Should Schools Be Concerned with Parental/Home Involvement?

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Should schools be concerned with parental/home involvement? Introduction This assignment will look at the importance of parental involvement in schools and their child’s education and two of the main areas concerning communication between parents and schools. Firstly, this report asks the question is parental involvement important? Secondly, school reports are considered with an analysis of their effectiveness as a means of communication and thirdly parents’ evenings as a forum for discussion and encouraging parental involvement. This report is going to explore the perceived problems with the current systems with a review of relevant literature and a brief look at what can be done to encourage parents to become more involved in their child’s education. Is parental involvement important? Parental involvement includes supporting the pupils progress at home by creating a positive “learning environment” and enforcing school policies (DfES, 2003). DfES (2003) report highlights many benefits of parental involvement with surprising results such as “Parental involvement in a child’s schooling was a more powerful force than other family background indicators such as social class, family size and level of parental education”. There is a further body of evidence which suggests that parental involvement “increases test scores” they also indicate that factors regarding the family are “11 times as influential as school factors” when considering a students performance in school (Callison , 2004). Hurley (2005) discusses that support by parents is of paramount importance and a “Crucial determinant of children’s educational performance”. Also Grolnick & Slowiaczek (1994) have indicated that parental involvement can have an affect on schooling and motivation for students with the result of students’ increased feeling of competence and control of their academic
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