Parental Involvement

Encouraging parental engagement

Birchensale Middle School’s Family Learning programme targets the parents of low-ability children, offering them the chance to improve key skills and participate more fully in their children’s learning. Carrie Saint Freedman visited the school to find out more

Reaching SEN parents to raise achievement

Following on from the last issue where we considered how to build good parent –school relationships, we look at ways of offering practical support to families who want to help their children to learn

The Pupil and Parent Guarantees – what are the implications for G&T?

This G&T e-bulletin summarises the provision which schools will be expected to make concerning the pupil and parent guarantees

Making the most of your relationship with parents

This issue explores how you can evaluate and improve your school’s relationship with parents, presenting the vital questions to ask of your school and staff

Transform your work with families

Schools can do their best for each child only if families and carers are involved in children’s learning. Jane Golightly considers the reasons why some schools are great at involving families, while others struggle

Improving school-home contact

There are many occasions when speedy school-home contact is important. Gerald Haigh looks at the software available to help schools make effective links with parents

Supporting parents support their children

Roger Smith considers the important role that parents play in supporting their children and asks what more schools can do to support them

Sustaining a home-school partnership with primary parents

Jane Golightly previously discussed why home-school partnerships are valuable and how to build one with parents. In this issue, she discusses the importance of sustaining and developing these relationships throughout the child's primary years

Talking to parents about child protection

Jenni Whitehead discusses the difficulties faced by named persons, or child protection coordinators, in talking to children's parents about their concerns and the need to follow child protection procedures

Developing a home-school partnership with primary parents: why and how

An effective home-school partnership is vital for giving learners the best opportunities possible. Jane Golightly discusses why it matters and how it can be built in Primary Leadership Focus

How primary schools can work with parents

Close working between primary school staff and parents is vital for the identification of children's learning needs, making an effective home-school partnership essential

Engaging with parents of children with SEN

For the families of children with SEN and disabilities, positive relationships between school staff and parents is an especially important issue. This SENCO Week considers how SENCOs can engage with parents and carers

Involving parents with SEN policy decision-making

Parents must be centrally involved in decision-making if the SEN system is to be changed for the better, says Lucy Wilkins

Engaging parents: tools for starting conversations

This range of tools aims to help senior leadership teams begin powerful learning conversations between parents, students and school, to get parents to think about at-home involvement

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Understanding parents' and schools' responsibilities towards excluded pupils

Parents have a duty to know the whereabouts of their child for the first five days of exclusion, and schools and LAs should provide suitable full-time education from the sixth school day of exclusion, states statutory guidance

Early Years PiP Cards: 2.2 Parents as partners

The importance of your relationship with parents of babies, toddlers and three- to five-year-old children is the focus of this article from Early Years Update. This is part of a range of practical ideas to underpin the information in the Early Years Foundation Stage Principles into Practice cards

Effective partnerships with parents

How do you create meaningful and sustainable relationships with parents? Dr Jean de Rijke, developer of the Effective Partnerships with Parents (EPPa) strategy, shares her expertise

Self-evaluation with parents

Mark Chaplin shares insight into how primary headteachers can design a questionnaire for parents that will help them carry out effective self-evaluation at their primary school

The Children's Plan: the primary curriculum

For headteachers the new Children's Plan poses yet more new challenges, with possible changes to the primary curriculum, flexible school start and greater involvement between school and family. Angela Youngman investigates

Developing whole-school policy towards parents

This free resource is part of a series to help to increase parental involvement in the learning process, here looking at the benefits of developing a formal whole-school policy to encourage parental participation

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Communicating with parents

This free resource is part of a series to help teachers to increase parental involvement in the learning process, here exploring why communication is at the heart of engaging parents

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How to involve parents

This free resource is part of a series to help teachers to increase parental involvement in the learning process, in this case looking at how to best utilise parents who are keen to become involved in their children's school

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Home-school partnerships as focus

This free resource is part of a CPD series to help increase parental involvement in the learning process, in this instance presenting a case study where partnerships with parents are a central focus for one school

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Starting school: An anxious time for pupils and parents

Starting school is an anxious time for both early years children and parents. School leaders and home-school coordinators need to be aware of their anxieties in order to ease the transition process

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Planning parent workshops

We all know how valuable it is to have parents ‘on board’ in terms of supporting their children and reinforcing what school is trying to do. For pupils with SEN, this is especially important read more

Using biometric data in schools

Biometric data systems in schools can now be used to speed up lunch queues, remove the need for students to carry money, save time in taking registers and prevent unauthorised access to school premises

Advice on admission policy

Legal Expertise looks at the mechanisms open to parents to challenge admissions policies and investigates why this year is likely to see more challenges

SENCO's role in reading part 3: the parents' role + Help Sheet 7

This week, we look at some ways to get family members involved in a child's interest in books and developing reading skills read more

Specific and planned intervention

Practical advice on specific and carefully planned interventions for those pupils' needs that cannot be met in 'ordinary' classrooms

Meeting the community's needs

How can outreach work effectively engage hard-to-reach community members? Partnership working and forward thinking has been successful in breaking down barriers to participation, as Nazia Hussain, project manager for Keighley extended schools cluster in Bradford, explains read more

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Parental Involvement