Partnership with parents

Profile

Parents are the first and continuing educators of their children. Partnerships between parents and settings (specifically early years establishments but could include schools) is all about reciprocal relationships. The setting influences what happens in the home and the parents influence what happens in the setting. The involvement of parents is much greater earlier in educational experiences.

Links

• How Children Learn 1 and

How Children Learn 4

Friedrich Froebel

John Dewey

Margaret McMillan

Rudolph Steiner

Lev Vygotsky

Chris Athey

Loris Malaguzzi

Some key thinking and ideas about partnership with parents

Historically in the UK, before the publication of the Plowden report in 1967, schools’ relationships with parents were based on the idea that schools had to compensate in some way for the deficits that existed in children’s home lives. Parents’ role in the relationship with their schools was to support the school requirements and ensure that their children were ready and able to participate fully in whatever activities the schools offered. (1) In his report Plowden clearly stated that ‘One of the essentials for educational advance is a closer partnership between the two parties (i.e. schools and parents) to every child’s education.’ (2)

A sample of government thinking

In 1978 the Warnock Report, which looked at Special Educational Needs, was published by the UK Government. There was a whole chapter on ‘Parents as Partners’ which specified that ‘…the successful education of children with special educational needs is dependent upon the full involvement of their parents: indeed, unless the parents are seen as equal partners in the educational process, the purpose of our report will be frustrated.’ (3)

The UK government’s Parent’s Charter, (4) issued in 1991 and then updated in 1994, explained what parents can expect and how to become more effective partners in their children’s education. Under the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, schools of children of statutory age were required to publish a home-school agreement which parents were involved in drawing up and had to confirm their understanding. Statutory guidance for schools was updated in June 2011 to simplify the language and include new categories of schools.

Theorists’ thinking

Many theorists have stressed the importance of considering parents when thinking about young children’s learning. Margaret McMillan was among the first to say that parental involvement was important. Froebel thought that parents should be closely involved in their children’s education. Dewey thought that the school life should grow gradually out of the home life, and that it is the duty of the school to deepen and extend the child’s sense of values, which have been established in his home. For Steiner, the kindergarten was designed to be a warm and friendly place with a home-like environment and in which parents’ involvement was high.

Vygotsky suggested that children learn through an apprenticeship approach, for example by reading at home with members of the family. Athey wrote an article in 1981 on parental involvement in nursery education and concluded that children whose parents participated made outstanding gains in their academic achievements and still maintained them two years later. Malaguzzi developed his educational philosophy based on his work in a nursery built and run by parents.

What is involved in ‘partnership’?

Janis Keyser (5) identified ‘family-centred care principles’ which need to be adopted by settings and parents if an early childhood programme is to succeed. These are:

• Recognising and respecting one another’s knowledge and expertise.
• Sharing information through two-way communication.
• Sharing power and decision making.
• Acknowledging and respecting diversity.
• Creating networks of support.

Putting the theory into practice

An OECD report in 1997 identified four key strategies that exist within the English and Welsh education system around parental involvement:

1. Parents seeing themselves as consumers of educational services.
2. Involvement of parents in the governance of schools.
3. Raising children’s (particularly those considered to be disadvantaged) achievement by more effective family/ school relationships.
4. Encouraging parents to get involved in hands-on activities in settings. (6)

‘The rationale of parental involvement has primarily focused upon raising educational achievement’ (7) though other aims have included:

• The wellbeing of children enhanced by schools and families sharing goals related to them.
• Increasing the satisfaction of teachers by knowing that the families are supporting their work.
• Reassuring the families that the schools are doing the best that they can to help the children through developing the families’ knowledge of school procedures and processes.

Wall (8) relates that the Lamb Inquiry in 2009, which looked at parental confidence in SEN systems in England, highlighted the importance of communication within partnership. Parents want ‘good, honest and open communications’ and feel that when things go wrong it is poor communication which is at the bottom of it. She goes on to identify the key issues for parental partnerships in settings as follows:

• Respect for parents and their views.
• Acknowledgement of the benefits of partnership by practitioners.
• Parents need to be empowered.
• Existing policies need to be reviewed to ensure that they are reflected in practice.
• Assumptions should not be made about partnerships happening – planning and regular review is important.
• Quality of relationships and equality within relationships determine the success or otherwise.

