School And Community Inquiry Assignment

WA1

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY

INQUIRY ASSIGNMENT

AN INQUIRY INTO THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SCHOOL X AND THE PARENTS OF PUPILS AT THE SCHOOL

Introduction – The economic and demographic backdrop to School X

I believe it is important to the nature of this inquiry that I begin by providing some history of the school in question, as well as some economic and demographic context.

School X is a comprehensive, sponsor-led academy, located in a small ward of a central London borough (Borough A). Although Borough A is the wealthiest of London's 32 boroughs, the ward falls within the most economically deprived 5% of areas in the capital[1].

(Image A[2])

Image A illustrates 'the proportion of working-age adults receiving out-of-work benefits by ward'. The area I have ringed includes Ward A (where School X is located). Image A shows that School X is located in the area of Borough A with the highest concentration of working-age adults receiving out-of-work benefits. Over 60% of students are from workless households (School X, 2013) and over 45% are from single parent families (ibid).

#145Borough A is officially the most difficult place to conduct a census in England and Wales.'[3] This is mainly because the borough's population is richly diverse, with 182 different nationalities represented and only 56% of residents born in the UK, compared to a London average of 73%[4]. Arabs are the second largest ethnic group in the borough[5], a fact that is clearly reflected in the demography of pupils at School X the two most highly represented non-white ethnic groups being Arabs and Bengalis (School X, 2013). The school claims to have students on roll from 52 different countries, speaking 70 different languages (ibid). This gives a strong sense of the need to think about new ways to engage with parents, as many are from a different cultural heritage and/or do not have confidence in English.

School X opened in September 2006, filling the void left by the closure of School Y. According to members of staff at the school, the closure of the School Y and a difficult beginning for School X are major factors behind the negative stigma School X is still having to contend with. This stigma continues despite the fact that, at the time of writing, School X was coming to the end of its seventh year and had just won the 'tes Secondary School of the Year'[6]. It is currently rated as 'Outstanding` by Ofsted (see Appendix 1) and in 2012, the 75% of pupils who took GCSEs at the school achieved 5 A*-C grades, compared with 17% in 2007 (Department for Education, School X, 2013).

We have seen that School X is located within a deprived area of the UK and that many of the students are from economically disadvantaged, immigrant households. We have also seen that the school is fighting against the negative stigma it inherited from the school it replaced. I will now look at School X's approach to school-parent relations and describe what is currently being done to strengthen this relationship.

What School X is currently doing to involve parents

On interviewing the member of staff at School X[7] who is currently responsible for engaging the parents of pupils, he began by saying "parental engagement is not as good as it should be". He told me that parents will not choose to engage with the school and the onus is therefore on the school to reach out. Before he was given the role, there had been "no coordination (...) just a poorly-attended parents' evening and no chasing up of the absentees”. He estimates that parents' evening attendance is currently somewhere between 60-70%, which is 40-30% lower than he would like it to be. He says that the school now makes a concerted effort to contact non-attendees by telephone, encouraging them to come into school to discuss their child's progress. Furthermore, the school puts on 3 Parental Review Days per year, where parents can meet with their child's form tutor. However, Parental Review Days generally take place during the day on the first day back after a holiday period and attendance is slightly lower than that at Parents' Evening. According to the member of staff, this is often because families do not return from holiday in time for the beginning of a new term.

Besides returning late from a holiday, the teacher lists childcare, work commitments and family issues among the reasons that parents fail to attend events. Various hypotheses for non-attendance were floated by the member of staff, but he admitted to not knowing for sure what some of the root causes were and that this was partly down to the language barrier.

89.3% of pupils currently on roll at School X do not have English as a first language[8]. The school does not send out much written correspondence to parents, as it was decided that such means were rarely responded to. I was told that most responses come from group text messages sent to parents' mobile telephones. The member of staff said that letters home were always written in English and that this might be one of the reasons that they were rarely acknowledged or responded to. Partly in response to this, the school will be offering English lesson to parents from September 2013. 14 parents had signed up as of 11^th July 2013, most of whom were at that time unemployed. The lessons had not yet been fully advertised and subscri ption was expected to be relatively high. I asked how such programmes were going to be advertised and the member of staff went on to talk about the need to develop the school website and make it more accessible to parents. The website "overhaul” is due to take place during the 2013 Summer Holidays.

When asked about the sense of community among parents outside of the school, the member of staff told me that not many parents knew each other well. This said, many pupils and families were apparently "aware of each other” due to living in the area. In order to discern whether parents could be reached out to en masse, the member of staff has made initial contact with the local mosque. However, it is clear that he is unsure of how best to approach this idea and that advice is required regarding cultural etiquette.

School X has made an effort to build relations between parents and the school and between parents and other parents. According to some members of staff, Parents' 'Coffee Mornings' were quite well frequented, although other members of staff do not even remember these having taken place. Such a disparity is indicative of a lack of consistency at School X with regard to contact with pupils' parents. Along with the member of staff we interviewed, pupils also stated that some teachers did not make phonecalls home. I was told by pupils that some staff do not use the praise and sanction system for pupils, which forms the basis of much that ought to be relayed to parents in the regular correspondence that ought to take place.

