{"id":7093,"date":"2012-05-01T12:52:05","date_gmt":"2012-05-01T00:52:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oece.nz\/general\/parents-early-learning\/all-together-now-family-learning-sessions-in-early-years-education\/"},"modified":"2021-09-07T17:49:06","modified_gmt":"2021-09-07T05:49:06","slug":"family-learning-sessions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oece.nz\/public\/big-issues\/parents-as-teachers\/family-learning-sessions\/","title":{"rendered":"All Together Now \u2013 Providing Family Learning Sessions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Family Learning Sessions<\/strong>.  <br><strong>By Tim Kahn<\/strong>.   <br>(London Correspondent)&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You are probably familiar with the current idea in the UK that what parents do with their children is the factor that has the biggest effect on children\u2019s learning and development outcomes (Desforges, 2003). &nbsp;Developments in brain research have shown this to be particularly true in the early years, at a time when the brain is developing at its fastest. Research shows that children\u2019s development is determined both by nature and the environment, in other words both by the developing brain and by the environment created by children\u2019s carers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A few years ago, an excellent book summarising research and explaining its implications for families was written (Roberts, 2009a).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Local and national funding was made available for training for early years workers on the importance of <a href=\"https:\/\/oece.nz\/public\/big-issues\/promoting-participation\/the-family-partnership-model-in-nz-implications-for-policy-and-funding\/\">partnership <\/a>with parents, showing them both that parents held an essential key to their children\u2019s development and offering practical ways of engaging with parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rather than just looking after and educating the children in their care, early years workers were being encouraged to recognise that they had a key role to play in facilitating the learning and development of \u2018their\u2019 children in their own homes as well. (This is, of course, where children spend most of their time \u2013 in the UK it is estimated that up to the age of 16 children spend 85% of their waking time outside formal educational institutions.) One of the ways of doing this is through running family learning sessions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What is family learning?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Family learning, as its name suggests, is where members of a family learn together. This could be mothers, fathers, grandparents or anyone who cares for the child learning together with the child. Family learning takes place in one-off workshops \u2013 on messy play or making puppets, for example \u2013 or as part of longer programmes. What is important is that both the children and the adults who participate in family learning sessions take away something they have learned. (In the box, below, is a lovely example of the learning that might take place in a family learning session.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-brand-yellow-background-color has-background\">Amir and his dad are taking part in a family learning session. It is the last in a series of six sessions in \u2018stop motion animation\u2019 \u2013 making cartoon films. Amir is hard at work with his father. They have made five little duck models out of plasticine and are using them in their animation to illustrate \u2018five little ducks went swimming one day\u2019.&nbsp; Now that they have made their models, dad reads the story and moves the ducks in accordance with the story. Amir presses the button on the computer when dad tells him to. And when they have finished they sit back and satisfactorily view the film they have made together.<br>While Amir can&nbsp; now call himself a film-maker \u2013 with all the skills that go with that \u2013 dad is simply amazed at how long Amir can concentrate and what he can do. He had no idea five-year olds can do that. <br>That short course changed the lives of one father and his son.&nbsp; &nbsp;  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the previous years of plenty (as they now appear to be), programmes supporting families were run in many places. Hopefully, now, in this time of austerity, the gains of the recent period will not be lost completely. One of the things we learnt was that it was mostly mothers (and other female carers) who attended \u2013 and benefitted directly from \u2013 family learning sessions. One of the success stories of that period was that programmes that appealed to fathers and other male carers (as well as to mothers and other female carers) were devised (such as the stop motion animation series of sessions described in the box above, and science sessions on floating boats and \u2018bucketland\u2019) and run to great acclaim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Every decade is different from the last. The question for all of us now is: &nbsp;what does the future hold for family learning?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">References<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Desforges, C. with Abouchaar, A. (2003).&nbsp;<em>The Impact of Parental Involvement, Parental Support and Family Education on Pupil Achievements and Adjustment: A Literature Review.&nbsp;<\/em>Nottingham,UK: Department for Education and Skills<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Roberts, K. (2009a).&nbsp;<em>Early Home Learning Matters. &nbsp;<\/em>London, UK: Family and Parenting Institute<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Roberts, K. (2009b).&nbsp;<em>Early Home Learning Matters: A Brief Guide for Practitioners.&nbsp;<\/em> London, UK: Family and Parenting Institute (available from the resources section of the Family and Parenting Institute website http:\/\/www.familyandparenting.org)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Family Learning Sessions. By Tim Kahn. (London Correspondent)&nbsp; You are probably familiar with the current idea in the UK that what parents do with their children is the factor that has the biggest effect on children\u2019s learning and development outcomes (Desforges, 2003). &nbsp;Developments in brain research have shown this to be particularly true in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":7092,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[169],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Family Learning Sessions Can Be Provided at Early Childhood Services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Running family learning sessions where parent and child together are learning can have enormous benefits for everyone! Learn more.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/oece.nz\/public\/big-issues\/parents-as-teachers\/family-learning-sessions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Family Learning Sessions Can Be Provided at Early Childhood Services\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Running family learning sessions where parent and child together are learning can have enormous benefits for everyone! Learn more.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/oece.nz\/public\/big-issues\/parents-as-teachers\/family-learning-sessions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Office of ECE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-05-01T00:52:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-09-07T05:49:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/oece.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/train-back-on-track-post.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dr. Sarah Alexander\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Family Learning Sessions Can Be Provided at Early Childhood Services\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Running family learning sessions where parent and child together are learning can have enormous benefits for everyone! 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