Margy Whalley & The Pen Green Centre Team

978 1 4129 3501 2

2nd Edition 2007 Paul Chapman

'A unique guide for students, practitioners, parents, and administrators of young children who want to understand specific strategies to maximise parent involvement and collaboration.'- Education Libraries

Involving Parents in their Children's Learning is the story of the pioneering work of the Pen Green Centre for children and families. Showing how early years practitioners can collaborate effectively with parents, the book includes case studies of parents and children who have attended the centre, studies which chart developments in learning for both children and parents. The book will inspire early years practitioners and offer them practical advice on ways of developing effective work with parents.

Drawing on their work at the renowned Pen Green Centre, the authors show how to:

o support parents as their child's first educator

o provide practical and psychological support to parents

o involve fathers and male carers

o share important child development concepts

o support and extend children's learning

o reach out to hard-to-reach parents.

This New Edition follows up on the stories of people featured in the first edition, showing how they have progressed over the last few years. It also includes new chapters covering the headteacher's role in developing parental involvement programmes, how the Pen Green model has been applied in primary schools, and the use of parental diaries.

The book is essential reading for students on early years courses (BA, FdA, B.Ed), as well as practising early years professionals and senior management teams in primary schools.

`It was extremely easy to read, with the chapters broken down into nice small chunks. I'm not that much of a reader but I found this book really user-friendly. You get a real feel for the Pen Green Centres positive attitude towards the parents, which the majority feel let down by the education system. I found the information in the book not only practical but encouraging too (full of lots of tried and tested ideas from the Pen Green Team)’ – Amazon Review

`I've used this book so much for much for my university work. I would seriously recommend it to anyone who has an essay about partnership with parents. I would also recommend this book to anyone who works with children in schools or nurseries. It left me wanting to engage more with the parents I work with in my school. Just a really good read about working with and engaging parents’ – Amazon Review