Next Practice in Parents and Carers

Working closer with parents - are there new ways to untap the potential for learning?

The Innovation Unit is working with schools and local communities to help parents find new ways to support attainment.

The Innovation Unit's Parents and Carers Project offers schools the potential to create and share Next Practice which could make a significant difference in the classroom.

The project follows research by Dr Charles Desforges of Exeter University, which showed that parental engagement with learning and their support for their child is the most significant factor in every child's development and levels of attainment.

It also draws on evidence from DCSF research which shows that 70% of parents want to do more to help their children but don't know how to.

Our programme of field trials is designed to build local responses to key questions around how best parent and carers can support children and young people with their educational development.

About Our Work

The Innovation Unit is working with parents and schools to identify the most significant actions parents can take to help raise their children's attainment. This includes exploring the effectiveness of interventions by parents and carers themselves and those co-produced with schools, Early Years professionals and the 14-19 and Higher Education sectors. The project has been commissioned by Schools Directorate and the Children, Young People and Families Directorate (CYPFD) and is helping to inform the Department's work on parental engagement, including the Every Parent Matters strategy.

Through our field trials and the learning this generates, we seek to identify highly effective and replicable interventions which significantly improve outcomes for children and young people by increasing parental engagement.

Working with practitioners and communities these interventions are also designed to play a significant role in supporting sustained improvement in:

• Early Years
• Attainment at Key Stage 2
• Transition
• Key Stage 3
• The 14-19 offer
• Attainment at 16-18
• Young people's engagement with further and higher education.

Emergent learning

• Parents may themselves have literacy needs - sensitive communication needed.
• Co-production between parents and pupils, with pupils taking the lead and parents supporting and contributing knowledge and expertise is an approach to drive up standards in careers, education and guidance and motivate young people to consider a wider range of options.
• Peer-to-peer parent networks work in recruiting hard-to-reach parents.
• The increasingly effective use of mobile phone texting to aid two-way communication between parents and schools. Most other real time information work relies on using websites and emails though texting is the main communication channel used by hard to reach parents.
• Mutual parent-parent support systems and collaboration from different backgrounds can produce dynamic results.
• Co- production between parents and pupils, with pupils leading can improve standards in career guidance and motivate young people to consider many options.
• The importance of timing, with bite-size information using a range of methods.
• Parent to parent communication for peer mentoring, support and information exchange.
• The need for localised communication strategies for parents tailored from robust authoritative central information and guidance.
• Integration of school and community via on-site job seeking skills and training for parents and young people.
• It is possible to engage hard-to-reach parents in schools through creating employment opportunities for those who are unemployed or lacking skill.
• Parents are keen to help shape the future vision of the school.
• Parents, who are also professionals can edit existing materials effectively to suit local parents.
• Co-production between parents and pupils.

A high level overview (designed to be an A0 size poster) of the project and the emerging learning, at March 2008, is available here.

Further information on the 12 field trial sites can be found here.