This virtual masterclass has bene designed to support leaders in schools to build strong and effective partnerships with parents.
Research has shown that effectively working in partnership with parents can have a significant impact on learning and wellbeing for many pupils. However, building partnerships with parents isn’t always easy and senior leaders can come up against a whole host of challenges. This full-day masterclass has been put together by our expert to help you reduce common barriers and build better relationships.
During this course you will look at the importance of positive relationships and how it can impact a child’s experience at school, considering how best to begin new relationships to get off to a good start.
You will look in detail at the different groups of parents you might encounter, that throw up common barriers to positive relationships. You will consider how to work differently with these parents to improve your relationships. This includes parents with additional needs, demanding parents, and those with high emotions.
You’ll have plenty of opportunity to network with colleagues from other settings, as well as Sam, or expert speaker. Enabling you to delve into the specific challenges you are facing in you setting.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND
Pastoral staff, safeguarding leads, senior leaders, family workers, parenting workers
KEY LEARNING OBJECTIVES
This masterclass will enable you to:
- Understand why positive relationship are so important for children’s learning
- Improve how you make initial contact to ensure that it is positive and appropriate
- Be clear on what a successful partnership looks like in practice
- Successfully work with parents who have additional needs, for example EAL parents or parents with mental health issues
- Understand how you can better work with demanding parents in the best interests of your pupils
- Manage your relationships with parents who have high emotions
- Deescalate confrontational situations
- Have difficult conversations with more confidence
- Have chance to discuss other specific challenges you might face
- Protect the wellbeing of you and your team when it comes to working with parents
FACILITATOR: Sam Garner
Sam is a renowned speaker, trainer and author specialising in mental health and SEN. She has been a SENCo in a large secondary school and is a qualified Cognitive Behaviour Therapist and a Child and Adolescent Counsellor. Sam also set up a company providing mental health CBT programmes for schools. She is in high demand to speak at conferences and events and provides in-house training for schools and companies, nationally and internationally. Lauded for her humour and ‘telling it like it is’ approach to mental health, Sam has had her book Mental Health in Education published by Routledge, and regularly writes for several publications with more books in the pipeline for publication.
