The Craigroyston Primary School community celebrated last week when participants in the FAST programme received certificates following the completion of the project. Friends and families were joined by senior Children and Families officer Maureen Bryce and Save the Children’s Douglas Hamilton at the ‘graduation ceremony’.
Craigroyston was first school in the city to launch FAST, an innovative eight week programme which aims to help children to succeed at home, in school and in their communities by building strong relationships.
FAST – Family and Schools Together – is an evidence-based programme that has been shown to help children become successful learners. The FAST programme provides learning opportunities for children to develop confidence, take responsibility and contribute to the family, school and the wider community. The programme promotes an ethos of acceptance, trust, and respect and research has shown that FAST activities promote family communication, stability and cohesion.
Craigroyston Depute Head Teacher Ann Gallagher explained: “The team who run FAST is made up of school staff, parents, community workers and volunteers. The team goes through two days of training before running the eight week programme – the final week is a ‘Graduation ceremony’ to which special guests are invited. The idea comes from America and the sessions are made up of activities which involve families doing things together. The children then have ‘kids time’, where various activities are organized only for the children – things like sports activities, arts and crafts, ICT, and story time – and this means the parents can then have ‘parents time’ where the adults have a chance to talk together.”
She went on: “The main activity after that is called ‘special play’ when the adult has 15 minutes of uninterrupted one-to-one time to enjoy playing with one child in their family with special play resources. Groups are focused round 3 ‘hubs’ which have approximately 10 families in each, and one family each week provides a meal for their ‘hub’. It is targeted at children between the ages of three to eight but siblings can come along too.”
The programme proved very popular with participants. Mum Tina has two boys at Craigroyston and she really enjoyed the experience. “It’s really been amazing”, she said. “You spend time with the bairns and time with other adults too. I think I enjoy it more than the kids do! It’s so important to be able to spend time ‘one on one’ – it’s helping us a lot”.
Kerry – who has children at nursery and in school – agreed. “It’s been great, really good fun. I’ve had a lot of laughs with the other mums and I’m really glad we have taken part. We’ve all learned quite a lot and I hope they run the programme again”.
Save The Children’s Douglas Hamilton said: “The project has clearly been a great success and it’s been a pleasure to have been here to join in the celebrations. Well done to everyone who has been involved in the programme – it’s a fantastic achievement”.
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