
Keen to grow parenting autonomy at your school, so children get the best start?
Want to develop richer partnership for learning with families?
Looking to grow productive home-school links?
The issue…
Every parent we’ve worked with wants the very best for their child. They all want to give their children the very best start in life by supporting them in their learning journey, both at home and at school. The problem is that not all parents have the knowledge, attitudes, skills and habits required to do it well.
The ‘It’s Your Child’s Life’ programme gives parents a real insight into what their child is learning at school and how they are being taught. Through intensive support, parents are given guidance, advice, tips and tools they need to become actively involved in their child’s learning helping them to strive for and achieve great things.
Now more than ever, schools need to build strong partnerships with parents.
Background
I’ve been working alongside It’s Your Life who are a well-established, highly successful charity, with a proven reputation working with hundreds of families facing many different challenges.
As part of their work, the charity developed ‘It’s Your Child’s Life’ programme (IYCL) which equips parents to help their children succeed at school, strengthening relationships and long lasting partnerships between home and school.
It’s a programme I was really impressed by and have supported it’s expansion to Merseyside, Norfolk and now Scotland. Over the last four years we have secured funding from Children in Need and many other sources to support as many parents and their children as possible.

Click here for more details about the programme along with videos of parents talking about the impact on their children.
Details of Programme

For details of the face-to-face programme, please click here
Due to demand, the programme is running online too. For details of the online offer, please click here
Evidence Base
The programme structure and content draws upon the evidence base underpinning effective parent support. In particular:
Sutton, C., Utting, D., and Farrington, D., (Eds), (2004), Support from the Start – Working with young children and their families to reduce the risks of crime and anti- social behaviour. London DfES highlight the importance of warm, authoritative and responsive parenting in developing good behaviour and preventing children developing behaviour problems.
Sylva, Melhuish, Sammons, Siraj, Blatchford and Taggart (2008) in ‘Effective Pre-school and Primary Education 3-11 Project Report from the Primary Phase: Pre-school, School and Family Influences on Children’s Development during Key Stage 2 (Age 7- 11) DCSF Research Report pinpoints ‘the home learning environment has a greater influence on a child’s intellectual and social development than parental occupation, education, or income. What parents do is more important than who they are, and a home learning environment that is supportive of learning can counteract the effects of disadvantage in the early years.’
What works in Parenting Support? A review of the international evidence