At St Augustine’s High School, we recognise the crucial role parents and guardians have as the first educators of their children. As a school, we seek to facilitate greater parental involvement as a means of raising attainment for all our students.

On the school website, you will find lots of useful information for parents, including S1 Schemes of Work for each subject, course guides, information from the National Parent Forum of Scotland and resources highlighting “What can I do as a parent”, “Supporting Study” and information about the Scottish curriculum. The purpose of these resources is to empower parents and guardians to play an active role alongside the school, in ensuring that all of our young people reach their full potential.

This page provides you as parents and carers with further advice on to support your young person’s learning and wellbeing. It includes general information for parents about digital learning and SQA updates; support for parents’ wellbeing; support for pupils with ASN or EAL; and support for families facing financial difficulties.

Please remember that you can also contact your child’s Pupil Support Leader or Year Head for further advice and support. Please use the contact us form or the PSLs direct email address.

Please also follow our school twitter feed @staugustineshs

Information about Course Choices/ Learner Reviews

As you are aware, pupils make subject choices at various times during their school career. Further information and guidance can be found on our website here or on MyWorldofWork website.

Information and Support Websites

The council have added a new section to their website giving support to parents. You can follow this link to access this information: www.edinburgh.gov.uk/supportforfamilies

Parentzone Scotland is a website set up by Education Scotland, which provides information about the Scottish Education system. It currently has a large section on supporting learning at home in this current situation (literacy, numeracy, wellbeing, STEM etc.)

You can also sign up to receive regular newsletters which contain ideas, hints and tips for parents and carers, including activities that children can do on their own or families can do together. These activities are intended to complement the activities provided by the school and help your child have a broad range of learning experiences during the current school closure in particular.

Parenting Across Scotland has lots of information and support for parents and also suggests various helplines which you can call for further support and advice.

Parentclub whilst it is perhaps more aimed at parents of Younger children, it has a very good family support directory with a range of supports for different topic areas and ages.

A new resource has been produced by the mental health foundation to help children talk about their feelings with parents or carers.

The City of Edinburgh Council are still accepting applications for the online/ virtual Teen Triple P programme . If you contact them, they will discuss the support required with the parents and if appropriate can offer them the opportunity to complete an individual online Teen Triple P course with weekly supportive phone calls from one of our trained Teen Triple P facilitators. The City of Edinburgh Council are meeting the costs of the online courses.

A list of information and parent/ carer resources for families finding things difficult at present can be found here on the Edinburgh Council Webpage.

Our Parent Council have an active Facebook page and are always willing to hear from parents and carers. You can also find out more about their role here.

We have also included a list or organisations who support BAME pupils and their families and this can be found here.

Support for EAL Parents / Carers

Information about the Scottish Education system is available from Education Scotland’s Parentzone site.

• The Bell Foundation has some useful information for parents whose first language is not English on how to support their child.
• Support for families is also available from Education Scotland which includes links to other sites as well.

Please also look at the links which can be found here to support English language learning.

Support for Parents of Pupils with Additional Support Needs

Education Scotland also has information about additional support needs and how to get support and advice.

Enquire is the Scottish advice service for additional support for learning. It aims to raise awareness of children’s rights to extra support in school;help families and schools work together to ensure children get the support they need and provide advice to children and young people who might be struggling in school.

Council support available to families in financial difficulty

Information about support with financial difficulties can be found on our school website.

There are also Parent & Carer Support booklets which contain lots of information and advice for families, including how to access financial support in each locality.

The Advice Shop can provide helpwith welfare rights including income maximisation through welfare benefits, tax credits and grants; debt advice to resolve personal debt including credit cards, bank loans, rent arrears, personal loans, store cards, catalogues and mortgage arrears; help for people affected by cancer through information, advice and advocacy to access entitlements arising as a result of a cancer diagnosis and the extra costs of cancer.

Maximise! – We can help with: Income maximisation, Employability support, Family support, Money advice, Welfare rights, Housing advice. You can contact Maximise via: CHAI – Email: chai@chaiedinburgh.org.uk Tel: 0131 442 2100 or Children 1st: Children 1st, 83 Whitehouse Loan, Tel: 0131 446 2300 www.children1st.org.uk

Council support developed by CAMHS Early Intervention Team

We are excited to share some fantastic resources which have been developed by the CAMHS Early Intervention Team to help parents to support their child or teenager with anxiety. Please share the information widely with your colleagues and the parents and carers who use your service.

The supports available include-  

• Access to recorded two part information session webinars- Understanding Anxiety and Supporting your child with anxiety. These are also available in BSL.

• Access to two online module courses for parents based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)- Supporting your Child with Anxiety and Supporting your Teenager with Anxiety. Both courses allow parents to work through the course at their own pace, they are most suitable for parents looking to support their young person with worry and anxiety, while learning helpful strategies to manage their own anxieties. These modules are available via the platform Silvercloud. Sign up is free using the access code Lothian.

• Information on some great apps which are available for free across NHS Scotland for people 16+ on Sleep and Anxiety, and other useful websites and books.

• A link to the adult mental health website – Home – Wellbeing Lothian

Information on other supports for families can be found at www.edinburgh.gov.uk/supportforfamilies

Other council support: