The narrative around parental engagement with schools has been overwhelmingly negative in recent years. We have all heard of parents described variously as vexatious, adversarial and overly demanding.
Moreover, a new wave of parental categorisation has entered the wider lexicon: whether it be the helicopter parent (dropping in to save their child at every opportunity), the tiger parent (hot-housing their child and expecting everyone else to do likewise), or my recent favourite the snowplough parent (flattening every obstacle put in front of their little one), the connotations are largely negative.
A close reading of the data provides further cause for concern. As SecEd’s sister magazine Headteacher Update reported this summer, a survey of more than 1,000 school leaders by the National Association of Head Teachers found that 94% had seen an increase in complaints over the past three years, and 83% reported an increase in vexatious complaints. What seems to be going on here?
In the excellent book Reconnect: Building school culture for meaning, purpose, and belonging (2023), Doug Lemov and his colleagues draw some compelling conclusions.
In particular, they highlight “the breaking of the social contract” between parents and schools as one of the biggest contemporary issues in education. They argue that the general breakdown in trust in institutions during Covid has extended to schools.
They are not alone. There is evidence that parental attitudes to school have indeed altered since the pandemic. A report by the think tank Public First last year warned that Covid had caused a “seismic shift” in parental attitudes to attendance due in part to a “fundamental breakdown” in the relationship between schools and parents (Burtonshaw & Dorrell, 2023).
Once we recognise this break-down in trust as a challenge, Lemov et al suggest that a positive strategy should be to move from defensive mode to active listening mode.
While some of this listening can occur naturally at the school gates face-to-face, it may be worth considering a more formal review of your school systems around parental engagement.
Parents and carers clearly have the best interests of their child at heart, as do we all. So, the challenge for proactive school leaders is to move from a deficit model to a surplus model in our language and interactions with parents and carers.
In short – how can we harness the positive power of parental engagement as a lever for improving our schools and communities? In this article I suggest five strategies that I have seen used to good effect in schools.
1, Parental voice
Are you regularly taking the pulse of parental opinion? The parent survey is not just for inspections. The best surveys are short, efficient and completed regularly, allowing for trends to emerge over time.
Consider using the same questions across different times of year and over a period of years. As with staff surveys, the responses may look very different in the dark nights of the autumn term than during the summer term.
Share the key learnings and headlines in a timely manner: if parents feel their opinions fall into a black hole, they will be unlikely to complete the survey next time around.
Do you regularly schedule focus groups for parents? Focus groups provide opportunities to engage parents who may not have time to commit to full governorship. Think of those smaller one-off issues that might suit shorter engagements with a cross-section of the parent body: tendering for a new lunch provider perhaps (free food-tasting is always a winner) or looking at the gaps in the wrap-around provision.
Once such groups and systems are in place, the key is to keep them in the parental consciousness – not just paying lip-service to “we are listening”, but showing a genuine commitment to systematic, active listening, and inclusive decision-making.
2, Parent governors
Do you squeeze as much engagement as possible out of your application processes for governorship? As part of the application process for my first parental governorship, I was asked to write a short biography and to outline the areas where I could add value to the school. This featured alongside other candidates in an electoral-style pamphlet, feeding into a parent vote. At the time, I hadn’t anticipated the rigour of the process nor becoming the focus of discussion at the school gates. Slightly uncomfortable? Yes. But transparent and genuinely engaging? Most definitely.
Are the voices of your parent-governors being heard? Once in post, it was interesting to note the constant care taken to balance powerful voices among parental governors with those of co-opted governors. It is essential to monitor the ratio of parental to co-opted voices – not just on the board but filtering down to committee level – to ensure best practice around decision-making and compliance.
If you do not audit these ratios as a standing item on governor meeting agendas, it could well be worth considering. A committee heavy with either co-opted or parental voice can tip the balance of power on some sensitive issues.
3, The potential (and pitfalls) of the PTA
How is your PTA improving your school culture and providing opportunities for your children? PTA or “friends of the school” groups can be transformational for community engagement when they work well, but clearly need careful boundaries drawn around them.
As noted above, there are more formal structures for parents to get involved in decision-making at board level and via focus groups, so the PTA should be a place for fun, friendly fund-raising and engagement.
If a keen staff member can act as the link to the PTA, and harness their power, a strong link to the wider community can grow organically. Some of the most joyous events in the school calendar are PTA events, which an increasingly busy staff body may not have the bandwidth or time to organise.
We should aim to see our parents in different settings to parents’ nights or school pick-ups and drop-offs. The PTA can embrace and create opportunities for other parents to see the school at its best: a joyful place filled with music, art and buzz. If the only time parents come through the gates is for parents’ evenings, to sit on those small chairs, then there is no surprise that their engagement may be less than positive.
4, Communication: Filling the information void
Are your communications chaotic or coherent? One of the most avoidable issues in schools is when a lack of regular communication results in an information void – inevitably filled with disinformation.
With the exponential rise of group-chats, we all know how “community whispers” can spiral. A brief, timely communication system can nip these issues in the bud.
Weekly newsletters are a great way of doing this: increasingly electronic and interactive, they work best when busy parents know when they will arrive (Fridays are good) and where they can find them. As a parent with three children in three different schools, the worst kind of communications are the daily piecemeal emails that quickly become overwhelming.
Doubtless, there will be emergency messages required at unforeseen moments, but the vast majority of messages can go out weekly and can be scheduled in advance. An investment in great operational staff can be worth its weight in gold in this respect.
5, Parents’ evenings
Do you have the balance right between on-screen and in-person engagement in your setting? Even if we get all of the above right, there will still be groups of parents and carers for whom parents’ nights are the only opportunities to come into school. As many schools move to online systems, we are in danger of cutting out human contact with this sub-section of parents.
Online systems have clear positives – not least the facility for teachers and parents to arrange their appointments more efficiently – but we need to take care not to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Most schools offer supplementary times for parents to drop-in to school in-person, alongside the offer of an online appointment. It may be worth monitoring how many parents take up this offer, to avoid too much of a drift to online-only interactions.
There is real value in sitting down with parents and talking through difficult issues, which just doesn’t feel the same with an electronic countdown in the corner of the screen.
Final thoughts
While the parental-school relationship is becoming increasingly strained, we can (and should) treat this as a strategic challenge worthy of attention, just like any other section of our school development plan. When the power of parental engagement is harnessed for positive change, our children reap the rewards.
- John Smith is director of partnerships at Royal Grammar School in Newcastle Upon Tyne. He is a board director of the ONE Trust in Outer-West Newcastle and a member of the Strategic Board of the National Maths and Physics SCITT. Find his previous articles for SecEd via www.sec-ed.co.uk/authors/john-smith
Further information & resources
- Burtonshaw & Dorrell: Listening to, and learning from, parents in the attendance crisis, Public First, 2023: http://tinyurl.com/2p9zjp6z
- Headteacher Update: Increasing and increasingly vexatious parent complaints, 2024: www.headteacher-update.com/content/opinion/increasing-and-increasingly-vexatious-parent-complaints
- Lemov et al: Reconnect: Building School Culture for Meaning, Purpose, and Belonging, Jossey-Bass, 2023.