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Parents and Children Together (PACT) is a ten-week Family
Literacy, Language and Numeracy (FLLN) course which works
through IT - not to be confused with the adoption charity
of the same name. Some sessions are just for parents and focus
on IT and basic skills; parents also work together to make
teaching aids, and learn techniques for helping their children
to read. Other sessions are just for children, and typically
focus on reading strategies. There are also joint sessions,
in which parents and children read together, write stories
and play games - fun is seen as an essential ingredient. Parents
also have the opportunity to discuss wider issues such as
homework and bullying.
Bill Williamson and Stewart Martin, University of Durham,
November 2003
This evaluation of the PACT programme covers 129 pupils
and their parents or carers, in 18 primary schools in County
Durham, from 1998-2001. It concludes that PACT is an effective
vehicle for promoting the development of basic skills and
family learning. However, the gains are less apparent in the
case of the parents' literacy skills than in that of the children.
Increases in children's reading ages are sometimes quite dramatic,
and the gains seem to occur irrespective of the ability or
learning previously demonstrated by the children, or of the
academic profile or socio-economic context of the school.
In the case of parents, PACT is found to be a framework that
supports their learning and skills development, but it is
not clear that the parents involved always understood that
the scheme is intended to improve their own basic skills.
The evaluation also found that it was particularly difficult
to reach those parents and families in the greatest need,
and also to reach fathers. In some cases parents were targeted
by the school simply because of their known willingness to
participate in school activities. However, parents particularly
appreciated the fact that the programme improved their understanding
of their children's learning and their links with the school.
For some parents PACT was a springboard to accessing other
courses and to securing employment, and most who took part
gained an IT certificate.
Some of the key findings of the evaluation are that schools
need more help to "mainstream" some of the practices
of PACT in order to sustain the gains made, without seeing
themselves as dependent for this work on additional funding
and staff resources. If this does not happen, PACT will remain
a one-off initiative that "cannot compensate for the
complex social inequalities that generate the problems for
which it is a solution". PACT practices should also be
spread to other schools in the county, and engagement should
be made with other learning providers, to promote better parental
contact with schools and further learning opportunities for
those finishing the programme.
(PACT in County Durham was funded through the Single Regeneration
Budget round 5. It is no longer running in the county but
other FLLN and IT family learning programmes continue.)
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