Some of these issues can be particularly acute for the parents of children with SEN. The experience of these parents may have involved conflict with support agencies which have engendered a lack of trust in ‘the system’. Therefore building trust is of vital importance, particularly demonstrating that all partners are after the same outcome – what is in the best interests of the child’s development.

The influence of thinking on partnership with parents

The expectations of parents have been raised by the national debates on education and by the subsequent legislation involving the roles of parents in the education of their children. There are national and international parent networks and support groups, such as the Special Needs Parents Association in Ireland (www.specialneedsparents.ie), and with the development of the internet, social networking sites and smart phones, communications between parents have been greatly enhanced. They are therefore able to share experience of good practice and can highlight practice which is less than good.

There are also heightened expectations evident within the training of Early Years Professionals (EYPs) about relationships with parents. Of the thirty nine EYPS standards, (9) four are related directly to communicating and working in partnership with families and carers. The following skills are required of all EYPs:

• Recognise and respect the influential and enduring contribution that families and parents/carers can make to children’s development, well-being and learning.
• Establish fair, respectful, trusting and constructive relationships with families and parents/carers, and communicate sensitively and effectively with them.
• Work in partnership with families and parents/carers, at home and in the setting, to nurture children, help them develop and to improve outcomes for them.
• Provide formal and informal opportunities through which information about children’s well-being, development and learning can be shared between the setting and families and parents/carers.

Comment

Although the general expectation is that schools and settings should enter into partnerships with parents, there are some parents who, for many different reasons, do not feel that it is appropriate to get so involved in their children’s education. They may not feel confident, they may have had poor experiences of education themselves, or they may lack knowledge of the system, particularly if they were educated in another country. Such parents could feel that it is more beneficial to ‘leave it up to the experts’.

This is where parent empowerment and education comes into play. A ‘partnership’ suggests equal power for each partner and it may be that some parents require help and support to begin to feel ‘equal’.

It is also worth considering how realistic it is for educational institutions to totally share power with their parents. Parents need to have an understanding of the limitations that exist in order to be meaningfully engaged in partnership. Schools and settings have regulatory constraints on them, for example duties to do with health and safety. Staff have employment rights which have to be protected. Funding streams may be restricted and therefore resources (both human and material) could be limited.

The nature of parenthood has undergone changes over the past few years. There is now a much greater variety in family make-up, for example foster families, first/second generation newcomers, same sex parenting, extended families and single parents. It is therefore imperative, if schools and settings are aspiring to effective partnership, that they must make every effort to be inclusive of all the different home backgrounds of the children.

References

1. Fitzgerald, D. (2004) Parent Partnership in the Early Years. London, Continuum.
2. Plowden Report (1967). [Internet]. Available from: <www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/plowden/plowden1-04.html>.
3. Warnock Report (1978). [Internet]. Available from: <www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/warnock/warnock09.html>.
4. DfE (1994) Our Children’s Education — the Updated Parents’ Charter. London, HMSO.
5. Keyser, J. (2006) From Parents to Partners: Building a Family-Centred Early Childhood Program. St. Paul, Redleaf Press.
6. CERI (1997) Parents as Partners in Schooling. Paris, OECD.
7. Wolfendale, S. (2000) ‘Effective Schools for the Future: Incorporating the Parental and Family Dimension’. In: Wolfendale, S., Bastiani, J. ed. (2000) The Contribution of Parents to School Effectiveness. London, David Fulton.
8. DCSF (2009) Lamb Inquiry: Special Educational Needs and Parental Confidence. Quoted in: Wall, K. (2011) Special Needs and Early Years: A Practitioner’s Guide. 3rd ed. London, Sage.
9. CWDC (2010) On the Right Track: Guidance to the Standards for the Award of Early Years Professional Status. Leeds, CWDC.

Where to find out more

Armstrong, D. (1995) Power and Partnerships in Education: Parents, Children and Special Educational Needs. London, Routledge.

Crozier, G., Reay, D. ed. (2005) Activating Participation: Parents and Teachers Working Towards Partnership. Stoke on Trent, Trentham Books.

www.parentpartnership.org.uk

www.daycaretrust.org.uk/pages/working-in-partnership-with-parents.html