Why a Campaign to encourage parents to engage?
At the start of this new year, GEMS is launching a Campaign to encourage parents to engage with their children 3 times a day for educational reasons.
Why are we campaigning? Because it has been shown that when parents engage strongly with their own children - in reinforcing the importance of education and in talking about learning - children do much better at school.
This is something you see all around the world.
The countries where students get the highest results on international tests are not those where most money is spent on the school system. Nor are they the places where class sizes are smallest. Nor are they always the places where teachers have the highest qualifications.
They are the places where parents are most engaged in what and how their children learn.
Of course, it helps to have your child at a great school. This way, you give your child more opportunities. You make it more likely that they will succeed.
But the school cannot replace the home. It is from the home that the student gets most of their attitude toward learning, and where they gain their appetite and drive for learning… or not.
In GEMS, we admit that the best schools help families to raise their children. And so, we are choosing to improve our help.
We believe that by campaigning on the theme of ‘3-a-day’ we can help change habits in many homes. We believe we can cause more families to use their time together - at meals, on trips, at leisure and at play, to talk about learning, to share experiences and to encourage children’s greater efforts.
This is a change from the normal way we do business. Most of the time, we look to improve what we do inside the school. The campaign is about investing ideas and thought into what happens outside, too.
We don’t want you to feel we are lecturing you about what you should do. We don’t want to make anyone feel guilty about how much time they spend with their children. We know how tough it is for many families to spend quality time together and we respect the pressures that are put on parents today.
All we want to do is to help people use the time they have together well, and further encourage families that are already on the right track.
‘3-a-day’ can mean a short talk across the dinner table in the evening as you compare what everyone learned today. It can mean stopping for a few seconds to read something that one child has written. Or it can mean sharing that book before bedtime. And it can mean coming up with some encouraging words because your child has made a great effort, at school or at home. It can be done in ways that are natural to your family style and routines.
Talk, share, encourage.
You send your children to our schools because you care so much about how they will fare in life. So, we will do everything in our power to get the conditions for learning up to world class.
In the next few weeks, we will try to feed you with many ideas for how to achieve ‘3-a-day’. If you have suggestions that work, please share them with us and with other parents. And if you’re struggling for ideas, just ask…
We’ll campaign for these 3-a-day because you really can make the difference in your child’s life.
