Raising Attainment and Progress in Reading through Parental Engagement Erasmus Project

Project Title

Raising Attainment and Progress in Reading through Parental Engagement

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

This project arose out of common desire amongst the schools to improve the attainment and progress in reading for all our pupils through two means: greater parental and community engagement and through the teaching of phonics. There are 2 partner school in the project, both of whom share the same values and ethos, which is of vital importance to the integrity and success of the two-year project. Each partner school has its own area of expertise. Berkeley Academy, the lead school of the Advantage Multi-Academy Trust has been praised by the Minister of State for Standards in School for the outstanding results it achieves with its pupils in phonics and CEIP Isabel La Católica has an amazing parental engagement strategy and is able to attract the vast majority of its parent body to its school functions through its “Open Door” policy.

The 2 project teams comprise of 6 participants (Berkley Academy) and 4 for CEIP Isabel La Católica. However, the learning and experience of the project will be disseminated beyond the two teams to all members of staff in the two schools plus the parent body and community through newsletter and postings on the school websites and then finally through the project website, which will be launched at the end of the project in September 2020.

The total number of children who will be impacted by the project is 690 and beyond the project teams, all members of staff will be part of the “spin off” from the project and these amount to 104. Beyond the school, parents and the local community will enjoy the benefits of the project outcomes.

Each school is hosting an annual visit during the two-year project during which time they will showcase their area of expertise and train the visiting participants in a practical way in their methodology and pedagogical techniques used as well as their strategies for parental and community engagement. The visits will be an opportunity for practical training as well as observation of the success of strategies used but also the opportunity for an external eye of evaluation. This is action research involving all participants. Very regular communication throughout the project will keep all participants abreast of developments.

The expected outcomes of raised attainment and progress in reading and higher levels of parental engagement will be tested by comparing the baseline assessments at the beginning of the project to those at the end. We are envisaging an increase in the attainment and progress in reading in both Spanish and English and greater parental and community participation and engagement with all the schools. We also expect a knock on effect of improved levels of reading in courses where English and Spanish are taught as a foreign language. Beyond these expectations, we see long term links between all the schools, offering further opportunities for cooperation and collaboration on many levels: pedagogy, staff exchange to name but two. We also expect a rise in attainment for learners of English and Spanish as a foreign language due to the implementation of phonics techniques in foreign language learning.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 40040 Eur

Project Coordinator

Advantage Multi Academy Trust & Country: UK

Project Partners

• CEIP ISABEL LA CATÓLICA