: Parental Engagement – building a positive relationship post-16 A focus on working with parents to support children’s learning

In this blog, Caron Rainton, Student Support Lead and very experienced Progress Tutor at Oldham Sixth Form College talks about the importance of parental engagement from a college perspective, but also from that of the parent, and trying to continue that contact as our young adults learn how to cope in the post-16 sector.

When my daughter started Year 12 and was proudly showing me her Further Maths homework, I suddenly felt quite powerless. Her knowledge was clearly beyond mine, so what role did I have in her education now? The days of helping her with homework were certainly long gone!

This perceived powerlessness may mirror the feelings of many of our Sixth Form parents, meaning we need to work harder to build positive relationships and perhaps guide them on how they can support their fledgling adults in the next stage of their education.

When you work with such a fantastic team of enthusiastic and supportive colleagues, it can be hard to see how we could possibly be perceived as a scary or intimidating bunch by any parents; but sadly, my experiences tell me that to some, that is indeed the case. This is sometimes compounded by a common myth that 16 – 19 year old students are ready to make all their own decisions so parents can relax and take a step back. Whilst, undoubtedly, we want to foster independence and self-reliance in our students, we still need the support of parents in guiding them to make sensible choices along the way.

The EEF Guidance report 2021 Parental Engagement In Children’s Learning explores this theme, and whilst it recognises this is a field with less rigorous evidence of what constitutes effective parental engagement, (a situation that may feel familiar to pastoral staff as it is notoriously difficult to measure the impact of such support), it does make a number of interesting recommendations.

On this theme we have been encouraging our tutorial team to try to reach out to parents with positive news. All too often the only phone calls from college will be when something has gone wrong. If so, is it any wonder sometimes parents are reluctant to answer the phone? If we can, we want to balance concerns with some positive and reassuring exchanges. This may also have hidden benefits for our staff too. We are also encouraging the team to adopt ​“Feel Good Friday”. Every Friday we ask tutors to identify a couple of students who are making good choices and reach out to their parents with the positive news. It could be full attendance, excellent punctuality or positive engagement in activities that week. We also hope that a by-product of this will benefit our tutors by shifting their attention to the, sometimes forgotten students, who are doing the right things and thereby ending the week on a positive note. In light of Recommendation 3 we also reviewed how we communicate as a team. Out of this came a new tutor introduction email using Canva. Colleges are big places and we don’t see our parents at the school gates, so by putting a face to the name we hope to knock down barriers and open clear channels for dialogue.

Drawing from the EEF’s report and our experience at OSFC, here are some ideas to consider when communicating with parents: 

• Personalised Communications: give parents the information they need to see the true picture. When looking at the total number of absences to date, we quote this in hours of learning lost. Research suggests most parents underestimate the number of days absent from school and 72% of parents with higher-than-average absence students did not know that their children had missed more school than their classmates. (Extract from the Guidance Report : Small changes matter). Including a peer average for comparison may help to highlight a problem.
• Consider frequency, timing and audience: who are you contacting with information? Is it always the same contact number or are you reaching out to the wider family? Research shows engaging fathers too can have a positive impact (Extract from the Guidance Report : Consider frequency, timing and audience).
• Be positive – frame communication positively if possible. Celebrate successes too. Try to ensure parents are not only contacted personally when there is a problem.