FEATURE: PARENTAL ENGAGEMENT
How closer collaboration between schools and parents can help close the attainment gap
There’s a well-established body of evidence which strongly suggests parent engagement can have a powerful and positive impact on a child’s education, aspirations and most importantly, on their outcomes. The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) – who’s Teaching and Learning Toolkit is designed to support teachers and school leaders in improving learning outcomes – has found parental engagement has a positive impact which equates to, on average, four months’ additional progress.
However, our study of 71,129 primary and secondary school parents revealed nearly two- thirds of parents (60%) would like to be more involved and engaged in their child’s education. Further, those parents who believe their child’s school makes best use of technology are five times more likely to feel informed about their child’s academic progress.
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n our first look this month at parental engagement, we are delighted to hear from Simon Freeman, MD of Education at IRIS Software Group, who outlines his vision for improving collaboration between schools and parents.
Despite the commendable work of schools to close the attainment gap, there remains a need to better engage parents in supporting their children’s learning at home. As the cost-of-living crisis puts education at risk due to school funding struggles – disproportionately affecting disadvantaged pupils – the quality of schoolwork and learning is undoubtedly suffering. However, there are number of practical steps schools and teachers can take to ensure everyone is pulling in the same direction throughout the academic year.
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www.education-today.co.uk
The lay of the land in education Nearly three years of global pandemic brought parents directly in touch with their children’s schooling, as adults and children worked alongside each other at home. This period was also a catalyst for immense change in parental engagement tools, with new methods of communication between schools and parents involving smartphone apps and video conferencing normalised.
However, it’s been widely commented that there was a collective sigh of parental relief as schools reopened and the responsibility for education was passed firmly back to teachers. Additionally, a worrying number of parents now have expectations their children’s teachers will be contactable 24/7. Yet this is the precise moment when schools need strong parental engagement – both academically and socio-economically. KS1 and KS2 SAT results and phonics screening tests have shown basic numeracy and literacy have not been developed to pre-Covid levels. Only 59% of children left primary school this year having met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths – markedly down from pre- pandemic levels and far below the government’s 2030 target of 90%. It’s harder to tell the true impact on students at the older end of the spectrum, as grades and progress have been scaled so as to not harm the life chances of young people receiving Covid-affected grades. Even more worrying, is the disadvantage gap
February 2023
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