Home–school communication: what we have learned from the pandemic

ABSTRACT

Drawing on interview data with school staff and parents from seven primary schools across England, this paper explores how schools and homes worked together during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the impact this had on their relationships with one another. Given that research before the pandemic has indicated that much of the communication taking place between home and school tends to be ‘one way’ – from the school to home (Meier and Lemmer 2015; Leenders et al. 2019), this paper demonstrates how enforced school closure meant that schools had to find new, or modified ways of communicating and interacting with children and their families. Forty-nine interviews were conducted with participants including headteachers, classroom teachers, teaching assistants, school office workers and parents. Participants were asked to talk about their own experiences of the pandemic including how they communicated with one another. Findings revealed that the pandemic facilitated a great deal more collaboration and ‘partnership' between teachers and parents. Participants reported that they had developed a better understanding of one another and that this had positive implications for the children’s education. Given the lessons learned from this study, this has important implications for all schools about promoting effective communication practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Resolved communication
• partnership
• home-school

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).