ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION This unit focuses on building effective, purposeful and long-lasting relationships with parents/carers. For the purposes of this unit, the term ‘parents’ should be taken to include carers also – single parents, grandparents, foster carers or older siblings, acting in loco parentis. After the Education Acts 1988 and 1992, parents have been increasingly described as ‘partners’ in their children’s education. Coupled with the move towards greater parental choice in terms of the schools parents can send their children to, such as academy primary schools, there has also been an increased transparency of school performance data, via Ofsted reports, league tables and the publication of exam results; parents are viewed as key stakeholders in the educational process and, more recently, the choice of schools. The Coalition government has encouraged parents and independent groups in England to set up their own schools under the academy scheme – called free schools. The first 24 opened in September 2012, and yet the current government’s prediction of 55 opening in the
autumn 2012, with a further 114 opening in 2013, has yet to be achieved. Excellence and Enjoyment (Department for Education and Skills, 2003), introduced under the previous Labour government and still used currently in primary schools, directly stresses ‘partnership beyond the classroom’, where primary schools ‘review their strategies for involving parents in their children’s education’. The power of parental involvement should not be underestimated – the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has suggested that family social background and involvement accounts for 29 per cent of variation in pupil educational outcomes (2001 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, in Goldstein, 2004). In an attempt to support children from disadvantaged backgrounds, the Coalition government has extended provision available for the organisation known as CANparent – an organisation established to give parents of children under 5 years old £100 vouchers to purchase parenting lessons from independent organisations, e.g. the national Childcare trust; however, this is currently still a trial and only available to parents in England in certain areas. Therefore, it is evident that greater collaboration with parents needs to be a key aim in improving educational outcomes for children.
