February 2007 Jonathan Fisher and Alex Neill Exploratory study of the Home- School Partnership Programme: Numeracy Jonathan Fisher and Alex Neill (NZCER)

Home-school Partnership Programme: Numeracy February 2007 Jonathan Fisher and Alex Neill HSP Numeracy programme Setting Methodology Findings Discussion Further exploration Agenda

Home-school Partnership Programme: Numeracy February 2007 Jonathan Fisher and Alex Neill HSP Numeracy Nāu te rourou, nāku te rourou, ka ora te iwi. With your food basket and my food basket, everyone will have enough. He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata! What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, people, people! Philosophy (Kaupapa)

Home-school Partnership Programme: Numeracy February 2007 Jonathan Fisher and Alex Neill HSP Numeracy 1.Reinforce the fact that parents and families are one of the greatest influences on children's learning and development and are essential to their success at school; 2.Endorse what families and teachers are already doing for children's numeracy development; 3.Share ways in which families and teachers working together can make an even greater impact on children's numeracy development; 4.Increase parents' and families' understanding of numeracy and practical ways of helping children learn; 5.Establish a caring working partnership between school staff and the community. Outcomes

Home-school Partnership Programme: Numeracy February 2007 Jonathan Fisher and Alex Neill HSP Numeracy 3-4 Training workshops for lead parents and lead teachers (lead team) 6 community sessions for parents (and families) led by lead team Facilitator support in community sessions Initially Pasifika, bi-lingual, now all families Key messages are already translated into many languages Optimally, ongoing school-wide programme Structure

Home-school Partnership Programme: Numeracy February 2007 Jonathan Fisher and Alex Neill Setting Parents As First Teachers (1991- ongoing) Pacific Island School Community Parent Liaison (1996 – ongoing) Parent Mentoring Initiative ( ) Numeracy project (2002 – ongoing) Report of the Literacy Taskforce (1999) The Complexity of Community and Family influences on Children’s achievement in New Zealand: BES (2003)

Home-school Partnership Programme: Numeracy February 2007 Jonathan Fisher and Alex Neill Methodology Qualitative study 3 case study schools (plus interview and workshop observation at a fourth school) Initial visit to community sessions – Meet and observe Second visit to community sessions – Meet and observe – Informal discussion with parents – Interview lead teacher – Interview lead parent – Group interview with 3-6 parents Survey all HSPN facilitators Attend facilitator workshop

Home-school Partnership Programme: Numeracy February 2007 Jonathan Fisher and Alex Neill Methodology Delivery of intended outcomes to parents and families Perceived impact on the students' attitudes and learning of mathematics in and out of school Impact on the partnership between the school and parents and families Key areas for further exploration or evaluation Research focus on the …

Home-school Partnership Programme: Numeracy February 2007 Jonathan Fisher and Alex Neill Findings “Talked about activities then tried them – model for community sessions” LT “ Provided a general shape for the workshop…but let teachers adapt/modify” LT “Prepared very/extremely well for the community sessions” LT&LP “Focussed on how parents can help their children” LP “Shared knowledge and skills with other schools” LT The training workshops “Some parents didn’t understand the links to the stages” LT “Pitched quite high” LT “LP still need more preparation (half day)” LT

Home-school Partnership Programme: Numeracy February 2007 Jonathan Fisher and Alex Neill Findings Communication to parents Why did they come? What worked well? Organisation Issues The community sessions

Home-school Partnership Programme: Numeracy February 2007 Jonathan Fisher and Alex Neill Findings Facilitator’s role Lead parent’s role Lead teacher’s role The roles of parents, teachers and facilitators “Responsibility (for the community session) is ideally with the LP but they found it too hard to speak in front of other parents…LT ended up teaching”. Issue: Growing leadership in the lead parent.

Home-school Partnership Programme: Numeracy February 2007 Jonathan Fisher and Alex Neill Findings Numeracy maths is different Numeracy activities are fun and social Parents can learn about Numeracy development stages Alignment between the community understanding and school understanding of maths in NZ, Parents feeling more comfortable doing maths with their children Numeracy maths

Home-school Partnership Programme: Numeracy February 2007 Jonathan Fisher and Alex Neill Flexibility of the programme Partnership? – What kind of partnerships do we form in our own work? – What are the attributes of a real partnership? Sustainability Selecting the programme and the people to run it Empowerment of the LP Students … Discussion

Home-school Partnership Programme: Numeracy February 2007 Jonathan Fisher and Alex Neill The response from parents was a mixture of improving attitude "happy to do maths now" very big improvement these games improve their knowledge activities make maths easier (as does the context) children working more easily now having more discussion about maths, and cautiously, harder to know if they're doing better still problems with their times tables. The response from teachers was more positive: huge improvement definite improvement on attainment better attitude improved self esteem less fear of making a mistake Discussion Students

Home-school Partnership Programme: Numeracy February 2007 Jonathan Fisher and Alex Neill Two sessions in one day to cater for different work times Work with the RMS Start earlier/ when school set their plans/budgets The English barrier – spoken as well as written for oral cultures Sharing is important – clustering for support? Whole school involvement in the programme Learning stations with children at respective stages Other ideas Discussion

Home-school Partnership Programme: Numeracy February 2007 Jonathan Fisher and Alex Neill Evaluation against outcomes Discussion 1.Reinforce the fact that parents and families are one of the greatest influences on children's learning and development and are essential to their success at school; 2.Endorse what families and teachers are already doing for children's numeracy development; 3.Share ways in which families and teachers working together can make an even greater impact on children's numeracy development; 4.Increase parents' and families' understanding of numeracy and practical ways of helping children learn; 5.Establish a caring working partnership between school staff and the community.

Home-school Partnership Programme: Numeracy February 2007 Jonathan Fisher and Alex Neill Further exploration Continue to explore the impact and implementation of the HSPN in the subsequent year. How is the partnership developing? Explore the impact and implementation of the HSPN in New schools for 2007 Interview with the principal Survey all historical and current schools involved with the HSPN – completed or not Very brief survey of the children Very brief survey of the parents (all and flagging those that attended) Collect assessment data for all students of invited parents group and flag attendance. Parents understanding of Numeracy maths

Home-school Partnership Programme: Numeracy February 2007 Jonathan Fisher and Alex Neill Fin