Effective parental engagement
The SEND Code of Practice makes it clear that children and their parents or carers must be actively involved in the decision making for children with SEND at all stages. In particular, settings must ensure that information gathering includes an early conversation with the child and their parents which is structured in a way to gain a good understanding of the child's strengths and difficulties, parents' concerns and the next steps required. Parental engagement in their child's learning and the quality of the home learning environment is key to achieving improved outcomes and settings should talk to parents regularly to set clear outcomes and review progress towards them.
Schools should be optimistic about the potential of working with parents
- there is an established link between the home learning environments at all ages and children's performance at school.
- schools and parents have a shared priority to deliver the best outcomes for their children
Working effectively with parents can be challenging, and is likely to require sustained effort and support. Most schools say that they do not have an explicit plan for how they work with parents; fewer than 10% of teachers have undertaken CPD on parental engagement. Therefore, schools and settings should start by critically reviewing their aims and current approaches and:
- focus on areas that have better evidence. Different approaches are needed for different ages.
- talk to parents who are less involved about what support they would find helpful.
- plan and monitor to progress towards defined aims' using EEF summary of recommendations
Source EEF effective parental engagement for pupils with SEND includes questions for reflection.
