ay in heChildren have two main educators in their lives, these being their parents and the different teachers they encounter throughout their school years. Therefore, the Scottish School’s Act (2006) aims to promote and highlight the importance of conjoining the involvement of the parent within their child’s school life and environment. This act focusses on encouraging parents and revealing the significant benefits of parent’s being actively involved within their child’s education (Scottish Schools (Parental Involvement) Act, 2006). Parental engagement is highlighted as one of the seven key drivers in the National Improvement Framework (Scottish Government, 2018). When discussing the term parental engagement and what it entails, the difference between that and parental involvement must be distinguished. Parental involvement is the term in which the government are tending to move away from using on its own, this is described as the activities that parents take part in within the school, the conversations and communication between the teacher and parent about the child and education-related rules within the household (Harris & Goodall, 2007). Whereas, parental engagement is described as when the parent is no longer an individual coming into the school, but, is now included within the school community and the role of the parent is more significant as there is a shared responsibility in committing to the child’s education and learning (Warren, Hong, Rubin & Sychitkokhong UY, 2009, p. 2213). Scotland has begun to put in place an action plan to make the most out of parental involvement, which is called “Learning Together”. They have defined parental ‘engagement’ and parental ‘involvement’ as two separate and completely different things, therefore, their aim is to bring both together and work alongside each other to serve the purpose of supporting the learning and development of all children and young people (Scottish Government, 2018). What follows is the benefits and positive outcomes that parental involvement has on children and their education, challenges to the implementation of parental involvement and the barriers which may need to be overcome. A look into the policy and how it could be clarified to identify what is being asked of the parents, discussion of what is sought after – engagement or involvement? And how schools could address this policy and try to implement it in the most effective way for all will also be discussed.
There has been many studies and work into figuring out if and how effective parental involvement is on promoting pupil’s learning and academic performance. Topor, D. R., Keane, S. P., Shelton, T. L., and Calkins, S. D. (2010) found that an increased activity in parental involvement was followed by a significant relation to an increase in children’s academic ability – measured by both the opinion of the teacher and how the children perform academically in the class, but, also, standardised achievement. Clearly shown and argued is that with more active involvement from the parents there is an increased, positive effect on the child’s school experience and results. Another positive impact of parental involvement is that better student and teacher relationships can be created as there is more contact, discussion and agreement with the parents and also fewer disciplinary problems as all parties involved agree on and implement similar rules in the classroom and home setting (LaRocque, M., Kleiman, I., & Darling, S. M, 2011). Thurston Domina (2010) agreed with this, as from carrying out an investigation, also found that by parents volunteering at school, taking more of an interest in their child’s education by helping and checking homework, this had a positive effect on the behaviour of pupil’s. By doing so, the parents were unknowingly preventing negative behavioural problems within the classroom. Another way in which parental involvement has a positive effect on children and promoting positive engagement with their teachers and peers is that children develop higher aspirations for themselves. Children are more likely to want to do better for themselves and achieve academic success to the best of their ability when they know that their parents are involved in their education and have a relationship with the school. It was found that children with parents that have prestige and important occupations, see first-hand the benefits that educational success can bring for their own future – which promotes attainment and achievement throughout the home and school life (Hill, N. E., Castellino, D. R., Lansford, J. E., Nowlin, P., Dodge, K. A., Bates, J. E., & Pettit, G. S., 2004). As previously mentioned within other benefits, a trusting relationship can be built between the parent and teacher through parental involvement. Therefore, creating many benefits for the child and their relationship with the teacher and in achieving academic success. A sense of assurance is created as there is the opportunity for more open conversations between the teacher and parent, they are able to discuss and derive at an agreement of where the child is at and what would benefit their learning and skills at both home and in school (Ellis, Lock & Lummis, 2015).
