Reaching parents

last updated:September 2010

How might we reach ‘hard to reach’ parents more effectively?

Research evidence

Research shows that parental involvement in their children’s education is a key factor in pupils’ attainment, and this is the case across all ethnic groups.  But some parents don’t see it as their role to get involved, whilst others don’t know how to support their child’s learning at home. By establishing closer home-school links schools help parents understand how they can help their children succeed. It also helps teachers to build a better picture of pupils’ needs. But establishing good communication links is not always easy. Communication with parents in multi-ethnic schools often requires greater resourcefulness and a more innovative approach than in other schools. Some of the more innovative strategies that have been successfully used are making videos to explain particular teaching strategies and pupils taking disposable cameras home to take photographs of relevant aspects of their out of school lives.

Your evidence

You might like to consult parents about the kind of information they would like about the teaching and learning that goes on in school (in literacy or mathematics for example) and also what form they would like the information in. You may find you have to try a variety of approaches to get the information you need, for example:

• send out a questionnaire (translated into community languages)
• approach parents in the playground and at the school gate (together with an interpreter), or
• recruit target parents by phone.

Other information you might want to find out could be information about the home and/or child, that parents would like to share with you (such as games they play, the ways they teach their children to do maths or the responsibilities their children have at home, relevant to school subjects like literacy and maths) and what they would like to see their children learning about in school.

Next steps

Could you use the information that you gather to enhance the way you communicate with parents? What strategies might you employ to make schools more accessible to parents from different ethnic groups? How could you help parents to feel more confident about their ability to help their children with their learning at home?  You may like to monitor whether the strategies you use to increase parental involvement at home contribute to increased pupil learning. Could you share with parents evidence of the impact of their efforts?