An initiative is encouraging parents to become more involved with their children’s education

Aimed at three to eight year olds, the Families and Schools Together (FAST) project helps increase parents’ engagement in their children’s education by encouraging parents and children to perform everyday tasks and develop their skills together. By taking part in the project, families are also forming stronger links with their local communities and schools.

FAST was founded in 1988 by Professor Lynn McDonald, now a professor of social work at Middlesex University. The FAST scheme currently operates in 14 countries and 2,500 schools worldwide, including the US, Canada, and Australia. In the US, researchers who surveyed 10,000 children from 2004 to 2008 found 84 per cent of teachers reported improvements in students’ academic performance and 52 per cent of parents said they got more involved in the local school.

Across the UK, Save the Children has completed 15 FAST projects, reaching more than 1,000 children and their parents. Another 28 projects are under way now with one in West Dunbartonshire and one in Glasgow.

Save the Children chose to partner with FAST because we both believe in socially inclusive practice, share the same values – and evidence shows that it works.

The scheme aims to support parents to manage their family dynamics, through eight weekly sessions that take place in school. FAST helps families learn to cook a meal and sit down together to eat it. It coaches parents to read and play with their children and reinforces their role as head of the household by helping these parents learn to take decisions and give their children instructions.

We’re already seeing improvements in children’s educational skills, participation in the classroom and families’ relationships with their child’s school.

But our goal is to see FAST become an everyday part of school life so that millions of children can benefit. That is why we’re working hard to build up an evidence base of impact and to demonstrate how schools and local authorities can take sustainable ownership of the FAST programme themselves.

Research published earlier this month shows that the new FAST scheme in the UK has helped 9 per cent of three to eight-year-old children improve their reading, writing and maths after only eight weeks.

By 2014, we’ll establish over 400 groups across the UK, improving the life chances of 50,000 children and parents and training more than 8,000 new practitioners.

Between May and June this year, I was part of a FAST team in north London. I took part in each of the eight weekly sessions and worked hard to support families, some of whom did not have very strong relationships with the primary school, to make food, to meet new friends and to spend quality time with their children. But, the proof is always in the pudding, as they say. An evaluation of Save the Children FAST schemes found that:
■ At the start, teachers rated most children taking part in FAST as being in the lowest 30 per cent of their class for reading, writing and maths. After eight weeks of FAST, 9 per cent of the children had moved out of the lowest 30 per cent
■ Parental engagement in education increased by 73 per cent
■ 62 per cent of parents gained new friends
■ More than four in five families who began the course completed it.

In Scotland, the eight-week programme piloted at a school in West Dunbartonshire will now be expanded following its success. While FAST is open to everyone, of those families taking part, 46 per cent had incomes of under £9,999. FAST is a radical scheme that puts parents back at the head of families.

We know that children from more deprived backgrounds are falling behind their richer friends from as young as 19 months. By working with parents and children as young as three, we’re giving them a fairer chance to succeed at school and in life. We cannot afford to allow a generation of children to fall behind and to be condemned to a crushing vicious circle of inadequate education, poor skills and badly paid jobs.

I really enjoyed being part of the FAST team and getting to know all the children and families involved. There were lots of highs, such as seeing children who were really quite introverted at first coming out of their shells to take part in all the activities, as well as sharing jokes with parents.

But the entire experience is made all the sweeter by knowing that what felt right at the time, was making a real difference. The tide is turning towards more support for evidence-based, early intervention programmes. We are putting everything we’ve got into making sure that governments across the UK prioritise proven programmes, such as FAST, so that children living in poverty are given a fairer start at school, and the shameful early childhood ‘achievement’ gap shrinks, once and for all.