The case for strengthening family-school coherence

by Verity Howorth

Director of Training
The Reach Foundation

Shifting sands

We’ve read a lot about the shifting social contract between schools and the families we serve in the last 12 months. Amanda Spielman, the Centre for Social Justice and Dan Nicholls have, amongst many others, all highlighted important elements of this shift in the UK context. Unesco’s call to ‘renew the social contact for education’ reminds us that this is a global challenge.

This shift is manifesting in different ways, but very few of them are positive: decreased attendance; increased complaints; greater external commentary on social media. School leaders could be forgiven for occasionally feeling that fostering ‘family engagement’ is more like trying to keep a raging wildfire from the door; a significant, but external problem to solve.

However, we think this shift also represents an opportunity. A chance to rewrite and strengthen the contract. Perhaps this is even a moment to question whether contract is the right word. What if we re-imagined family-school relationships as being as precious as the Olympic flame, burning brightly at the heart of every school community? Worthy of nurturing and careful delivery from one phase to the next?

We have an opportunity to rewrite what it means to foster coherent partnerships between schools and families, from phase to phase, throughout a child’s journey. We believe that asset-based, inclusive, sustainable partnerships, that go beyond coffee mornings and hand-wringing about attendance, have the power to move communities towards a tangible reduction in stress and increase in the capacity of all.

Stick or twist?

There will be those who say there is no spare time or extra money to do any more for families. They’re not wrong. School budgets are strained; securing financial stability is the most frequently cited strategic priority amongst trust leaders currently. Indeed, I was that person; as a stretched assistant head in a historically underserved area, putting on a Spring Fayre alongside the day-to-day nearly finished me off!

But this isn’t about doing more

and it certainly isn’t about doing for.

It’s about doing with—and doing differently.

Ploughing on, as we are, will keep us locked in an unsatisfying loop of pouring in ever-increasing resources, without seeing the intended impact. Directing stretched pastoral staff to make 10 more attendance phone calls a day might help, but it will not reverse the national trend for persistent absence.

A common refrain we hear from our partners is that ‘primary schools are great at this’. And, by and large, they are. Indeed, the EEF tells us that for a relatively small investment, positive parental engagement can add an average of 4 months’ additional progress. And let’s be super clear here, for the EEF,

“family engagement means teachers and schools involving parents in supporting their children’s academic learning”.

These effects are substantially higher in early years and primary school settings than in secondary schools.

Great, so primary schools are generally better at supporting parents to, in turn, support their child’s learning—but this shouldn’t be the end of the conversation.

Without a radical rethink—towards re-centering the whole family as a collective unit embarking on a long-term journey through the whole system—we are wasting some of the phenomenal, precious social capital built in the primary phase and denying children the potential gains that continued family engagement could bring about.

“It takes a village to raise a child"

The African proverb has long triggered utopian dreams of children growing up in harmonious communities where they “are given the security they need to develop and flourish, and be able to realise their hopes and dreams”.

Bronfenbrenner’s mesosystem beautifully illustrates the necessity for healthy interconnection between the microsystems.

Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory (via SimplyPsychology)

Are we really so far away from this? The optimist in me says we’re not.

It is not too far of a leap to imagine a world in which schools take a strategic decision to look beyond their own phase, to see the protecting and passing of the sacred Olympic flame of family relationships as a key part of their duty.

Because, just as a child doesn’t experience school in the compartmentalised job roles we have (pastoral, curriculum, primary, secondary, and so on), neither do families.

And let’s be clear: all families are a delightfully complex, dynamic blend of assets and needs, because all people are. At various points throughout their (probably) 15-year interaction with ‘the education system’, every family will require all sorts—and various degrees of—support.

What is consistent throughout though, is that they will always require a relationship, because all people do. We agree with Professor Robert Waldinger, in the 80-year-long Harvard Study of Adult Development;

“To say that human beings require warm relationships is no touchy-feely idea. It is a hard fact. We need nutrition, we need exercise, we need purpose and we need each other.”

Our job, as school, trust and community leaders, is to acknowledge the immense privilege we have in holding these relationships, to humbly give up any idea we might have of ourselves as saviours, and to crack on with working together in our shared village.

How far away is this promised land?

It’s pretty close. Plus, even more encouragingly, it’s not going to cost us much money to get there either—especially when we cost the journey against our prevailing approaches. Here are three things the journey will involve.

1️⃣ We should stop seeing relationship building as a ‘nice to have’ add on.

