Parents room....how do we get parents in??!!

[Workieticket]

My DS' school has recently gained a mobile classroom which is set aside for parents/community use. I've been asked to join a committee to get the thing up and running - getting it furnished etc - and then to be involved in running it, coffee mornings and the like. Our school has the same parents at the same meetings/events all the time, so my question is - how do we get everyone else to make use of the facility?? How do we target parents to get them more involved with the school?...Any suggestions greatly appreciated!

These are some of the things we do:

Help with English for the parents who don't speak it (they could bring in letters and stuff that they needed translating, and other parents would help them with it)

Maths class for parents.

Creative writing classes for parents.

SEN coffee mornings (for parents of SEN kids)

Positive Parenting seminars

Healthy XYZ seminars

Women's only keep fit.

How wonderful. At first I'd wait for the weather to get a bit nicer for open air/ mobile activities. And initially I'd make the invitation about having an enjoyable time and less about the school, say a barbecue, or something similar and just happen to have the classroom there as well. And maybe have a painting with your child activity going on inside, (or something else fun and not scary.)

Once you've got the harder-to-reach parents interested and understanding that it's not scary or hard, then you can make the activities progressively more to your agenda (whatever that might be.)

Do the parents know it's there and what it's for?
Has the school tried varying the time to see if a different day or time gets more parents in? For example you could have a session when after school club ends for working parents.
Has the school made it clear that babies/younger siblings are welcome? Are there books/toys that the younger siblings and babies can use while the parents meet?

Some parents won't be interested in the information given out (as presumably the very important stuff will be handed out in letters) and others will have prior commitments like work.

Have you thought about updating parents about what sort of thing happens at the meetings and making the minutes of meetings available via a school Facebook group or school website? In my case I can not attend PTA meetings due to lack of childcare but when someone puts out specific requests for help on FB I can try to help.

this is only half an answer but you mentioned the harder-to-reach parents.

tutorial on how to play guitar chords by ear.

I know it sounds daft as a brush, but I do music work with some vulnerable boys - their motivation is all about wanting to play either with or like their (possibly missing) father-figure - and that means chords on a guitar.

And it is also relevant for the parents of your grade 3 violin virtuosi. Those violin practice sessions would be much more part of family life if mum or dad could strum along.

One thing that made a huge difference to which parents we managed to get into school for family events etc was thinking about the readability of the newsletters we were sending out to promote activities. The average adult reading age in my county is only 9 years old - when we ran literature through a Readability Test we worked out we'd used an age of about 15. So we refined the language and that way hit a lot of new families we previously hadn't managed to get into school.

There's a good readability test here. I put your OP into it and came up with an age of 15.4.

Our school has a playgroup. It's a great way of getting to know other parents.

Breakfast! Our preschool organised a breakfast for the parents and everyone loves a good breakfast :o

Agree with helping with English as a second language, a kind of low level CAB iyswim?

DD's school has a parent and toddler (toddler optional) session straight after school starts. An hour later they have an external person come in and run a music group type thing (for the toddlers) for nominal cost - this is also open to children not related to anyone at school. At the same time they have "jobs" (e.g. creating a display) available for parents that are happy to do them. They tend to get a fair few parents with pre-schoolers - and the music group is a good draw - and the odd other one with a bit of time to kill.

The sort of things our school did in conjunction with the children's centre:

• Childminders meeting
• ESL meeting
• Homework drop in session (teachers would be available to explain homework)
• Phonics meeting (a teacher would explain what sounds were being covered by Reception that week)
• Nursery meeting (a teacher would explain what they were doing that week)
• Healthy Eating group
• Young mums group
• parenting courses
• Dad's group

They also did

• Grandparent's group
• Money group (learn budgeting etc)

Free tea & coffee & nice biscuits :).
Free creche.
A regular toddler group, right after school start time or ending right at home-time.
Keep the place warm during meetings, nothing worse than a cold drafty dark smelly room.

Hi Workieticket:

Since it's for parents - why not send home a note (or e-mail) announcing arrival of parent room and ask for suggestions of the type of sessions/ meetings parents might like to have there. That might get new faces involved.

There have been some good suggestions but can I add a word of caution. The school needs to look very carefully at the way this room is used and the child protection issues that it may raise for the school. If they do not then there could be real issues when Ofsted come calling.
This caution should not stop this really valuable addition to the school but it needs to be thought through.

Make sure you offer some kind of creche facility for anything you run, and then you will massivley increase the numbers.
Agree with others who say fun things first, and also things where their dc get to have a go at something. People will then come for their dc, when they might not have come for themselves, and then there is the chance for them to relax, and chat about what other things they might come along to.

Why not do class by class coffee mornings. If it is a general invite it will probably be the same parents as usual. If it is for their class then they might be more likely to meet for a chat, we walk 20 mins for our class coffee morning. If you can provide drinks and they organise cakes, you can then ask them what else they would come there for.

Ooh, I like 3duracell's idea. Because parents do get a bit cliquey in their year groups so "donations" for coffee & cakes & chance to socialise in the warm rather than usual exchange of gossip by freezing wet school gate, but only say, once a week/month, might make sense.

Thank you all for the great suggestions!

I'm loving the class by class coffee mornings 3duracell, I think youre right that if we make more of an effort to 'target' people class by class, we might actually get somewhere!

We're planning on having an open day with some planting/bird feeder making going on outside and having a raffle to raise funds. Does anyone know of companies who donate stuff? We've had a bit of success with local companies & I'm awaiting a call back from sainsburys & the local football team. Our raffles always rely on donations from parents, but we really need to raise a decent amount of money!

Oh and Hassled, apparently our town's ave reading age is 7.5!!!!

Our school opens their Community Room, to allow teaching staff, parents/carers and children to get together. It is nice to see how the class interact in their school environment. Refreshments such as tea, juice and toast is available at a small charge. As parents have taken time out to to attend class assembly, they are more likely to stay to mingle.

I would love a homework club.

don't be too "cliquey" (for want of a better word)!!

i went along to a parent meeting at ds1's old school and when I got there it was clear that all the people there always went and knew each other and they chatte away to each other, and as a shy person I found it very, very hard to break into any conversation and get to know people and join in.

so i would say maybe if you're having events or whatever in this parent's room then try and make sure that group of parents who are always involved really try and welcome others in and talk to them and don't just stand in a group talking and acting like they own the place.
it really puts us shy people off!

of course, you may not be like that at all, but I think it's easy to accidentally do iyswim? it isn't malicious, you're just chatting with your friends... but sometimes the other parents may need some of your time. if that makes sense.

Stay and play sessions for parents with younger children?

SEN coffee mornings for parents whose children have SEN, with senco on hand?

That sounds really good, what I would like if it was my dc school is if they make it clear that you can bring younger siblings or having a creche for anything not suitable for young siblings to come for, otherwise I couldn't come to anything really as no child care - im sure this is a common problem for lot of people, and most people either are working or have younger dc at home
Class by class coffee morning type things would be great

Things going on that working parents can get to - this is the biggest issue at my dcs school.
Ironically I work in a school too - Last year we did an evening performance of the Christmas plays etc with a room set aside for toddlers to play games with a couple of TAs who offered to play instead of watch a third nativity interestingly there aren't many parents who work in the day at the school where i work, but we do it anyway. Depends what your demographic is I suppose

It's not much help at this time of the year, but at our school they offer help with school applications, and allow people without internet access to apply online.