A GUIDE to best practice in family learning is to be launched in County Durham next week.

About 200 people are expected at the launch and celebration of the work of the Family Learning Project at Durham County Cricket Ground, Chester-le-Street, on Thursday.

The Best Practice Guide includes examples, comments and photographs from activities in the county and will be sent to schools, Durham County Council's Education in the Community service, and other family learning partners.

It will be launched by family learning officer Jeanne Haggart, from the National Institute for Adult and Continuing Education, who will speak about family learning in a national and County Durham context.

The keynote speaker will be Professor Charles Desforges, from the University of Exeter, who has carried out research into the impact of parental involvement on pupil achievement. His findings have been published by the Department for Education and Skills.

For the past ten years, the county council's Education in the Community service has been directly involved in developing, promoting and delivering the family learning programme.

This led to the education service bidding for Single Regeneration Budget 6 (SRB6) funding to develop wider family learning activities and to improve the attainment of pupils and the basic skills of adults.

The SRB6 Partnership Project started in 2001 and has supported about 500 family learning activities including literacy, numeracy, art, craft, music, family Spanish, learning on the farm, football, story sacks and gardening.