Marion Richardson Primary School
A group of 36 parents from Marion Richardson Primary School, in Tower Hamlets, have embraced learning as part of a ‘Strengthening Families, Strengthening Communities’ project over the last year. They have become role models for their children and their communities.
The group includes parents from Mauritius, Morocco, the UK, Serbia, Ghana, China and Bangladesh. For many of them this was the first time they had done any learning since leaving school. Four of them had dropped out – or been taken out – of school when they were 14 and one had never been to school in her life. The course has given them confidence, broken down barriers between different groups and encouraged them to continue their learning and involvement with both the school and the wider community.
Five parents are now doing NVQs in Childcare at a local college and six parents are taking ICT and advanced English classes. Seven parents are learning to be peer educators in drug awareness, whilst another parent is training to join the Youth Offending Referral Order Panel. Others have learned first aid and 18 parents have become volunteers at the school, 11 of whom are studying a volunteering course.
The only man who graduated from the course – a Bangladeshi father of 10 children – was keen to get other fathers involved, organising visits to HMS Belfast and ice-skating at the Tower of London, as well as puppet-making and storytelling sessions. Four new projects have been set up in the school, led by the parents, and 107 different parents have been recruited into learning.