National school elements in the good school concept: analysis of the view of school students' parents

Based on the Lithuanian educational documents the General Concept of Education in Lithuania (1992) and the Good School Concept (2015), that put emphasis on the close collaboration between the family, school and society, the research question was raised of how parents of school students understand the concept of the good school and whether they sought the same values of the good school as had been agreed upon by the educational community. The focus of the research was a conception of the good school based on the ideas of the national school by parents of school students. The aim of the research was to reveal the parents' conception of the good school and to discuss how it was related to the features of the good school presented in The Good School Concept (2015). The conception of the good school of the comprehensive school students' parents who participated in the research only partially complied with the accepted features of the Good School Concept {2015). The parents distinguished these features of the good school by choosing to focus on: 1) school life: students' well-being and security, their willingness to go to school, teacher - student communication; 2) education (self-education) and child's achievements, progress; 3) competences of the teacher; 4) physical environment at school; 5) the whole community participating in the development of the school strategy.The parents did not reveal or name such defining aspects of the good school as a learning organization enabling leadership and management and did not understand or want to see their obligations, duties or opportunities as members of the school community. The parents tended to notice only clearly visible, obvious external changes in schools, without sufficient deep understanding and recognition of the significance of educational environment as one of the essential characteristics of the good school. [...]Mykolo Romerio universitetasVytauto Didžiojo universitetasŠvietimo akademij