Involving and engaging parents through innovative practices

From parental involvement to engagement

Parental involvement and engagement are broad terms that encompass different types of parental behaviours and practices that support their child's school journey. The terms are often used interchangeably, but a closer look reveals some differences.

Parental involvement refers to parents taking part in activities determined by the school, e.g. attending parents' meetings, reading at school, and participating in school events or trips.

Parental engagement suggests a deeper involvement, including engagement in learning at home through encouragement, support and reading with their children, as well as participating at school and in the wider community. This can be carried out through the creation of a parents association, for example.

Infographic: © Education Scotland

While all school-home collaboration can have a positive effect on pupils’ learning outcomes, attention, behaviour and social skills, schools can consider whether they mostly focus on involvement or engagement, and how to get the best outcomes from both. Let’s have a look at some good practices!

Resources from educational authorities

The Portuguese ministry of education views parental engagement in early childhood as a multidimensional approach: cultural involvement, behavioural involvement, school-home communication, learning at home, etc. The ministry’s practical guidelines help parents obtain more information and, therefore, offer better support to their children in responding to what requests from the kindergarten.

Parental engagement also builds trust between families and schools, which expands pupils' opportunities for growth. This self-assessment tool for schools provided by the Swedish National Agency of Education includes 10 statements that form the basis for group discussions and help identify strengths and areas for improvement in parental cooperation

The Parents’ Toolkit (‘La mallette des parents’), created by the French Government, proposes different types of resources, such as good practices, advice and tools. Aimed at parents, pupils and professionals, it helps strengthen the link between the key figures involved in each child's academic accomplishments.

eTwinning projects boost parental participation

eTwinning projects can also target or engage parents. In Spain, several schools consider family participation to be essential for the success of the projects. This is to make sure, for example, that parents understand and support the complementary ways of learning that are an essential part of the project, and that parents are aware of the expected project results and partner schools.

The ‘Look at life safe and carefully’ project used family cooperation to tackle the issue of screen addiction and organised customised children-parent education sessions. As a result, the parents took the main messages on board ‒ that the media cannot always be trusted, and the benefits of traditional games.

Erasmus+ projects to support disadvantaged families

The primary goal of ‘Parent'r'us’ is to assist teachers in boosting parents' involvement in their child's academic progress and well-being at school, to reduce early-school leaving. This is achieved by organising capacity-building for teachers through a multi-stakeholder mentorship model. The outputs include an evidence review, self-assessment tools, training courses and an awareness toolkit.

Other projects, such as ‘See Me’ and ‘Parents engage’, focus on minimising gaps in access and participation in education. With the goal of improving equity and social inclusion for pupils, the projects aim to reinforce teachers' skills in fostering productive relationships with migrant and refugee families, providing assistance to the families, and helping them get involved in their children’s schools.

Family learning methods to better support pupils

Family learning approaches can increase parental involvement and engagement in the educational system, resulting in improved learning outcomes, socio-emotional development and better engagement from children.

Erasmus+ projects like ‘Learn THEN Play’ and ‘Families Count’ aim to develop cooperation between the interested parties to promote learning outside the school where parents are directly involved, which promotes lifelong learning.