Successful Learning – The Parent Factor is a series of parent-to-parent workshops that encourage and support families to engage in their children’s early learning and literacy in helpful ways.

It is a practical response to the evidence which shows that engagement makes an important difference to children’s readiness for school, their interest in learning, their academic success and their well-being.

Successful Learning workshops run for 1.5 – 2 hours. They are interactive and draw on participant interests and experiences so that learning is contextual and can be easily transferred into the home. They affirm and empower participants’ knowledge and confidence. They communicate the value of parents, teachers and others working together as partners in children’s learning.

Trained Successful Learning presenters run workshops for primary schools, kindergartens, early learning and child care centres, and community groups.

Based on research about parent influence, Successful Learning emphasises:

• the powerful influence of families, and especially parents/carers in children’s learning
• the importance of partnerships between home and school/preschool, and between parents and teachers
• the learning that takes place in the home, and how teachers can support home-based learning
• that parents need to know how children are being taught to read and write, and how they are progressing.

The Successful Learning program:

• gives school and early learning educators an excellent opportunity to support parents in their role as first and continuing educators
• highlights parent and family engagement as an important influence in children’s development, learning and life opportunities
• affirms parent/carer knowledge and skills and builds on these
• opens up conversations and opportunities for building good home-preschool and home-school relationships and partnerships
• enables and supports parents to be leaders and become trained program facilitators.

Successful Learning workshops cover:

• building good relationships, including through praise, feedback, confidence and esteem building
• reading and writing conventions, and how to respond appropriately to children’s early literacy
• the influence of children’s development milestones
• the foundations of mathematics and the how these can be promoted and developed at home
• practical ways that parents and families can help.