Why get involved?
The Family Learning Festival is all about recognising and promoting the benefits of Family Learning. It can be used as a 'hook' to draw people into learning, who might not otherwise get involved, by offering it in a relaxed and familiar atmosphere.
What are the benefits to your organisation?
What are the benefits to families?
What are the benefits to your community?
What are the benefits to your organisation?
The Family Learning Festival offers you a chance to do something different and make a difference in your community. By holding an event you could:
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Attract new and existing audiences to your venue/organisation
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Build new partnerships or strengthen existing ones
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Raise the profile of your organisation within the community
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Promote and signpost wider opportunities for learning in your organisation and local area
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Try out innovative new ideas
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Build new/closer relationships with local families, communities and other organisations
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Achieve your organisational targets
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Contribute to the Every Child Matters agenda
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Develop new skills and areas of work
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Change the public's perception of family learning
What are the benefits to families?
Research has proved that our families are our first and most important teachers. A report written by Charles Desforges on the impact of parental support on achievement (for DfES, 2003) showed that learning at home was the biggest influence on achievement of children aged 3 to 7. Home learning includes reading, playing with letters, numbers and shapes. Parents / carers often feel they are unable to provide that support for a variety of reasons. Family Learning events offer the opportunity for them to get involved in a relaxed and informal atmosphere, picking up ideas for supporting and organising learning activities at home. The events not only reinforce the importance of learning to children’s through family participation, they also offer a second chance for parents, carers, and other family members to return to learning.
What are the benefits to your community?
The Family Learning Festival plays a vital role in reinvigorating and stimulating community-based learning. The Month provides a platform and focal point for the many thousands of local authority, voluntary organisations, and schools keen to widen participation in learning. Local partnerships formed to organise Family Learning Festival events are very successful and are continued long after the event itself has ended. Activities can help strengthen local cohesion, identity and encourage multi-cultural awareness. Regeneration of communities happens not just by adding new bricks and mortar, but by instilling and inspiring new attitudes to self-development and learning.