A 'World Food Day' is scheduled for the start of the 2013/2014 academic year. Parents will be invited to make food and sell it on the school premises, with 50 pence from every sale to go to the new Parent Council. There is currently a Parent Governor, but there has not been a Parent Council in place since the Academy opened in 2006. The member of staff said that or 5” parents had so far expressed an interest. The goal is for the Parent Council to meet once a term, with the first meeting due to take place before the end of the 2012/2013 academic year. The goal is that the Parent Council will work with the school, echoing School X's values and ethos, while also representing the parents' voice. The longer term aim would be to invite parents to lessons, so that they could observe and participate alongside their children.

In an effort to increase the practice of a parenting style that marries well with the school's vision, School X trialled the Triple P programme[9]. Parents were invited to take part in the free sessions, but attendance was low. However, the school is currently advertising a similar programme, entitled Parent Gym (see Images D and E), which is due to start in September, interest permitting.

(Image D[10]) (Image E[11])

Having looked in detail at what School X has done to engage, involve and build relationships with parents of pupils at the school, I will consider the importance of parental involvement and engagement before considering what has been achieved and what more could be done.

The importance of parental involvement

It is a common contention that parental involvement bears greatly on a child's education (Berger, 1995). However, as Carreón, Drake and Barton (2005) note, such involvement is infinitely more difficult for immigrant parents. 'To be successful parents, they must develop new understandings about the world, establish new social networks, acquire new forms of cultural capital (e.g., learning English), and learn new ways to function, including determining how to access medical and educational services for their children' (ibid, p. 469). Schools must appreciate these difficulties and, as the local institution, lead the way in developing relationships and engagement with immigrant parents.

School X's ethnic diversity means that careful planning needs to take place to ensure that parents feel involved in school life. 'Hard to reach' parents themselves often consider the school as 'hard to reach' (ENGAGING PARENTS IN RAISING ACHIEVEMENT - DO PARENTS KNOW THEY MATTER, Harris and Goodall, 2007), but evidence shows that there is a relationship between stronger engagement of 'hard to reach' parents and an improvement in their child's attendance, attitude and achievement (ibid). It is therefore in every party's interest for the school to persist in efforts to improve relationships with 'hard to reach' parents. I believe School X could do more to communicate with parents who do not have confidence in English by having correspondence translated similarly, interpreters should be used when necessary when teachers make phonecalls home. The impracticality of these measures when viewed alongside the simplicity of making contact with parents who have confidence in English should have no bearing on actual practice all parents should feel equally included by the school, as, clearly, linguistic hurdles can be overcome.

Some conclusions

As we have seen, the school has recently begun to coordinate parent-focused activities consistently, albeit for the first time in the seven years since opening. Such activities appear to be slowly breaking the stigma that the School X inherited and building bridges with parents.

However, we have also seen that parents and the school face a number of considerable challenges. Parental understanding is fundamental to building a strong school-parent relationship. The school is trying to reach out and its initiative of offering free English lessons to parents should be applauded. Nevertheless, I believe that, standing alone, this scheme is too focused on long-termism the effectiveness of daily communication needs to be improved upon and I have suggested the use of translators and interpreters as a potential remedy to this issue.

The school has said that it will be developing the school website during the Summer Holidays, but parents have had no input into the development. I think that this would have been an excellent opportunity to collaborate with parents in the development of a website that the school hopes parents will use regularly.

The teacher we interviewed seemed overburdened by the role and spoke of how the mantle had been passed from teacher to teacher, year on year. This leads me to the major issue I have with current policy at School X regarding the school-parent relationship.

One teacher cannot be expected to build this bridge alone. I would argue that the school would benefit from creating a committee of teachers who would work on this issue collaboratively. It goes without saying that a purpose-assembled committee of teachers would stand a better chance of improving school-parent relationships than a single teacher. Addendum to this is the need for a collective improvement from all members of staff who are not currently adhering to school policy with regard to contacting parents regularly.

This reflective inquiry has allowed me to appreciate the difficulties in involving parents from economically disadvantaged, non-English-speaking households in school life. I will take from it a drive to improve school-parent relationships at my placement school, by collaborating with the rest of the school staff to this end. My underlying feeling at the end of this inquiry is that each pupil must be at the centre of their own education and that it is the role of the school to join with parents in nurturing each child's education collaboratively, to make it the best it can be.

[1] http://crimeinlondon.com/westminster/westbourne/profile/

[2] http://www.londonspovertyprofile.org.uk/indicators/topics/receiving-non-work-benefits/working-age-out-of-work-benefits-by-ward/

[3] http://www.Borough A.gov.uk/services/councilgovernmentanddemocracy/research-and-customer-insight/census-information/

[4] http://www.londonspovertyprofile.org.uk/indicators/boroughs/Borough A/

[5] ibid

[6] http://www.tesawards.co.uk/tessa2013/winners

[7] The interview took place on 11^th July 2013. A number of Teach First participants asked questions and took notes.

[8] http://www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/schools/performance/school.pl?urn=131262

[9] http://www.triplep.net/glo-en/home

[10] Poster advertised at School X permission to use granted by School X

[11] [11] Poster advertised at School X permission to use granted by School X