Leading Parent Partnership Award.

What is the Leading Parent Partnership Award? 

The Leading Parent Partnership Award (LPPA) is a nationally recognised award achievable by schools who work closely with the families within their school community. This award helps schools to ensure that they offer the best activities and support for parents and carers and to keep communication open and strong between school and home. The award is accredited after a visit from an external advisor. 

At St George’s, we want to ensure that we work as effectively as possible with our families and the local community. We strongly value the support and contribution that parents and carers are currently making to their children’s school life. We want to strengthen the link between school and home to make the biggest impact on our children, within and beyond the classroom. Feedback from parents and carers is extremely important to us and we want to hear your views in order to improve upon our current practise.

What does the school have to do to achieve the award? 

St George’s is working towards meeting the nine evidence-based objectives below in order to achieve the LPPA. 

• Demonstrate a commitment to work towards achieving the LPPA.
• Make and implement effective plans to achieve and maintain the LPPA.
• Show the school is a welcoming, communicative and friendly place for parents.
• Promote the awareness and participation of all groups of parents/carers in supporting their children’s learning and developing their own learning. In addition, the school holds and actively promotes a programme of opportunities and events for joint parent and child participation.
• Provide a good induction for all new parents/carers.
• Provide parents/carers with relevant and user-friendly guidance and information to help them to support their children’s learning.
• Produce and implement parent-friendly policies to establish effective home–school links and to improve children’s attendance, punctuality, progress and positive participation in school.
• Provide good support for all parents as their children move through or leave school.
• Summarise our achievements against the LPPA objectives and outline our future plans.

Each half-term, the LPPA parent taskforce meet and work through each of the nine objectives and collate evidence for the school portfolio. 

What are the benefits of trying to attain this award? 

Research shows that when parents and carers are involved, children make greater progress in school and are able to achieve more. St George’s understands that family members are by far the most important influence in a child’s life; by being intrinsically involved in your child’s academic journey, you can show your child that their education is of the utmost importance to you.

Benefits for children:

• It is easier for children to learn when they get encouragement at home.
• Children can achieve more when their caregivers are involved in their learning.
• Any concerns a child has can be discussed quickly and effectively if parents have a positive relationship with school staff.
• Children enjoy being part of events and activities with their parents at their school.
• It gives children a sense of security by knowing that their parents can easily get involved in school life and know what is happening at school.
• Allows children to openly discuss what they are doing at school.

Benefits for parents and carers:

• Children do better and achieve more when their caregivers are involved in school life.
• Caregivers can support their children at home and encourage them to make progress in learning. 
• Have more information about their child's education. 
• Feel more comfortable sharing their concerns and/or questions if they have a good relationship with school staff.
• Have the opportunity to get to know other parents and carers. 
• Know that they are making a positive contribution to the school community.  

Benefits for the school:

• The children at the school will feel encouraged to achieve more with the support of both school staff and parents.
• Staff will be able to use ideas from parent discussions to develop school improvement plans. 
• The school will develop a better understanding of what is needed to support the school community. 

 How can parents support with this award?

• Attend school events and share feedback. 
• Respond to questionnaires sent out by the school looking to gain important parental perspective.
• Share any ideas for further parental involvement in school life with school staff.
• Read all the information shared by the office staff through letter and email.
• Keep up to date with the life of St George’s through Class Dojo.
• Join the LPPA Parent group.