In short, parental engagement refers to the idea that both teachers and families are responsible for a child’s education. As a result, parental engagement in education is used to describe when parents and carers make meaningful engagement in a child’s academic learning.
Parental involvement refers to the two-way relationship between parents and the school. For example, volunteering to chaperone on school trips, or helping to create costumes and props for the school play.
Parental engagement, however, describes the relationship between parents and their children’s education in general. It covers everything and anything a parent can do to foster a positive learning environment, whether that’s at home (chatting about school over dinner), school, or other community settings (swimming lessons).
Parental involvement can be thought of as the first step to family engagement. With family engagement, home and school come together as a team.
However, it’s important to note that: “engagement with children’s learning may not equate to – and should not be judged on the bases of – [involvement] with the school. Many parents – particularly those from ethnic minorities or those facing economic challenge, find [involvement with schools difficult, but still have a strong desire to be involved in their children’s learning and education.”
It's long been known that the more engaged parents are with their child’s education, the more likely the child is to do well at school. We wrote more about this
In fact, John Hattie suggested that parental engagement is equivalent to adding two to three years to a student’s education. We wrote about this in more detail on our blog post 'How to Cut Through the Noise and Reach More Parents'. Clearly, then, parental engagement can provide a huge advantage for a child’s academic progression.
However, this also indicates that students lacking in that area need more help than ever before. Especially considering the lost learning that took place between 2020-2021 and the fact that disadvantaged students have lost out considerably more than others.
The new Ofsted framework specifically mentions parental engagement, saying:
"Inspectors will make a judgement on the effectiveness of leadership and management by evaluating the extent to which leaders engage effectively with learners and others in their community, including – where relevant – parents, carers, employers and local services...engagement opportunities are focused and have purpose."
So, why is engaging parents in schools so important to Ofsted inspectors? Well, according to previous publications from Ofsted:
"Parental engagement can be a powerful lever for raising achievement in schools and there is much research to show the value of schools and parents working together to support pupils’ learning. Schools have been encouraged to shift from simply involving parents with the school to enabling them to engage themselves more directly with their children’s learning."
Clearly then, parental engagement should be high on the priority list for any school wishing to make a full academic recovery from the impacts of the pandemic.
Parental engagement can be broken down into six separate categories:
Parental engagement has been repeatedly found to be one of the most effective measures for improving outcomes for students. In fact, research has stated: “The more parents are engaged in the education of their children, the more likely their children are to succeed in the education system.”
That said, what are some of the invaluable social and emotional benefits provided by increased parental engagement?
1. Family engagement equals student successAccording to research, children with families engaged in their education are more likely to:
Disadvantaged pupils have been found to make less academic progress and even regress during the summer holidays. However, by designing and delivering effective approaches to parental engagement, schools may be able to mitigate some of these causes of educational disadvantage by supporting parents to encourage their children’s learning.
3. Improves confidence and self esteem
When children have parents who are enthusiastic and engaged about their learning, those children are empowered to be more enthusiastic and engaged as well. This can result in more confident children who have better social skills and classroom behaviour, with improved motivation and less of a need for redirection.
4. Creates a sense of community
According to Helen Keller, ‘Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much.’ And it goes to show, as parents who are aware of what is going on in their child’s education and take steps to become more involved with school activities and the curriculum help to build a more cohesive community.
Interestingly, parental engagement in primary schools is far more common than in secondary.
There has been a lot of research into the reasons for this, with the main finding being that secondary schools are large, complex places, with multiple teachers with whom to build relationships.
In addition, in primary school children are generally collected by their parents or carers, providing opportunities for parents to accompany their children into school and get to know their teachers. In secondary school, however, pupils are generally at a more independent stage and no longer reliant on parents and carers to collect them.
Other reasons include:
The good news is, when schools work with parents there are plenty of straightforward ways these barriers to engagement can be overcome. With that in mind, here are six steps to improving parent engagement in schools:
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