ADES Conference: Partnership with Parents

ADES Conference – Partnership with Parents – 8 December 2004 in Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh

The Conference was opened by John Christie, who is currently supporting the development of the Virtual Staff College Scotland (VSCS). He welcomed delegates and spoke briefly about the role of VSCS – it will seek to establish a structured CPD programme for education managers in Scotland. He sees partnership with parents as an integral part of improved education departments so is keen for this initiative to be implemented at an early date.

He then introduced the next speakers, Sue Granville and Kay Russell, from George Street Research, who presented their preliminary findings from their research project – Parents’ Views on Improving Parental Involvement in Children’s Education. Their research was carried out between March and June 2004 and looked at the following areas:

• ways and levels of involvement that parents currently have in different types of educational and school related activities;
• patterns of communication between parents, schools and local authorities;
• the language used in such communications;
• parents’ information requirements;
• barriers to parental involvement; and,
• recommendations on how to improve parental involvement in the future.

They provided some background information on why the project was commissioned and an outline of their methodology. The project aimed to obtain views from parents themselves based on their own experiences and to include the perspectives of parents from a wide variety of circumstances, including the ‘silent majority’ and the ‘vocal minority.’ The researchers took pains to point out that this latter group might not always be represented in social research. They claimed to have spoken with a cross-section of parents based on various factors, and also targeted specific groups - e.g. gypsies /travellers - who would not normally be consulted in a research project. They presented their conclusion that in parents’ eyes there is a clear division of labour between school and home; and their preliminary findings as to parents’ views on how to improve parental involvement, and how to overcome barriers at school and improve parental representation.

When they were questioned from the floor about the sample of parents, and how exactly parents were selected, however, the researchers were not so forthcoming. When pressed they said that the sample size was a maximum of about 250, made up of 20 groups of between 8-12 parents, with 3 separate groups of parents made up from the ‘vocal minority’ who already had some involvement in their children’s schools. No specific information was provided as to how the sample was selected – simply that the sample size was statistically valid.

Alan Armstrong,Scottish Executive Education Department, then presented an update on SEED’s proposals for legislation to take forward parental involvement. He spoke about announcements already made, including Peter Peacock’s of August 2004, in the course of which he made the case for improved levels of achievement and attainment by school pupils resulting directly from increased parental involvement in homework. The intention is to produce a draft Parental Involvement (PI) Bill shortly which will be issued for consultation. Its key proposals will include new, less formal and more flexible arrangements for representation which reflect the wishes of parents at each school - to be called Parental Representative Bodies. The intention is that the Bill will impose on local authorities a new duty to actively promote and support parental involvement in children’s education.

The point was made from the floor that the ‘homework’ leaflet that had already been produced and issued by SEED is superfluous and will not get to the parents it needs to get to, simply because of its format, style and language, and because it will be delivered through the traditional format of handing it to out to pupils in school to take home to their parents.

There then followed 4 workshops showcasing examples of good practice from Dundee, East Renfrewshire, Dumfries & Galloway, and North and South Lanarkshire local authorities. The workshops were quite different from each other but 3 of them involved the presenters talking about various aspects of their work and inviting questions/comments from delegates. The 4th one showed excerpts from videos that have been jointly produced by North and South Lanarkshire to support the parents’ agenda in schools. Copies of the videos can be obtained from North Lanarkshire, so that other schools could, if they want, use these videos as part of a workshop for parents. The most memorable aspect that I took away from the workshops was the partnership with parents approach adopted by East Renfrewshire Council – their parent information phone line seemed an excellent idea and worked really well in practice, siphoning off large numbers of straightforward calls from school offices. Their approach seemed to be successful and highly valued by parents in East Renfrewshire.

Following the workshops there followed a brief plenary opportunity to ask questions, chaired by Roy Jobson, Director of Education for the City of Edinburgh, and the Conference ended at 3.45pm.

Footnote: despite the title of this Conference, and the best practice examples showcased in the workshops, it became clear to me as the day progressed that there were very few parent delegates, who were not also teachers/head teachers. I felt that the whole focus of this Conference was targeted at head teachers and that, as a parent, I should not really have been in attendance. Its aim was, I think, to inform head teachers in advance of the PI Bill, of the preliminary findings of the research project and of the resulting changes that they will be required to implement in their schools once the Bill goes through.

Report by Sheila Constable