Ms Aisling Browne:

Regarding bringing parents into the school, in my role - and Ms Gannon and I work very closely together - the building of relationships, specifically the building up of that trusting relationship with parents, is so important. We have been in a very good position; we have had a parents' room. Actually, at present it is a building site as we are in the middle of a new build, but we will have a new parents' room, I hope, in September 2018. Our parents' room is open first thing in the morning. It is a welcoming space. It is a space for parents. We facilitate the activities in that parents' room.

Ms Gannon and I, like previous HSCL teachers, make sure the parents have ownership of that room. Parents come into the room, they feel welcome there, they talk to one another, and there is a space where they can talk in private if they need to talk to one of the HSCL teachers, but it is their room, their space. It is there that they can talk to one another, share ideas, share problems and find solutions, working together.

Facilitating and providing courses for parents is also of huge importance. These courses can be very simple - Ms Tobin referred to classes in sewing and painting and so on - but we have experienced in Newbridge that many target parents have many talents. We have run many parent-led classes. A dad came to do cookery classes with a group of parents over a number of weeks. A mum came to work on cooking with parents as well. That kind of parental engagement is super. One does not always get it, but it is a big success.

Another thing in HSCL is that it is so difficult to measure one's success. However, I remember two years ago speaking with my principal, Brian O'Reilly, while looking out the window at a group of parents whom we had encouraged to paint the yard for the kids. There were times we drove around town calling out the windows at them. I looked out the school window with my principal, Brian, and said: "That is success." There was a mum who had had a terrible time, had been in prison and so on and had defied all the odds. Her child was in school that day, and she was kneeling down painting a snake or something in the junior infants' yard. That is huge success. If we can offer that to a family or to one person, we are reaching our goal and we are getting there. It is also a matter of opportunities to work with the classroom teachers. We involve parents in science week and maths week, and parents come to work with groups of children for maths trails. To get the parents into the school, we want them to feel they are part of this too and that it is not just the children and not just those teachers up there. They are as much a part of the school as their children are. We want them to feel it is a safe space for them to come to.