Engaging hard to reach families: learning from five ‘outstanding’ schools

ABSTRACT

Parental engagement is shown to have a significant effect on educational outcomes, especially at primary school level. It can take a variety of forms including helping children with homework and attending parents’ evenings. Evidence suggests that parents with lower socio-economic status (SES) are less likely to engage in their children's education and there is a tendency to label such parents as ‘hard to reach’. However, in reality these parents may find the school itself ‘hard to reach’. This paper explores the relationship between schools and families, offering a critical review of relevant literature and then presenting data from a study of five outstanding schools in Stoke-on-Trent, Britain that have successfully engaged parents in their children's learning. In so doing it challenges some of the assumptions that are made regarding lower SES parents in terms of parental engagement.

KEYWORDS:

• Attainment
• parental engagement
• aspirations
• class

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding

The paper draws on the ‘Raising Attainment at Key Stage 1 in Stoke-on-Trent’ project which was funded by Stoke City Council (2013-16). The research team comprised: Farzana Shain (PI, Keele University), Ruth Dann (Manchester Metropolitan University, Laura Watt (Keele University) and Steve Cropper (Keele University).