How to involve hard-to-reach parents: encouraging meaningful parental involvement with schools
A toolkit of practical strategies to help schools develop parental engagement.
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Parental engagement plays an important part in children’s success at school. The more parents are involved at school, the more pupils achieve. But some parents have little interaction with school, failing to attend meetings or respond to communications.
This research provides an insight into the problems faced by some parents, and gives a toolkit of creative strategies to help schools improve the relationship.
The report follows a practical study working with:
- parents considered hard to reach
- school leaders from across the country
- health professionals
It looks at the barriers parents face to becoming engaged in schools. These barriers vary from their own bad experiences of education, to problems encountered in dealing with children’s homework and feelings of insecurity or low self-esteem.
The research give ideas for improving parental engagement, including:
- harnessing technology as an outreach
- working with fathers and families as a whole
- using the community to improve contact