteacher remarked: 'If adults feel enthused and confident with regard to their own learning, they will find engaging with their children’s learning a lot less threatening. If children feel their parents are interested, they will be motivated to learn. Parents need to be aware that they are partners in the learning process - not observers.'

The courses certainly provided a welcome boost to parents’ self-esteem, and many parents now feel reassured about the prospect of developing their skills through adult education. 'I’m able to speak to people more and have my say about what is going on around me,' one parent remarked. It seems that a fun approach to learning not only benefits pupils, but empowers their parents too.