Communication and Friends of the School
By Giles Pritchard

One clear and defining factor in the success of any program or venture is communication.  Communication in regard to a school program can mean many things, communicating expectations, communication between students and providers, between teachers, and between school leaders and teachers or students.  There is one group that any Principal will tell you should always be involved and communicated with, and that is the parent body of the school.  Parents and families are the stakeholders and supporters that partner with the school to provide a relevant and holistic education for their children.  Communication between school and parent is vital, and parent bodies are important groups to communicate with about the programs you run at your school.

All schools here in Australia, and I would suggest in most places about the world, have some form of School Board or Parents Committee, in addition to this group, our school is trialling a communication centred, but socially orientated parents and friends group.  This group has been formed to provide support between parents, to provide a social context for get togethers, and of course to build a strong but enjoyable platform for communication between the school and the homes of our families.

Running events for The Friends of the School group is a way of communicating with the broader parent community about the various programs and resources we have at our school.  Our first forum was centered around the use of Interactive Whiteboards, our second focused on our board game collection.

We wanted to forum to communicate several things: how proud we are of our game collection and its uses, how much students get out of our collection in terms of leadership, how educational board games can be, and how important good social interaction is to the development of a child. 

We began the forum with a small discussion about how we had used our games collection, from the games club, to the games day, to specialised programs and supporting curriculum.  Following this we felt that a hands-on approach would best teach the lessons we wanted to teach.  Experience is better than explanation sometimes.

Those who have read about our school game days will know we have a group of students we call the ‘Game Ambassadors’, these are the student leaders responsible for the teaching and selection of games.  The Game Ambassadors and myself brainstormed as to which of the games from our collection would be best suited to the Friends of the School forum, as we wanted to show off games that were both fun and made you think.  The games the kids selected were Qwirkle, Pickomino, Carcassonne, The Chain Game, Apples to Apples Jnr., Back Seat Drawing among others.

So after our 15 minute discussion at the beginning, it was over to the kids and the games.  I have chosen this month to write about this forum because of this exact reason: the best reasons for the games program, the best that the games program had to offer was evident right there in that room when I finished talking, it was a room of people talking, kids and adults, a room where there was teaching and learning taking place, with student leaders teaching and parents learning.  A room of social banter mixed with planning and thought.  A room that had just made that ‘aha’ sound, of people clicking with the games, of people as enamoured of the Games Ambassadors as I was, of people smiling with a newly acquired appreciation of the students and of a world of board games that they had known little about.  And of all the people smiling that day, my smile was probably the widest.