PARENTAL ENGAGEMENT
Should schools extend parental engagement to include community engagement?
Parental engagement is something we talk about a lot in the education sector, not least because evidence has shown that children perform better when strong and positive links are formed with their parents. Schools have worked very hard to improve the
way in which they reach out to parents and home-school communications have evolved out of all recognition since the days of the crumpled letter at the bottom of the book bag. Following the success of parental engagement initiatives, I can’t help thinking that additional benefits could be secured for schools by extending communication to a wider audience. You may be familiar with the African adage, ‘it
takes a village to raise a child’. The concept is that neighbours, friends and extended family are all involved in offering advice and support to new parents.
It’s an interesting concept and one that I
n our second look at parental engagement this month, Geoff Jones from ParentMail
explores the benefits of keeping in touch with the community for schools.
makes a lot of sense to me - the idea that a shared responsibility is important in bringing up children. We’ve seen the positive impact in opening lines
of communication between parents and school so it seems a natural shift to take this approach with a school’s local community.
I’d like to suggest a 36
www.education-today.co.uk
new proverb, that ‘it takes a whole community to educate a child’. However, with an increasing to do list, how can schools best nurture community engagement?
A source of support for schools For some years now, educationalists have championed the concept of parental engagement. Recognising the impact of engaging parents in their child’s education and the importance of technology in achieving this, schools have been increasingly involving parents in their child’s school life. The benefits of this approach are clear – where
a parent is engaged with their child’s learning, they are much better equipped to support their child through their education journey. But perhaps it’s time for schools to take parental engagement to the next level and embrace community engagement. In a time of continuing budget cuts and
debates about the balance of subjects in the curriculum, there has never been a better time for schools to seek the support of the communities around them. Reaching out to organisations may sound like a
February 2019
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