New partnership with school in Gravesend
News article from May 2, 2015
School-Home Support (SHS) and Westcourt Primary & Nursery School in Gravesend have begun working together to support children and families to overcome barriers to education.
SHS is a charity that works with children and families to maximise educational opportunities and improve life chances. Partnering with schools and families, SHS looks beyond the classroom to understand and tackle the issues affecting children’s learning.
The most common barriers to education include housing crisis, mental and physical health issues, domestic violence, substance misuse and poverty. SHS delivers solution-focussed interventions, working directly with the whole family to address these underlying issues. This may mean emergency short-term support from their Welfare Fund, or longer in-depth work to tackle multiple and complex issues.
By tackling the root causes of absence and negative behaviour, over three quarters of the children SHS work with significantly improve their attendance giving them the opportunity to succeed in school and improve their life opportunities. From April 2015, SHS and Westcourt Primary & Nursery School will be working together to help end the intergenerational cycle of deprivation faced by children and families in the community.
SHS provides a practitioner to work directly in the school to engage with students and their families to improve attendance, increase their engagement in learning and improve their attainment.
Kim Shubrook, Headteacher at Westcourt Primary & Nursery School says “we are really pleased to welcome SHS to our school and can’t stress enough the importance of the role that they will provide for our children and their families. It is our vision to give our children every opportunity and as many inspirational experiences at school as possible. We want our children, through their learning, to become happy skilful motivated and confident citizens of the future. To achieve this we must break down any barriers that prevent them from doing so. I’m confident that SHS will help break down many of the barriers that prevent our children from fulfilling their emotional, personal and academic potential by supporting and working with our families, so that our children can achieve”.
Josephine Namusisi-Riley, Senior Manager of Services at SHS says “We are really pleased to be partnering with Westcourt Primary & Nursery School and to begin working with children and families in Kent. We know that by working with the whole family, we can support children to make the most out of their education and improve their life opportunities.”