Parent Partnership in the Primary School

A practical guide for school leaders and other key staff

Nigel Bishop

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2023
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000842944
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Parent partnership is a powerful tool in maximising children's outcomes in the primary school. Parent Partnership in the Primary School will enable you to evaluate your current practice in this crucial area of school life and provides practical, easy-to-follow steps to plan and deliver improvements successfully. The book explores five key principles for leaders, managers, teachers, support staff, volunteers and governors to focus on in their drive to engage all parents and carers as genuine partners in their child's learning.

Pulling together recommendations from a wide range of international sources, this book builds upon 20years of research evidence highlighting the importance of parent involvement and engagement. Bishop also brings his own broad experiences from a 32-year career in primary education, as a teacher, school leader, consultant and trainer, to bear on the many challenges facing schools as they seek to welcome, encourage, inform and support those whose children they educate.

Detailed case studies from six carefully selected schools, with which Bishop has worked as a consultant, exemplify some of the most successful techniques and programmes currently in use to facilitate parent partnership. Suggestions for further reading are included, and for leaders and managers there is an easy-to-use audit tool to support their strategic thinking and school improvement activity.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• 1 Research evidence: what recent research says about the effects of parental engagement on pupils’ learning
• 2 A suggested model for parental engagement: unpacking Desforges and Abouchaar’s model, with suggestions as to how it might inform a primary school’s strategic thinking
• 3 Principles for practice in parental involvement and engagement: suggested characteristics, behaviours and attitudes that could support successful parent partnership, when used by practitioners and parents alike
• 4 Case studies: the methodology for selecting the schools, collecting evidence about their parent partnership practice and presenting it in an organised form
• 5 Respect: ways in which schools seek to show respect to parents, and encourage respect in return
• 6 Knowledge: the extent to which the school knows the nature and quality of its parent partnership work, the needs of its parents, and the steps it takes to encourage parents to know what the school offers and how they can access and contribute to it
• 7 Understanding and empathy: ways in which each school’s staff demonstrate that they listen to what is really being said, share their own related experiences appropriately and empower parents to take ownership of their strengths and areas for growth
• 8 Relationship: the links and bonds that are created between the school and its parents, leading to clear communication, thoughtful responses to ideas and shared decision making
• 9 Trust: the reciprocal bond that arguably builds up through application of the previous four principles in the school’s dealings with its parents, and which may need to be nurtured over time if is to be sustained
• 10 Conclusions and next steps for schools: what are we to make of all this? What does it mean for my educational practice? Where might we go next as a school?
• Appendix