What is it about?
This article reports on a year long project. We worked with 30 schools in a local authority, to support their work with parents. Schools found that the toolkit project became embedded in their work and changed the way they worked with parents, to the benefit of children.
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Why is it important?
We know that parents' engagement with their children's learning is one of the best ways to support learning and help narrow the achievement gap. However, school staff often struggle to engage a wide range of parents. This project introduced a toolkit to help schools do three things: map what they were already doing, plan what they would like to do, and set out a route to achieve those goals. Along the way, schools examined the barriers they faced to engaging parents, and the barriers parents might face to engaging with learning; the toolkit and the away days helped school staff plan to overcome or remove those barriers.
Perspectives
I found working with these schools to be fascinating and enlightening. That so many school staff would give up the time to come to three full days was impressive. Schools changed their practices and more importantly, school staff shifted their beliefs about how and why to work with parents.
Dr Janet Goodall
Swansea University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A toolkit for parental engagement: from project to process, School Leadership and Management, March 2018, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/13632434.2018.1430689.
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