Steve, a school parent governor at Drew school got the agreement of the Head for us to run two events “Let’s get Drew parents talking – our children mix so why don’t we!”. Both Steve and the Head were interested in seeing if parents would be interested in forming a Friends of the school group. We were also keen to see if some parents would be interested in joining the Dockside Neighbours group (which Steve also attended) that was set up after Community Conversations last year. This group has run and is planning other events for local people to help build community spirit and wants more members.
The school sent out a leaflet with every parent. At the first session 4 Mums came – 3 Nigerians and 1 Bengali. All four wanted to meet again and felt that it was important for parents to have an opportunity to get to know each other. At the second event 15 diverse parents came along, including Dads. Parents found out a bit about each others good experiences of community spirit and then got in groups to think about ways of bringing this experience to the school and the area. There were loads and loads of ideas for getting parents involved in the school and building relationships across families. Everyone had thoroughly enjoyed an Eid party run by the school and lots had given this as an example of community spirit. There was interest in getting more events like this, including at Christmas, but for the parents to help organise it. A couple of parents were also very keen to join Dockside Neighbours.
After this Steve has run the first planning meeting to take some ideas forward. Steve has now attended our 8 day training and is already skilled in running groups but did take up the offer of Ros supporting him at the first meeting.
