Train teachers on how to get parents involved in children’s learning, say researchers

Over half of primary and secondary school teachers in England have not been trained in how to support parents’ involvement in children’s learning and education at home and at school.  

That’s according to research published today in the peer-reviewed journal Educational Review, which is a first study of its kind based on a survey of more than 1,700 teachers reveals concerning gaps in skills. 

Led by academics from the University of Warwick and UCL, the paper shows teachers’ essential pre-qualification training fails to prepare teachers to build relationships with parents or to support families with activities such as reading to children, accessing learning resources and attending school events. 

Previous research has identified a strong link between parental engagement and children’s success at school. The more interest a parent takes in their child’s learning outside school, the better that pupil’s behaviour, attendance and overall motivation to do well in school. 

Teachers have an obligation to know how to work with all parents. But the authors of this new analysis say participants reported they were least confident engaging parents who faced additional barriers or disadvantages. 

They are calling on policymakers to ensure teachers are better trained to support parents to engage with children’s learning effectively, especially beyond the classroom. 

“It’s clear there’s still work to do in ensuring that teachers are fully equipped with the knowledge and skills required to facilitate effective parental engagement,” says lead author Cat Jones, an ESRC-funded PhD student at the University of Warwick. 

“The results reveal important training gaps. Most teachers reported receiving no training on the types of parental engagement that are most effective. Or how to identify and remove barriers to parental engagement.” 

Co-author Professor Olympia Palikara, who is also based in the Education Studies department at Warwick, adds: “Gaps in teachers’ parental engagement knowledge and skills suggest a continuing preoccupation with parents’ involvement with school-based activities. This is at the expense of more effective parental engagement with learning beyond school.”  

Taking an interest in what children are learning, working in partnership with schools, and providing learning opportunities are among many examples of how mothers and fathers can engage with education in a positive way.  

There is some evidence to suggest parental involvement can have a bigger effect on pupil outcomes than socioeconomic status. In the UK, successive education ministers have been actively involved in supporting schools in engaging with parents.  

However, not all engagement strategies have proven to be effective in improving outcomes for pupils. For example, trying to get parents involved in homework has mixed results. The researchers therefore argue that teachers need to understand which strategies are likely to be effective. As such, many researchers have called for parental engagement to be a key element of teacher education, across Europe, the US, and Australia.  

Data for this study was based on 1,782 qualified primary and secondary school teachers in England of various ages and years teaching experience.  

An online survey was emailed to all schools in England to collect information on an anonymous basis between June 2023 and March 2024. The purpose was to investigate the current state of teachers’ parental engagement training, knowledge and skills in England. Additionally, the authors set out to examine whether this relates to teacher and school characteristics.  

Participants were presented with a list of parental engagement topics. They were asked to indicate whether they had encountered them during their initial teacher education and ongoing training. 

An open-ended question asked teachers to define parental engagement and to provide examples of strong parental engagement.  

They were also asked to rate their confidence in relation to skills such as engaging with parents who speak other languages, with those who have had negative school experiences, and with those experiencing poverty. 

The researchers also gathered other information such as how many hours the teachers worked, if they were parents themselves, and what percentage of their pupils were eligible for free school meals. 

Results showed that fewer than 3 in 10 (29%) participants reported that their initial teacher education (ITE) had covered the basics of what parental engagement is or why it is important.  

Only 13% said their ITE covered which parental engagement activities are effective, and less than 7% had covered parental engagement in the context of poverty, language differences, cultural differences, or prior negative school experiences. 

The study did identify what characteristics of teachers predicted higher self-reported skills for getting parents to engage effectively. Those who were more experienced, had leadership roles, and had children of their own were more confident in with parental engagement.  

Primary school teachers generally scored more highly than secondary teachers. The authors say this is unsurprising because primary school teachers tend to work with fewer pupils and generally have more opportunities to interact directly with parents. 

They are calling for further analysis into the effects of a teacher’s training, workload and their job role to predict teachers’ parental engagement skills. 

“Parental engagement with their children’s learning has such a powerful effect on children’s outcomes. It is therefore essential that teachers have both the time and the training to be able to build relationships with parents and to support all families to access resources outside school,” adds Cat, who is also an experienced primary school teacher and school governor. 

“Importantly, our findings provide specific directions on how to ensure that teachers have the knowledge and skills to facilitate effective parental engagement moving forward,” concludes co-author Dr Vassilis Sideropoulos, a senior research specialist at the Institute of Education at UCL.
 

A limitation of the paper is that the authors had to create their own measures of teachers’ parental engagement knowledge and skills. Going forwards, studies which validate these measurement tools, the authors state, “would support more large-scale research and lay the ground work for evaluating parental engagement training interventions in the future”.