About The Parenting Circle

One in three children are not school ready, and across all year-groups, the attainment gap between disadvantaged groups and their peers is widening.

We work with schools to offer parent peer mentoring groups, to help support a holistic approach to raising attendance, attainment and community cohesion.

The Parenting Circle delivers

FREE training, over one and a half days, of a designated member of the school community to lead parent discussion groups.

FREE Parenting Circle Pack that includes a trainer’s manual and parents’ notebook designed specifically for us by Anna Spencer, former Assistant Deputy Head at Goldstar Federation in Barnet.

Drawing on evidence-based techniques including attachment theory and the Oxford Brain Story, our training offers an accessible guide to addressing issues ranging from attendance to toilet training. For parents of older children we also cover boundary-setting and conflict resolution.

The discussion group meets regularly for 60-90 minutes over eight weeks, led by the school’s designated trainer. At that point a parent can step up to lead the group. While relying still on light touch support and monitoring from the Parenting Circle, the scheme then becomes sustainable.

We work closely with schools to adapt our model to your needs.

Where we work

We have scope to work across London and the South East, with current school partnerships in London, Surrey and Kent.

In Kent we are working in the three most deprived areas of the county – Medway, Dover, Thanet.

School staff and governors, trained by us, are working with

• 90 families in Dartford

• 90 families in Cliftonville

• 60 families in Dover

School Profiles included disproportionate number of

• Pupil premium

• FSM

• English as an additional language families

• Pupils from minorities including Roma, Irish travellers, African Caribbean

Local Inclusion Forum Teams in Kent have invited the Parenting Circle to contribute to their efforts to support the most vulnerable children and their families.

Save the Children in Margate have invited the Parenting Circle to contribute to their Early Learning Communities pilot there.

Oxford University Evaluation of our pilot in 4 children’s centres in Surrey found that parents

• reported greater confidence in their parenting ability

• reported improved relationships with children and the other parent

• reported better communication with schools

The City of London Corporation has commissioned us to design a Parental Engagement toolkit for teachers across its 17 schools.

Contact us at contact@parentingcircle.uk