The single biggest opportunity to improve parental engagement is to plan effectively for it as part of a whole school approach.
This means understanding the current context and having a shared vision for parental engagement across a school that everyone can work towards.
With appropriate school-wide training and a strategic plan for parental engagement, activities are more outcome-focused and impactful.
Our book, The Four Pillars of Parental Engagement, examines four pillars – knowledge, environment, culture, communication – which can be used to guide strategic and tactical activities.
For example, has a school clearly equipped parents with sufficient knowledge to understand exactly how they can support their child’s learning?
Meanwhile, Cornwall Council’s Together for Families Directorate, supported by Parent Carer Cornwall, has developed a seven-point framework and toolkit to promote the partnership between pupils, parents, and school.
Over an 18 to 24-month period, the framework walks each school through a whole-school approach, building a strategy for improving parent/carer engagement.
The framework is available to all schools in Cornwall. Each school must nominate a senior leader to drive the programme, which usually focuses on improving one or two of the principles. Staff and parents are involved throughout the process, which has clear success criteria, linked to the school improvement plan, and the production of a case study to demonstrate impact.
The case studies below are from two of the schools that have engaged with the Parental Engagement Framework in Cornwall.
Case study 1: Building strong home-school connections
An inclusive and welcoming environment is the foundation from which a school can help families to actively support their child’s learning. This should be rooted in parents feeling that both theirs and their children’s voices are heard, valued, and celebrated.
For St Day and Carharrack Community School in Redruth, with higher than national numbers of SEN, disadvantaged, and EAL pupils, the post-Covid challenge was to build and maintain strong connections between home and school, especially regarding face-to-face communication.
Using the steps in the framework, the school asked parents what mattered to them and how they perceived the relationship with school.
One key finding was they didn’t all feel listened to or included. As a result, a new strategy to ensure parents/carers and their children felt their voices were being heard was implemented, including:
- Whole-school training and a governing body audit to ensure all key stakeholders were fully engaged and involved.
- Embracing the UNICEF Rights Respecting Schools initiative, including half-termly updates to parents and explicit stakeholder responsibilities.
- The “3 phone call Friday” saw each class teacher call three parents to celebrate what has gone well for their child that week, supported with coverage in the weekly school newsletter and on the school website.
- Weekly emails from class teachers to parents explaining learning for the week ahead and any specific items children would need, such as aprons or PE kit.
- Planning and communicating a year of family events, which the school also used to share key messages and priorities with parents/carers.
- Increased opportunities for parents of children with SEN to meet regularly, using “Tea and Talk” sessions to bring parents and external services together.
- “Parent-friendly” workshops to support with maths and phonics – the school now hosts an annual phonics party for year 1 families to come and learn about phonics alongside their child in an informal and fun manner.
The school has had positive feedback from parents/carers, staff and pupils regarding wellbeing, feeling welcomed and being listened to.
The deputy headteacher Laura Vallance said: “Parent/carer engagement is now a thread that runs through all of our decision-making when working at a strategic level. We continue to use our findings to help shape our provision based on what we now know better about our families.”
Key learnings from this case study
- Don’t assume – take time to listen and learn to ensure people feel valued.
- Celebrate the community’s children in as many ways as possible so that parents/carers can see that school is invested in their children.
- Strengthened community links demonstrate to children that learning happens everywhere, not just in a classroom.
Case study 2: Improving attendance
Addressing barriers to engagement was a key focus for Carbeile Junior School, a 7 to 11 school in Torpoint with approximately 340 pupils. Attendance was in line with national averages, but below what the school would wish for and higher than average for pupils identified as having SEN. The aim was to identify, support and bridge barriers with specific families – their “yet to reach” parents.
Following the planned approach within Cornwall Council’s framework, the school completed an initial parental engagement audit with the school leadership team, subsequently involving all teaching staff and then families. As a result, four initiatives were developed to better connect with specific families:
Attendance and lateness: Specific families with persistent low attendance or lateness were identified and sent letters of support. Reminders about the importance of attendance and punctuality were highlighted in newsletters. Subsequent positive letters were sent out the following term to 62% of these families as their attendance or lateness had improved.
Online tracking system for parents’ evenings: A simple online booking system for parents’ evenings was implemented, allowing the school to closely monitor which families did not sign up (the yet to reach families).
Pupils’ transition support: Feedback suggested that transition from the main feeder infant school was difficult for some pupils. As such, the school increased transition activities, giving children and their families a range of opportunities to meet their new teacher and find out about their new school. This also enabled the school to explain to new families how communication would work.
Supporting parents with home learning: The school developed “how-to” information packs and videos which were sent to all parents with clear guidance and support for home learning. These were also posted on the school website and specific information packs were created for the new cohort. Various workshops were led by teaching staff with the aim of equipping and empowering families to support their child at home.
Headteacher Pete Hamlyn told us: “With the greater emphasis on attendance, more parents are discussing its importance and sharing any concerns with staff. This has helped our school to identify the barriers to attendance and support wherever possible. Parents now know how important attendance is.”
Key lessons learned
- Move the emphasis from the relationship between parents and school to a focus on the relationship between parents and their children’s learning.
- When parent/carer engagement is embedded in a school ethos, families are increasingly seen as partners in their child’s education.
- Justin Robbins and Karen Dempster are the founders of Fit2Communicate, Fellows of the Institute of Internal Communications, and certified DISC personality profile practitioners. Their book The Four Pillars of Parental Engagement (Crown House Publishing, 2021) is available via www.crownhouse.co.uk/the-four-pillars-of-parental-engagement
- Nicky Hepworth is a teacher and leader with more than 30 years’ experience in education. She has held senior leadership positions in school, higher education, and leading national projects. Nicky is currently a curriculum advisor working in the School Effectiveness Team at Cornwall Council and has led on the development and implementation of the local authority’s Parental Engagement Framework.