The P&C told us “Our Kindy Connect and Preschool Connect programs organise informal playdates for preschool or kindy groups out-of-school hours. They help organise the first few events but pretty quickly the groups organise their own ongoing.” 

“Our P&C team provides a pathway for new preschool or kindy parents and families that are trying to connect with each other. At the start of each year the P&C organises an out-of-school welcome event for the preschool children and their parents or carers, with a separate event for kindy children and families.” 

“It’s a great opportunity for children to play together outside of the school day, and great for adults to meet each other too. We’ve just supported our kindy parents and carers to organise their first out-of-school event. For the Kindy Connect event in March, we spent $80 on juice poppers, balloons, frankfurters, and fruit skewers.” 

The small investment seems well worth it.  

“We had lovely feedback from the parents, thanking us for bringing them together.” 

“During COVID we weren’t able to build the P&C networks so, in a way, this year we were starting from scratch. Bringing new families together is an important part of building the P&C network and this year they were really keen to connect so it served two purposes. They got to meet each other and we got to introduce them to the P&C and the value that being involved can bring.” 

“We also have a P&C newsletter that goes out to parents, so we encourage new families to subscribe via Mailchimp. This helps us manage privacy issues and gives families control over their own data, to update or unsubscribe when they want. There’s a QR code in the school newsletters that links to our online subscriber page, and it’s also on a poster at the Kindy Connect events. When parents sign up, we ask them about ways they might be interested in helping, such as bake sales, BBQs etc.” 

“Instead of having class representatives where we’d have sixteen different parents managing contact lists, with potential privacy problems, we went for the opt-in MailChimp system. We email parents annually and ask them to update their children’s year and to update their preferences regarding volunteer interests.” 

“In the past, we’ve heard from parents who have wanted to get involved but didn’t know how to, or who to contact. Now parents have a clear pathway and connection point and can easily stay in the loop.” 

“As a P&C, it’s hard to fill positions on the committee and impossible to arrange succession if we haven’t made those early connections with families. It’s so important for building community - giving something fun and supportive to families through the Connect events, without expecting them to join our P&C committee, is valuable.” 

This article is part of a series "At Our P&C..." sharing great things that ACT P&Cs are doing.