Reading Champions dads - Communicating with dads

The first step is trying to drive home the message to dads that they do play a very important role in their child's education. Some dads may simply see themselves as the breadwinner and view school as something that mum takes care of. Men tend to be acheivement focussed, so emphasise the fact that reading with their child or taking an interest in their child's school work can have a great impact on acheivement and improved behavoiur. Here are some strategies to set up an initial communication link to get messages across to dads:

• Use your contact - If current contact is minimal try to exploit the opportunities you do have. Have information to distribute at parents evenings, sports day and school football matches, as well as at the school gates. Remember to try and make the information look interesting and fun. Flyers might be better than letters. If you are able to persuade a small group of men to get involved you can build on that with their help.

• Use the mums – many mums act as gatekeepers for their child’s education. Involve the mums in encouraging the dads to get on board. It's important to put things forward in a positive way to avoid this being seen as nagging. Even when parents are seperated many mothers are happy for fathers to be contacted if it will be of benefit to the child.

• Look at the whole-school attitude – there may be mistrust on both sides of the fence and any good work you do can be undone in a moment if you do not have everybody on board or at least aware of what you are doing. Try to ensure that the whole school is aware and infavour of the messages that you are putting out to dads and the methods by which you are going about it. This should also help you to get other members of staff to support what you're doing.

• Use the kids - when children are choosing books ask them what kind of books they think their dad would like to share with them - and then ask them to report back on if their dad enjoyed reading the book tehy'd chosen.

• Look at the stock - Are there father figures or male role models in the books within your stock? Are the men featured in a positive light?

• Speak to them directly – events labelled for ‘parents’ tend to attract predominantly mothers, if you want to target dads make it explicit.

• Use a dad-friendly hook – When sending messages home, dads are more likely to take an interest in sport, cartoons, instructions or a picture of a pint of beer! If you are putting information in a newsletter or message home, try to write in a way that will appeal to things that you know many dads already like.