Home School Community Plan
Home School Community Plan:
The Home School Community Plan is based on the principle of partnership between homes, schools and communities. This partnership is characterised as "a working relationship that is characterised by a sense of purpose, mutual respect and the willingness to negotiate. This implies a sharing of information, responsibility, skills, decision-making and accountability". (Pugh, 1989).
Family-involvement programs are an effective way to facilitate partnerships between the home and the school. Programs developed by school personnel can provide a forum for parents and children to experience learning in an atmosphere quite different from the usual classroom setting. Locations for the interaction might include the school library, cafeteria, or multi-purpose room. Evening programs may take place outside the school in other community buildings.
Children and parents are encouraged to participate in a series of evening activities during which they explore science ideas. During the exploration, teachers take on the role of facilitator and encourage the families to look at familiar things in a different way. Families are encouraged to discover something again, for the first time. The science does not have to be high-tech or complicated. The equipment should not be sophisticated. The goal is to demystify science, to promote the notion that everyone is a scientist and everyone can do science.
The content of the session should take a back seat to the promotion of the process skills. Observation, measurement, prediction, experimentation, data collection and interpretation, classification, and so on are lifelong skills that can be useful in many different contexts. Use of everyday materials will encourage families to continue their journey through the discovery process at home. Parents will soon see that their attitudes toward science have changed, and this change will ultimately impact the attitudes of their children. Children will benefit from seeing
The Home School Community Plan is based on the principle of partnership between homes, schools and communities. This partnership is characterised as "a working relationship that is characterised by a sense of purpose, mutual respect and the willingness to negotiate. This implies a sharing of information, responsibility, skills, decision-making and accountability". (Pugh, 1989).
Family-involvement programs are an effective way to facilitate partnerships between the home and the school. Programs developed by school personnel can provide a forum for parents and children to experience learning in an atmosphere quite different from the usual classroom setting. Locations for the interaction might include the school library, cafeteria, or multi-purpose room. Evening programs may take place outside the school in other community buildings.
Children and parents are encouraged to participate in a series of evening activities during which they explore science ideas. During the exploration, teachers take on the role of facilitator and encourage the families to look at familiar things in a different way. Families are encouraged to discover something again, for the first time. The science does not have to be high-tech or complicated. The equipment should not be sophisticated. The goal is to demystify science, to promote the notion that everyone is a scientist and everyone can do science.
The content of the session should take a back seat to the promotion of the process skills. Observation, measurement, prediction, experimentation, data collection and interpretation, classification, and so on are lifelong skills that can be useful in many different contexts. Use of everyday materials will encourage families to continue their journey through the discovery process at home. Parents will soon see that their attitudes toward science have changed, and this change will ultimately impact the attitudes of their children. Children will benefit from seeing