In contrast to what was previously discussed, there are also numerous barriers to parental involvement and the implementation of it. The policy itself encourages the active involvement of parents in their child’s education to promote an active learning environment, however, how can this be promoted and carried out in a fair and equal way if the parent of every single child has a completely different home and school experience? In the home, there are numerous challenges that parents face when trying to be involved in their child’s education. One of the barriers is the lack of time that some parents may have due to various factors such as one parent families to either one child or numerous children – their caretaking responsibilities are their main priority and focus. Also, parents may have a lack of time to be actively involved due to work commitments (Russell & Granville, 2005). They are unable to volunteer in committees, clubs, attend meetings and many more activities compared to other parents who have more time and they see this as one of the main barriers to being actively involved. Therefore, when they finally do have the time to spend with their child/children they may wish to spend quality time with them as it is something which only happens occasionally. In order to overcome this barrier, teachers could make the effort to set aside time to try and work in accordance with the parent, arranging a time to communicate about the specific child/children and any concerns or important information that may need to be discussed. Another barrier which hinders the involvement of parents in their children’s education is their own lack of knowledge with the curriculum and subject areas. Some parents have a low level of self confidence in themselves, which restricts them from helping their children to the best of their ability – most tend to stay away from doing so as they feel they do not have enough sufficient schooling experience (Hornby & Lafaele, 2011). This is backed up by teachers who say that cultural capital plays an important part in the level of parental involvement from parents, those who had a more successful school experience than others value their cultural capital and participate more in their child’s education (Lareau, 1987). In approaching and prevailing over this barrier a potential option would be to invite parents – confident in their own knowledge or not – to work on and constantly improve their own curricular knowledge through different activities and meetings. Thus, helping them to develop their own skills but also creating a better parent-teacher relationship which will bring with it the opportunity for the level of parental involvement to slowly but surely be improved upon (Warren et al., 2009, p. 2243). If all barriers are attempted to be taken away, then teachers need to promote and encourage through realistic and continuous strategies (Williams & Sánchez, 2011) as teachers should physically carry out what they are trying to utilise – clear and effective communication. Graham-Clay (2005) states that two-way communication is key between teachers and parents for all parties involved to get the most from the child’s educational experiences and to create a positive and active learning environment for all. Trust will grow, contrasting opinions can be discussed whilst also appreciated through a mutual concern for the child.
When looking at the policy itself, it is revealing that this is not a straightforward aim. The Parental Involvement (Scotland) Act 2006 seeks and requires more active involvement from the parents of children within Scottish education, however, it is not all entirely clear and concise in what it is asking for from the parents. The policy makers have decided that yes, parental involvement should and is part of the National Improvement Framework, however, it needs to be made clear to all involved how they can achieve the levels of parental involvement which is required for success – where everyone involved interacts positively with each other. However, we also need to question whether it is ‘involvement’ or ‘engagement’ that the policy is seeking, or in fact, both? As previously discussed, involvement is seen as the communication between the teacher and parent about the child, whereas, engagement is seen as the parent being actively involved within the school and coming together as one team rather than separate. The policy itself is not clear in what exactly it is asking for from the parents, however, the Learning Together (2018) Framework is aiming to collide involvement with engagement and family learning. This framework ideally will help and be more specific as to what it is wanting from the parents – for them to be both involved and engaged in their child’s education for the benefit of the child. The parental involvement continuum argues that both is also needed for success, as it creates a fuller and much clearer picture of the young person for everybody involved and it also creates the opportunity for authentic dialogue to be exchanged (Goodall & Montgomery, 2013) – open and honest conversation is then welcomed by all as teachers/parents/pupil’s feel more comfortable as a greater relationship will have been established. Therefore, schools have put in place several strategies to encourage parents to become more involved and engaged in their child’s school life. North Ayrshire council (2013) have put in place open days and evenings, information sessions on the curriculum – broadening the knowledge of parents who have a low confidence in themselves -, creating a genuine sense of trust and openness and many more, along with other councils across Scotland. It has been argued that it is not exactly huge amounts of time that need to be spent being involved within the child’s learning environment, but the quality of involvement that is needed (Sosu & Ellis, 2013). Showing that in the creation of a learning environment that pupils can engage positively with both their teachers and peers, quality time needs to be devoted to educating the parents on how they can engage and be actively involved within the school community to achieve the upmost success for this policy.
Overall, it cannot be denied, as it has been argued and found that parental involvement is not only important but fundamental to achieving an active learning environment that allows the child to engage positively with staff and peers. Parental involvement creates the foundations of the path in which their child’s education may take. It is an extremely effective approach in assisting pupil’s learning and academic achievement when it is used correctly as it creates positive relationships between the home and school, it encourages the children to want to achieve more as they know their parents are involved and gives parents the opportunity to do more than just assisting in the completion homework – they become part of the school community. In contrast, parental involvement does not come without its barriers that have been discovered and schools must work to try and overcome these obstacles. It is difficult to implement parental involvement in an equal manner as all homes differ in so many ways. Some parents do not have the time to be as involved as others due to many different circumstances and many parents do not feel confident in themselves and their own knowledge, therefore, do not know how to contribute to their child’s education However, once taking the policy apart and researching, it can be concluded that it is not just involvement that is wanted from the parents but engagement also. Therefore, providing many different opportunities for parents to be involved and to strengthen their own knowledge of the curriculum and the educational setting in which their child learns. All of this together will create an active learning community in which pupils can engage positively with school staff and peers.
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