Reception Guide

Parents of schoolchildren are members of the education community (comunitat educativa). You therefore can and should get involved in your child's education through the association of parents of pupils (associació de mares i pares d'alumnes) of the pre-primary and primary schools (escola d'educació infantil i primària) or secondary school (institut d'educació secundària) they attend.

Both state and private schools have AMPAs. Such associations aim:

• To be involved in every stage of the education process in order to participate in and promote the general development of Catalonia's education system.

• To work to achieve a greater degree of participation and commitment among parents, children, teenagers and everyone connected with education.

Being a member of the AMPA of your child's school will make you more familiar with the way the education system works and enable you to participate in the school's decision-making bodies, as the AMPA represents parents before the school council (Consell Escolar) and is involved in organising the school's annual activity programme, in accordance with the corresponding education plan (Projecte educatiu).

Each school's AMPA is responsible for overseeing education-related support activities for parents and children alike, such as:

• Running extracurricular activities (activitats extraescolars) and summer activity programmes (casals d'estiu).

• Running the out-of-hours childcare service (servei d'acollida) before school begins in the morning and after it ends in the afternoon.

• Supervising school meals.

• Organising lectures, workshops and informative socio-educational activities for families, in addition to helping the parents of the school's pupils to get to know each other.

• Participating in programmes and projects for improving relations between the school and society, such as local education plans (plans educatius d'entorn).

For further information on local education plans, see
http://www.xtec.cat/lic/entorn/index.htm

Being a member of an AMPA enables you to make suggestions and take part in organising the activities described above.

If your child is at primary school and you would like further information, see the website of the Federation of Catalan Associations of Parents of Primary School Pupils (Federació d'Associacions de Mares i Pares d'Alumnes de Catalunya d'Ensenyament Primari, FAPAC) at
http://www.fapac.net/

If your child is at secondary school, see the website of the Federation of Associations of Parents of Secondary School Pupils (Federació d'Associacions de Mares i Pares d'Alumnes d'Ensenyament Secundari, FAPAES) at
http://www.fapaes.net/

Additional information on this topic is available from the Education section of this website.