Section navigation

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT INVOLVING FATHERS – BUT MAYBE NOT IN SETTINGS?!

During a recent PEAL training session, one group of participants sparked an interesting discussion and agreed that perhaps practitioners need to accept that fathers do not want to be involved *in settings* - i.e.: they want to support their children’s learning, but perhaps they want to do this elsewhere ... And so perhaps we need to use and develop more ‘take away’ methods and approaches that fathers can use to support their children’s learning at home and elsewhere.

Then, while I was thinking about this, at a recent conference hosted by NIACE and the Family Learning Local Authority Group (Leicester, 17/18 Jan) ‘involving fathers’ was discussed in several of the papers presented. (Quotations below are taken from conference session papers).

Juliette Collier from the Campaign for Learning [jcollier@cflearning.org.uk ] reported on a project called *Putting Dads in the Picture* that sought to involve more fathers. They discovered:
• The “greatest barrier” to involvement was parents’ own experiences. Dads especially may associate learning and schools with “only failure, as places of conflict ... a system which they must fight and must aid their children in fighting”. If so, then getting fathers involved in settings might require us to counteract their own memories and experiences of school – a very difficult task!
• Many fathers weren’t confident - and didn’t like to see themselves – in the role of ‘teacher’. The project attracted many more dads when they ran a ‘Best Coach’ programme and used the idea of ‘COACHING’ (like sports coaching) to talk to dads about how they could support their children’s learning.
• The project also confirmed previous findings that parents’ involvement in learning AT HOME is most important: “Parents have the greatest influence on achievement … through supporting [children’s] learning in the home”. Which suggests we don’t always need to get fathers into settings – they can be involved *even more* effectively at home!

Dr Anthea Rose from NIACE [anthea.rose@niace.org.uk ] presented findings of a cross-cultural study which compared family learning programmes in England, Ireland and Malta. This research wasn’t focussed primarily on fathers, but interestingly they found that:
• If ANY member of a family is involved in family learning, they are likely to TAKE HOME tools, skills and understanding and ‘share’ these with other members of the family. Family members who *haven’t* attended programmes/settings still get involved in supporting children’s learning … at home.
• If ANY member of a family is involved in family learning, Parent-Child relationships improved within the family as a whole. This affected/involved all/most adults “whether present at programmes or not” (and also extended to other siblings who hadn’t been involved).
• “Several mothers reported that fathers were more involved in their children’s learning at home, for example reading with the children using the strategies learnt by the mother and passed on at home. Fathers were also said to help gather materials required for sessions, in particular downloading images of the internet for the Story Sacks”.

Message was deleted by user.