Getting involved in your child’s education – Part 2: The UK experience

Yesterday, Lisa Saunders presented the case for getting involved in your child’s education.  Today, a look at the UK and initiatives that encourage active parental participation.

By Lisa Saunders

Director of Programs, Bridgeway

Successful educational models out of the UK that have actively involved parents and focused on communication include Every Child Matters and Children’s Plan for Early YearsPractitioners and Leaders initiatives.   “It provides more support for parents to do the best for their child…shaped around the needs of children and their families…” (Children’s Plan for Early Years Practitioners and Leaders, info sheet).   Every Child Matters initiative recognized that parental involvement had been an aspect lacking in education, stating: “In the past it has been argued that children and families have received poorer services because of the failure of professional to understand each other’s roles or to work together effectively in a multi-disciplinary manner.”

In each of these models the educational leader’s role was to support their staff in bridging the gaps between parents, teachers and other professionals.  These educational models were created because educational leaders recognized that the education system was in need of improvement.  In fact, even on North American soil, the value of parental involvement was recognized and was addressed by the president of the United States (albeit a few years after the UK initiatives), “…parents are an important component of their children’s academic future success.”

In fact, in schools in the UK that had high implementation of the Every Child Matters initiative included forums that allowed parents to express their views and have a say in decision making processes (Harris & Allen, 2009).  Parent-school communication typically takes place one of two ways: written or verbal.  In either case there is opportunity for miscommunication and discrepancy between values and beliefs of the families and schools as well as the individual educators (Bridgemohan, et al., 2005).

In this time of pressure, on both students and educational leaders to perform on assessment scores, wouldn’t educational leaders adopt a practice, to improve performance of their students?   Through both formal and informal parental engagement, there is evidence of a major impact on the performance of students (Harris & Allen, 2009).

You’ll find more information on Every Child Matters on The Guardian website - http://www.guardian.co.uk/everychildmatters.  Tomorrow, Lisa looks at the educational leader’s role in engaging parents.