HELLO
Helping Early Language & Literacy Outcomes
Case Study
Childhaven Community Nursery School
Context
Childhaven had identified a need to improve relationships with parents, particularly
those parents who we see less frequently due to their children being brought to
school and/or collected by Childminders or other wrap-around service providers.
There are currently 11 families where we rarely see parents (once a week or less)
and often those times when we do see parents, there is little time to chat due to their
pressured schedules.
Action
We decided to develop evening and weekend family events that children could come
to with the parents, allowing us time to build relationships and model activities, such
as story-telling, mark making, using ICT or phoneme pronunciation. So far this year,
we have hosted:
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A ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’ story telling session in a local park where we
explored autumn, followed a trail and then listened to the story together.
A star party, where we used a telescope and an iPad app to explore the night
sky, shared hot chocolate and listened to ‘How to catch a star’.
An Easter egg hunt where we had to find letters that had been hidden in a
local wood, work out what they were, copy them using sticks in the mud or
pencils and then follow the clues to find the Easter bunny.
Impact
9 of the 11 families have attended at least one of these events, with comments
including:
“I didn’t know you could make a story so fun.”
“I didn’t realise you say letters differently now. How can I find out more?”
“How can we get the app to explore the stars more together?”
Pictures on following pages…
Created and funded by Department for Education 2015/16 VCS grant funding. This resource is
available under Open Government licence. ©Crown Copyright 2016
Created and funded by Department for Education 2015/16 VCS grant funding. This resource is
available under Open Government licence. ©Crown Copyright 2016
Created and funded by Department for Education 2015/16 VCS grant funding. This resource is
available under Open Government licence. ©Crown Copyright 2016
Created and funded by Department for Education 2015/16 VCS grant funding. This resource is
available under Open Government licence. ©Crown Copyright 2016
Created and funded by Department for Education 2015/16 VCS grant funding. This resource is
available under Open Government licence. ©Crown Copyright 2016
Created and funded by Department for Education 2015/16 VCS grant funding. This resource is
available under Open Government licence. ©Crown Copyright 2016