Comments on: Do We Actually Know What Parents Want For Their Child’s Education?

By: With Equal Step

Wed, 10 Dec 2014 21:23:52 +0000

I wrote about this a year ago (http://sheilaspeaking.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/a-seat-at-the-table-parents-teachers-and-education/). Same problem in Canada. If educators do not begin to PARTNER with parents in educating our children, they cannot complain when home doesn’t/can’t support school initiatives. All parties want the same thing – student achievement. Why not work together to accomplish it?

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By: David

Wed, 10 Dec 2014 12:11:33 +0000

Phew, that’s a relief. Would love to see your innovations if I’m ever down your way.

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By: Tim Ennion

Wed, 10 Dec 2014 12:01:12 +0000

I’d classify you as a ‘facilitating expert’, David! Yes – we’ve had lots of success on a small scale with small groups of parents… the question is one of how we scale this up and extend our reach. Tech has potential here but we’ve got lots of work to do to find the right way in. In the shorter term we are developing our student led programmes. You’re right – the concept of students coaching parents has certainly given us an interesting route in and is proving very popular with parents. Hope all’s good with you too. Tim

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By: David

Wed, 10 Dec 2014 11:14:31 +0000

Hi Tim,
Good to hear from you. And you’ve hit on the key question: it’s one thing to work with the parents who venture forward, but how to reach the people who aren’t in the room? I take your point on informality (though as some people might class me as a ‘preaching expert’, I’ll try not to take it personally!) You are on to something very important in having students leading events – it turns the ‘parents as learning coaches’ on it’s head too!
Hope all is well with you. Thanks for sharing.

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By: Tim Ennion

Tue, 09 Dec 2014 22:21:57 +0000

Engaging parents in learning is undoubtedly central to building a positive learning culture among children. Over the past few years I’ve had experience of all six of these ideas and they have something to offer a group of parents who are generally already engaged; often confident, middle class mums. What we’re talking about here is a serious culture shift. The parents who have been held at arms length for so long (in the secondary phase) are now being invited to participate and none of us really know what ‘parental engagement’ we really want. What I have realised is that it’s going to take a different approach if we want to encourage a true representative cross section of our parents into our schools. We need approaches that are informal and non threatening, free of edu-guff and preaching experts. Such opportunities might be student led and allow parents to reach their own solutions. Recently we have experimented with student led events for parents which have been our most successful ever, where students have taken on the role of coaches… How to support your child’s learning; Keeping up with your kid’s technology, etc. In fact, technology has exciting potential to reach out to a large range of parents. We are exploring social networking to bring parents together; encouraging collaboration, sharing ideas and building their own solutions, rather than being told the answers by ‘experts’. And, simply creating more time for parents, teachers and students to get together and talk is pretty important too!

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