Parents in partnership: measuring the contribution and potential impact of parental participation in primary school education

This research, sitting in the heart of my professional practice, brings a significant contribution to knowledge through the refinement and application of what I am calling 'parent partnership descriptors'. These descriptors enable measurements to be taken to explore the correlation between the strength of the partnership and the child’s academic progress and life chances. The degree to which the partnership between parents, the school and the child's education positively influences outcomes are debated at length (Campbell 2010; Goodall 2011; Grayson 2013 and Vincent 2017). In addition, literature on the subject acknowledges that the ability to quantify the effect of this partnership on pupils' outcomes is lacking (Desforges 2003 and Hill and Taylor 2004). Most parents want their children to succeed but not all have the ability to support this process. The research has identified that if you share the expectation of what can be achieved with parents and then provide the support to enable this to happen, pupils have the opportunity to succeed. In this research, findings from database analysis, interviews, questionnaires, documentary analysis and case studies provide a correlation between the level of partnership with the school and academic outcomes. There have been three aspects to this research. The first explores the relationship between parents' involvement with the school and the child's learning and academic progress. The second aspect involving a longitudinal study, identifies a correlation between parental partnership at primary school and the need for specialist services as pupils move through secondary school. The final and innovative aspect of this research has been to use the descriptors to identify families who need additional support in order to improve the partnership, pertinent to their needs (Goodall and Vorhaus 2011). Consequently, purposeful intervention is offered for the families who need it most. Parents in partnership play a significant part in the advancement of the child’s education but also life chances post primary school. A disturbing statistic emerges that those parents who are not actively involved in the learning process compromise the child's education and future social and educational development. The research, as it stands, reveals evidence of a need for an effective partnership that contributes to academic progress at primary school and in turn impacts on life chances of children during adolescence and young adulthood. The research leads to evidence-informed recommendations for policy makers and school leaders