Parental Involvement - Teaching Expertise

Engaging parents is not always an easy task. Michelle Morgan describes how family partnership training can enable staff to build and maintain purposeful relationships with parents

Recently retired from Firth Park Community Arts College, where she was headteacher from 1995, Mo Laycock explains how engaging with hard-to-reach parents via extended schools strategies contributed towards her school’s transformation

Extended services can play an important role in encouraging the participation of fathers in their children’s – and particularly their sons’ – education. Paul Ainsworth shares ideas about ways that schools can create an environment for confidence-building activities involving fathers and sons

Early Years Update looks at practical ways of developing strong relationships with parents and families

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are you building good relationships with parents of gifted and talented pupils, or do you see them as interfering and 'pushy'? Lyn Bull provides some practical tips to help you establish real 'parent partnership' read more

The role of family link workers is to encourage parents' participation and interest in school life. Fiona Taylor shares her school's experience in the benefits of developing this role read more

Mosac is a London-based charity that supports non-abusing parents and carers of children who have been sexually abused. Julia Webb-Harvey provides a case study to illustrate its work read more

The Children’s Plan was launched by Ed Balls in December 2007, but what are the government's objectives for this initiative?

Early years practitioners have used ICT to support young children’s learning in diverse ways, writes Julie Steer

Michael Segal explains why a clear school complaints procedure is vital

The parental fundraising team is a fanstastic resource. Paul Ainsworth and Josephine Smith look at how to maximise the work it does

Jenny Barton, lead learning mentor at Norham Community Technology College, shares her experience of developing and facilitating a support group for parents of teenagers read more

Starting and changing schools are big transitions. Former headteacher Lynn Cousins shares advice on handling these and less common times of change that children experience read more

Headteacher David Dixon takes a close look at the philosophy behind elective home education, enshrined in a recent consultation document on guidelines to cover this parental option

Jenni Whitehead provides clarification on when the Data Protection Act applies to photographing and filming students in school, in end of term productions, nativity plays, certificate presentations etc

Jenni Whitehead reports on a review of the legislation that limited the use of physical chastisement read more

Early Years Update looks at ways of making transitions an enjoyable and exciting experience for children and parents read more

Helen Wheeler describes how the PEAL training programme helped practitioners to develop parents' involvement in their children’s learning read more

Recent research into the experiences of parent governor representatives (PGRs) found confusion over the role, lack of respect and communication difficulties, writes David Gordon read more

Having found himself in a governors' free-for-all on the subject of homework, Roger Smith describes that experience and shares his own thoughts and that of researchers on the subject read more