PARENT ENGAGEMENT
Parent engagement in school: information and tools
According to the Spanish Ministry of Education, parents or caregivers’ high expectations and demands, and their sense of belonging to school are the two main factors which cause an impact to students’ academic performance and parents participation in school.
Research has proven that successful schools regarding family engagement share those two key elements. Therefore, school leaders and teachers should try to find procedures to reach out for parents in different ways, as they need to feel committed to actively supporting their children learning. When parents and school work hand by hand, they can deliver clear consistent messages to children and boost positive attitudes towards learning, thus improving school effectiveness.
Consequently, the Spanish Ministry of Education establishes a set of recommendations for both Schools and parents/caregivers:
Recommendations addressed to families:
– Families should pay careful attention to favoring opportunities for all members to spend time together. Accordingly, main meals seem an appropriate moment to share everyday casual conversations. Parents should not disregard everyday family activities, as they have a positive impact on academic performance.
– Communication flow between parents and school should play a significant role, regardless of the age of the children. Information should be more than just transmitting advice or reports from one agent to the other. It should entail real and sincere dialogue.
– Parents board should resort to other parents or experts to obtain specific training in areas related to their childhood upbringing and well-being.
– The feeling of belonging to school is the element which causes more impact to parental commitment in school. Therefore, families should place considerable importance to participating in the school project, as well as making a thorough decision on the school they want for their children.
– All families, regardless of their social background, should have high academic expectations, as this has proven a common pattern in successful students. Parents can contribute to high academic achievement by monitoring the school life of their children.
Recommendations addressed to schools:
– Schools should facilitate the parents board a proper room to carry out their meetings, as well as support and advice.
– Leading teams should include in their school training plans the development of attitudes and knowledge, both of which cause a positive impact on academic performance and school coexistence.
– Schools should try to find ways to foster the feeling of belonging to the school. Families should be involved in a wide range of activities. This is particularly true of schools in low sociocultural contexts.
– There should be a welcoming non-threatening atmosphere at the school. Information should be easily accessible for parents. Mutual trust should be encouraged through reaching agreements or even signing contracts.
This piece of advice is oriented towards parental participation in a two-folded way: families must see the importance of their commitment to school, and schools need to consider enlisting the aid of parents.
Enlisting the aid of parents:
Schools can foster the aid of families through three main actions: communication, engagement, and sustainability.
Establishing communication: Communication is a key element. School administrators and leaders should offer a wide range communication channels in order to reach as many parents as possible. Creating a survey or interviewing families to find out which ways are more successful in establishing and maintaining communication can work to secure effective parent engagement. Besides, school staff should also make sure parents feel welcome at school.
Families and school staff need to agree on the vision, mission, and values of their school. Having a shared sense of purpose and values can help strengthen the bonds between both agents. An activity such as the bull’s eye activity (see materials), carried out with the help of school staff, can help families to select those topics they want their school to develop more profoundly. In this sense, Parent engagement: strategies for involving parents in school health, offers a set of questions addressed to teachers and families which can work as an accurate self-assessment.
Engagement: Once the communication strategy has been implemented, schools need to engage parents in school life. As Parent engagement: strategies for involving parents in school health states, there are six ways by which this can be carried out:
– Providing parenting support: through web seminars, workshops, praising and rewarding desirable attitudes, holding school-sponsored activities in settings where parental presence is high…
– Communicating with parents: Using a variety of communication methods (moodle, flyers, radio announcements, parent-teacher conferences, a monthly calendar of events, door hangers…), appointing a parent liaison, creating opportunities at school to work on intercultural issues…
– Providing a variety of volunteer opportunities: Encouraging parents to work as mentors, tutors, ‘experts’…, inviting parents to school or after-school activities, to school trips, enlisting parents to volunteer to coordinate phone call reminders…etc.
– Supporting learning at home: Making sure all parents can participate of their children learning experiences by offering opportunities to tighten their bonds, e.g. creating a comic in which parents and their children take pictures of themselves as superheroes, making children interview their parents about their habits, tastes…, asking them to tell a story…etc.
– Encouraging parents to be part of decision-making in schools: encouraging parents to decide which aspects related to the school vision, mission and values they want to prioritize, providing opportunities for them to influence school policy regarding safety, health…etc.
– Collaborating with the community: Schools can create activities or projects like a storytelling festival at the local library or at the hospital, a science fair at the local museum, working together with charity organizations by offering the school facilities outside of school hours…, or either find solutions to problems like littering or traffic jams in their town,…etc.
Sustain: Keeping families permanently committed is not an easy task. Schools must adopt policies in order to maintain parental participation throughout the years. Some successful initiatives are the following: Arranging meetings at different times/days, offering incentives for parents, providing transportation services, holding events online or off-site, or offering opportunities for families to meet school staff in non-threatening ways.
The following are three examples of engaging families in school life in different EU countries:
Partille gymnasium, Sweden
Partille gymnasium follows an individual development plan. This plan is digital, which enable the parents to prepare for the meeting. All school subjects are included. After the age of 18 it is up to the individual pupil to bring his or her parents. It is the pupil´s individual tutor who has this meeting with the pupil and his or her parents. These kinds of meetings are held twice a year (once every semester).
In between these meetings the school carries out coach dialogues. Their frequency varies from student to student; therefore the tutors have enough flexibility to adjust to their students’ needs or demands.
Gimnazjum nr.1 in Szczecinek, Poland
Gimnazjum nr.1 in Szczecinek places high importance on the cooperation between parents, students and school staff. Formal meetings are arranged every 6 weeks, but school doors are open for parents anytime. At the beginning of the school year, twelve parents are named representatives of the parent’s board. They act as a liaison between the school and other parents. They also look after and support families that are undergoing difficulties, as well as participate and encourage other parents to participate in school activities and trips.
The school has a digital registry page online, where teachers provide continuous and reliable information to parents. Additionally, families are offered extra support through a call center which is available even during the weekend.
CEIP Almácigo, Spain
CEIP Almácigo has been carrying out a school project called comunidad de aprendizaje” (learning community) since 2015. The number of families who have joined the project has been increasing year by year. In this project, a maximum of five parents per classroom work as mentors in different activities. They have breakfast with the teachers and their children and help in the classroom for two hours. This event is held twice a year and has turned successful, even with families belonging to a low sociocultural background. As a consequence, parents’ anxiety towards school has lowered, whereas positive patterns of behaviour among children have increased.
