Muslim Parents Handbook

One of the reasons for the establishment of Aspire was to increase the aspirations and educational achievement of Muslim children in a targeted approach, using the expertise gained by our members within the education sector. It is well documented that there are there are certain sections of the Muslim community who are not fulfilling their potential and we wished to address this through a critical component of the education process - parents.

We developed the idea of preparing a resource handbook with useful information for the parents of Primary school children.

This handbook included information on:

1. SATs and what they mean;
2. How to make the most of Parents' Evenings;
3. The importance of extra-curricular activities;
4. Becoming a governor;
5. Places to visit with children;
6. Opportunities for Fostering;
7. How to deal with bullying;
8. Keeping children safe on the internet.

The handbook was then published in English but with Urdu and Bengali translations in order to ensure that it was readily accessible to all communities.
The Launch of the Handbook took place in March 2007 with speeches by Kevin Crompton, Lord Bill McKenzie, Lord Nazir Ahmed and Dr Nazia Khanum and was then distributed through Luton schools.
Over four thousand handbooks were distributed mainly through parents' evenings. At these evenings, we were able to directly talk to parents about their concerns and gain feedback about the handbook.
Since the distribution of the handbook, there has been national interest in this project and it has been cited as an example of best practice by the Runneymede Trust.