Or, something that primary schools (typically) get right, but that inevitably and unavoidably drop off at secondary school. Let’s make the case, collectively, as a sector, to put the whole family, and their whole educational journey, right at the heart of the work.

We all cherish those magical moments that happen in our schools; seeing this particular child flourish in and out of the classroom, supporting that particular family to overcome unimaginable challenges, bearing witness to our community rallying round in times of great need.

We know intuitively that these moments are rooted in strong relationships. But the art of relationship building has arguably not had the same theoretical focus, strategic intentionality and dedicated training resources as other crucial areas of school life, such as teacher or curriculum development.

Those who hold pastoral responsibilities in schools are an unwaveringly inspiring, resourceful group, full of pride and love for the communities they serve. So we should prioritise their time and space to reflect on, hone and share their craft.

What does this mean in practice?

A member of SLT should have ‘Family Engagement’ as part of their portfolio. They themselves need allocated time and training to do this role justice. They need a network of other local Family Engagement leads, especially those working in a different phase to them. This person should also work alongside the CPD lead to ensure all staff are trained up on what great family relationships look like.

2️⃣ We should stop thinking that relationship building is a magical gift that only a certain few possess.

Instead, we need to articulate a ‘model of excellence’ for what great relationships with families can and should look like at every phase in the educational journey. And we need to pay particular attention to codifying those in-between bits; the transition milestones are just as important for families as they are for children and we need to get better at them.

In schools, we are sometimes guilty of falling into the trap of putting ‘child-whisperers’ up on a pedestal, praising someone’s seemingly natural ability to calm an irate parent, or telling the ECT that ‘it just takes time’.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury of endless time and a burgeoning pool of people desperate to work in our schools. We have a recruitment and retention crisis in our profession. If we consider ‘relationship building’ to be an unattainable, tacit power, then we condemn children, families and staff to an inconsistent experience at best but at worst, to a miserable existence in schools.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

We ask our children to have a growth mindset when it comes to everything from fractions to French conjugation, but as a sector we are stubbornly ‘fixed mindset’ about our ability to get better at the interpersonal skills required to build and maintain meaningful, effective, compassionate relationships.

What does this look like in practice?

The SLT lead for Family engagement should work alongside a representative stakeholder group to codify what great relationship centred practice looks like across your setting. This ‘model of excellence’ should include an overview of all of the opportunities there are to build relationships with families (from news-letters to parents’ evening) and specific training needed to ensure families are benefiting fully from those opportunities.

Embedding this model of excellence into the CPD diet of all staff working in schools would be an effective, efficient way to increase the impact of the stuff we’re already doing.

3️⃣ Let’s think differently about how we measure the impact of the long-term relationships we have with families.

It is frustrating but not surprising that the evidence about improving attainment by increasing parental engagement is mixed (EEF).

Yes, of course, we measure academic outcomes, attendance and behaviour data. Perhaps we can see a correlation between good relationships with families and positive progress. But let’s be more imaginative, think deeper and more long-term.

What is our annual parent survey telling us, really? What if we tracked family engagement more rigorously? Who comes to parents’ evening? For those who routinely give it a miss—why is that? Could we listen to families more effectively? And if we listened better, what would we hear? What would families find helpful at those all-important transition moments?

Perhaps taking a more asset-based approach to our families would bolster our capacity; we would find leaders in the community who could run a coffee morning, a parenting group, a gardening club. Family ambassadors who can reach those ‘need to reach’ families that school staff struggle to access for a myriad of reasons.

How do we get there?

These are not just ‘pie in the sky’ imaginings. This work is already happening, and having an impact.

Take Thrive Co-operative Learning Trust in Hull. Primary and secondary schools working hand in hand to put on shared events such as ‘Cook Together, Eat Together’, building connections between schools, between the schools and families and crucially, between parents and their children. The impact is increased attendance, reduced complaints and a more seamless transition from year 6 to year 7.

Or the parents’ evening at Whipton Barton Infant and Junior School, part of the Ted Wragg Trust in Exeter. The challenge there was low engagement with parents’ evening. Rethinking how that event runs and considering it from the family’s perspective, adding catering and childcare, choosing a different layout, and attendance from the local secondary school headteacher has resulted in fantastic feedback and greater attendance, especially from key families in the ‘need to reach’ category.

These are just two examples, but there are many more. When resources are as tight as they are, and the challenges as knotty as they have ever been, we need to think differently about family engagement.

If the mindset shifts from family relationships being an external wildfire, a problem that needs to be solved, to a precious flame that should be nurtured and passed along, we will be well on our way to family relationship coherence.