Understanding the value of parental engagement through pupil voice in a Scottish Primary School

ABSTRACT

Schools strive to respond compassionately to disadvantaged families. However, barriers to authentic home-school relationships persist because the concept of parental engagement at home is not well enough understood. Socio-cultural stereotyping still contributes to schools’ fixed impressions of what parental engagement should consist of, and the abilities of disadvantaged parents to support their children’s learning. This qualitative case study provides new and unique insights into learning at home. A child-centred study was undertaken in a small Primary school, in a deprived area of Scotland, exploring the importance of home learning with young children. The findings indicate the young participants had an acute understanding of the significance of home learning for their ongoing and future development.

KEYWORDS:

• Parental engagement
• family learning
• home-school partnerships
• child-centred research
• pupil voice
• visual methods

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation is a government statistical tool used to identify concentrated areas of multiple deprivation to target policies and resources. SIMD level 1 categorises the most deprived areas, SIMD level 7, the least deprived.