Building Home‐School Liaison into Classroom Practice: a need to understand the nature of a teacher's working day

Abstract

This article describes an evaluation of a home—school liaison initiative— the Parental Involvement in the Core Curriculum (PICC) Project. The PICC Project ran for 2 years and it involved lecturers from a university working with class teachers in three primary schools in an inner London borough. The article looks at the extent to which the various parental involvement ideas entered school practice in a lasting way and highlights the professional issues arising from the implementation process. There is a focus on teachers’ management of the new parent practice and reflection on the methodology of the evaluation and the role of the in‐house evaluator. Given the current climate of expectations in the area of home—school liaison, it is suggested that teachers need to establish feasible initiatives for parental involvement practice—initiatives that are not only realistic in terms of extra workloads but also balanced in terms of the time spent engaging with parents and the direct benefits that this brings for children's learning. It is concluded that teachers need more pre‐service and in‐service support in order to set up productive collaborations with parents. However, more fundamentally, it is suggested that class teachers’ identities stem mainly from their work with children. So, if they are to embrace home‐school liaison without outside facilitation, there is a need for a review of the school day to give work with parents more time and status.