Helping out at school is a great way to get involved in your child’s education as well as get to know the staff and other parents and carers.
Research shows that children benefit when their parents or carers are actively involved in their education and school life.
You can help by:
- listening to children read in the classroom
- volunteering on sports days
- helping supervise excursions
- getting involved in fundraising activities
- joining school committees.
Please complete the Declaration for Child-Related Workers form and return the form to the Admin Office in person, together with 2 forms of identification, before volunteering.
Class parents
Artarmon Public School asks one or more parents from each class to volunteer as class parents. Class parents play an important communication role in our school and are used to help with the information flow at a class level between parents, teachers, the school and the parents and citizens' assocation (P&C).
The class parent network is supported by the P&C in conjunction with the school. If you are interested in becoming a class parent, speak to your child's teacher.
The P&C works with class parents to communicate and explain information on P&C activities throughout the year.
The types of activities a class parent may be involved with include:
- putting together and distributing a class contact list—this is a particularly useful resource for all parents in the class when it comes to organising play dates, birthday parties and car-pooling
- supporting the teacher—each teacher will have his/her own way of working which may require help, such as co-ordinating class volunteers for reading groups or excursions
- the co-ordination of volunteer support for school and P&C social events and projects
- being the class contact for the P&C—you may want to represent the interests of your class by attending the monthly P&C meeting and report back to the parents any P&C decisions
- organising a special occasion (for example, birthday, engagement, Christmas, thank-you) gift for the teacher, if appropriate
- encouraging parents to attend P&C meetings
- encouraging parents to volunteer at canteen at least once a term
- encouraging parents to become involved in other school activities such as social events, fund raising, working bees etc.
- the organisation of social gatherings for the parents and/or families in your class—given everyone's hectic lifestyles it is reasonable to aim for one to two events during the year
- encouraging parents and carers of children each class to feel welcome at the school and be involved with their child's class
- welcoming any new family by ensuring they meet other parents
- ensuring a two-way flow of information between the school and the parents when required.