EUKN - European Urban Knowledge Network - Parental involvement in education

Parental involvement in education

Introduction

This report explores some of the different types of projects to encourage parental involvement in the education of their children that are taking shape in New Deal for Communities partnerships.

Problem

Parents' involvement in the education of their children has been identified nationally as a major contributory factor in overall levels of attainment in school, and consequently, many NDC Partnerships have included parental involvement schemes among their education projects.

Description

This report:

explores some of the different types of projects that are taking shape in New Deal for Communities partnerships;
covers the context in which parental involvement projects have been established and the issues that they are trying to address;
also covers the way in which the parental projects have been delivered, focusing on the differing types of intervention that are offered and the assumptions behind them;
presents current outcomes and the impact of the projects; and
identifies key lessons learnt together with remaining barriers and problems.

This report is part of the National Evaluation of the New Deals for Communities programme and was commissioned by the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit.

Approach

Includes projects which:

improve communication between parents and schools through a parent coordinator or link worker;
get parents into schools;
set up courses for parents;
have parents and children learning together;
offer targeted help for parents of children designated as having special educational needs; and
support minority ethnic parents through parent link workers, and various parent support groups.

Results

Parental involvement projects have increased parental participation and improved communication between schools and families. In some cases it has opened new channels of communication. It has also improved parental engagement with education. In particular they have been successful in:

sharing information about the availability of local services and support networks;
providing a mediation role between school and parents where communications have broken down;
raising parents' awareness of their children's courses of study and ways they can help;
piloting family learning; and
breaking down mutual misunderstandings and suspicions between schools and residents.

Beneficiaries

Children and parents in deprived areas.

Financing

Funding came from the government’s New Deal for Communities programme. Expenditure on different projects varied, e.g. £216,758 in revenue spending and £4,000 in capital spending over three years, for a parent coordinator project in Bristol, and £410,000 for three years for a Home-School Links project in Hackney.

Contact info

School of Education Foundations and Policy Studies
Dr Marie Lall (Lecturer in Education Policy), tel. +44 20 7612 6387

Project start date

01/01/2001

Links

School of Education Foundations and Policy Studies Neighbourhood Renewal Unit

Parental involvement in education (PDF, Eng, 244KB)

Document type

case

Themes

Urban Policy > Social inclusion & integration > Education

Keywords

Primary education