FOUR St Helens primary schools have been chosen to represent the North West in a national learning project aimed at giving parents a more active role in their children's education.

Allanson Street Primary, Parr; Sutton Manor; Chapel End, Billinge; and Rectory CE Primary in North Ashton will take part in SHARE. Only four other council areas have been selected to take part in Southwark, Birmingham, Warwickshire and Gloucestershire.

The scheme builds on past project work with parents and the experiences of many schools, and seeks to make an important contribution to the quality of parental involvement in schools.

Parents of Year One children will be invited to use materials produced by SHARE at home, which will complement what is being taught in school, and teachers will be trained in introducing the materials to parents.

For the first three terms the materials will be structured around complementing the classroom teaching of English and maths.

The project is a joint initiative between St Helens Council and the CEDC - the national centre for community education based at Coventry which is leading the scheme.

It is hoped that SHARE will be adopted nationally in 1998 by schools across the country and a kite mark will be awarded to participating schools. Schools will receive a small payment for taking part, as well as teacher cover for three teacher training days.

The St Helens launch of SHARE will take place at St Helens Town Hall at 2pm on Monday, September 23.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.