We introduced Friendship Groups in Year 1, 2 and 3 at the beginning of this school year.
The purpose of these Friends Groups was to provide an opportunity for children and their families to get to know each other better.
We have now asked parents and students about their experiences with this new initiative thus far .
Conclusion:
Student themselves are very positive about Friends Group (4,48 out of 5)
Parents are postive (3.91 and 3.87 out of 5)
Despite this positivity, most students seem to have only attended one friends group event thus far (on average)
"Lack of time" and "difficult to plan" seem to be most common reasons for the limited number of Friends Group that have been organised thus far.
This is what parents said:
A selection of the comments provided on the questionnaire:
"Child loved being invited to someone’s house and is eager to ask them back. Interesting for me to observe my child socially with his classmates. Good opportunity to meet a few other parents without it being overwhelming (like at parties)."
"It's positive for the children to interact with others that would normally not be their first choice. It was good to get her out of her comfort zone socially and see that she had a wonderful time!"
"Friends group is a really good idea, we tried it. Both children and parents really enjoyed. however parents are busy and we hardly managed to have one gathering so far. More encouragement towards having play days at least once a month would be helpful."
"I filled in this form with my child. He says it was nice and exciting. He was also a little nervous about going to somebody’s house where he had never been. 😃 "
"As we just moved it is a great opportunity for us to know the other parents."
"Hard getting parents to respond, we had to postpone one because of only one reply. Trying again next weekend."
"Life is busy and there have been several other Birralee-connected events this autumn, with other children at home it can feel hard to find a spare weekend. Few parents in the group have instigated meeting up."
"Good opportunity to meet the ones not usually manage to meet/invite."
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