To maximise your membership and the effectiveness of your Parent Club, you’ll want to make your activities as inclusive as possible – that is, everyone feels welcome and included in club events or activities.
Parent Clubs work best when they involve the whole school community!
It doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming – just set up some basic goals and processes, and keep working at it over time.
Identify your opportunities
Every school community is different. Think about who comes to your events, who volunteers for activities, who you have on your committee. Are there groups in your school community who are not represented? Why might those groups not feel included? What can you do to welcome them?
Why people don’t feel included:
- Cannot physically access event
- Don’t feel welcome
- Don’t feel safe
- Can’t afford it
- Promotion suggests this event is for others, not me
- Some element of event goes against religious/cultural beliefs
Mothers Day and Fathers Day events
Stalls or special events for Mothers Day and Fathers Day are among the most popular events run by Parent Clubs. However, these events may not be inclusive of all family types. Children may be effectively excluded if they are from single-parent families, families of same-sex couples or other non-typical family and kinship arrangements.
Mothers Day and Fathers Day gift stalls may lead to some families feeling excluded if they express gender stereotypes in the gifts and cards available, for example fashion accessories and floral cards for mothers, tools and vintage-car cards for fathers.
Suggestions
Consider re-naming the event – for example, a Mothers Day event can become a Mothers and Special Persons Day event.
Here’s an example at Oakleigh South Primary School in 2024 (scroll down in the school newsletter to see the article).
Images for the event may include a range of people to emphasise that other ‘special people’ apart from mothers may be appreciated and celebrated on this day.
If you’re running a stall selling cards/gifts, make sure there’s a range of card images and gift types so that they are suitable for a wide range of special people.
Event promotion could acknowledge that not all families are the same and that everyone can thank and acknowledge a special person in their life.
Other events
Making your events as inclusive as possible may involve thinking about a number of different aspects of the event:
Access
- Is the venue accessible to people with mobility impairments, e.g. wheelchair users? When setting up events, you may need to ensure pathways are wide enough.
- Is there an accessible toilet?
- Are there seats available for people who can’t stand for long periods?
- Is the venue accessible by public transport? Is car parking available, especially disability parking?
- Make sure you include information about accessibility in your promotions. Don’t leave people guessing about whether the venue is accessible to them.
- Do your volunteers know that assistance animals (e.g. guide dogs for people with visual impairments) are legally entitled to enter public facilities, even where animals are normally not allowed?
Safety
- Are there hazards at the venue for users with disabilities, e.g. visual impairments, deafness?
- If running a night-time event, is there adequate lighting in and around the venue?
- If food is for sale, e.g. a cake stall, labelling of food ingredients may be critical, especially for potentially allergenic ingredients such as peanut and egg.
Harassment and discrimination
In some circumstances you may wish to publish a code of conduct or policy that makes clear to all participants that harassment or offensive behaviour/comments, even if disguised as “jokes” will not be tolerated. All participants should have confidence that they will not be picked on, discriminated against or harassed at your events.
Cultural considerations
- Does your event recognise and include the diversity of families and cultural backgrounds at your school? This is an important consideration in making your event inclusive. For some events you may be able to include a particular group at the school by inviting members of that group to represent their culture in some way – food, art, clothing, music or dance performance. And as a bonus – you’ll have a more interesting event for everyone!
- For events where food and drink are served, consider what choices you need to offer to make sure your event is inclusive. For example, if you know there is a cultural group at your school that observes a particular dietary restriction, ensure there is suitable food available. At some events this may also apply to drinks – you may need to make sure there are non-alcoholic drinks available.
- If food is for sale, e.g. a cake stall, labelling of food ingredients may also be important for both cultural and health reasons.
Affordability/payment
- Are there low or no cost options for people to enjoy your event?
- If this event inevitably involves high cost, are there other events during the year that can be enjoyed with low or no cost?
- Many people do not carry cash these days. Are EFTPOS facilities available? You may need to discuss this with your Business Manager and School Council.
Forums/discussions
If you are holding open forums/discussions, try to ensure that everyone feels confident to speak, even groups that traditionally don’t speak up. In some cases this may require active encouragement ‘behind the scenes’.
Keep inclusiveness on the agenda
As a busy volunteer, it’s easy to forget about inclusiveness when planning your events. Try to find ways to build inclusiveness into your planning processes, such as:
- Using the above points as a quick checklist when planning events.
- Make inclusiveness a regular agenda item at your meetings. Even if there’s sometimes nothing to discuss, it will keep the issue ‘front of mind’ for your committee.
- Appoint a committee member with a specific role to keep an eye on inclusiveness of your club’s activities. Some clubs have even formed a sub-committee to work on equity and inclusiveness.
Communication
- Try to include a diverse range of people in images you use for promotion. For example, if all your images only show mothers with children, this may send a message to fathers that this event/activity is not for them.
- Consider whether your communications will be clear to everyone in your school community. For example, will everyone know what a ‘silent auction’ or ‘bring a plate’ means?
- If you’re setting up online sign-up forms where you require people’s personal details, allow for diversity. Do you really need a title (Mr, Mrs etc)? Do you really need the person’s gender? If so, allow a diverse option e.g. “Prefer not to say” or “Non-binary”. Do you really need the person’s given and family names in separate fields? If so, “First name/Last name” labels can be confusing as in some cultures the family name is given first. “Given name/Family name” might be better.
The company you keep
Ensure that other groups/individuals you associate with also practise inclusivity. For example, advertisers, sponsors, guest speakers, fundraising companies. Look out for sexualised or stereotypical advertising and “jokes” that may be offensive. If inviting guest speakers, panellists or performers to your events, try for diversity.
Tell your community
Make sure your school community knows that the Parent Club aims to be inclusive. Write up an inclusiveness statement or a policy, and publish it, (or check if your school has one). Put it on your meeting agenda as a standing item. Just saying it is not enough on its own, but it’s a great start. Here’s a example of an Inclusion and Diversity policy from Bayles Primary School (Download PDF 
) You may not require this much detail, but there are some great ideas here.
Keep it reasonable
There’s a limit to what Parent Club volunteers can do. Much as you might like to have every single person able to participate, some inclusiveness measures may be beyond your means and abilities. Concentrate on what you can do realistically, and on what will have the widest impact.
