Parents as partners in learning: a CPD resource

Purpose of the resource

These activities are designed to help practitioners reflect on parental involvement and to develop strategies/ideas for engaging all parents^[1] and carers to become actively involved in their children’s learning.

Using the resource

The activities can be used to support a whole school approach or with key practitioners' groups to reflect on current practice and to generate thoughts and ideas to foster/enhance parental involvement.

You may wish to consider adapting the activities (available as MS Word documents) to allow you to discuss some of the issues with your Parent Council or other parent groups.

Practitioners may decide to use all or part of these resources to meet the CPD needs identified through various self-evaluation approaches. However, it is recommended that sections 2 (What is parental involvement?) and 3 (Key challenges) are completed.

Building on the activities

• Consider how the ideas generated from the activities could be built into the educational establishment improvement plan.
• Consider the need for whole school policy/approaches to parental involvement.
• Consider how you could share and discuss some of the issues with your Parent Council and/or Parent Forum.

^[1]Please note that, throughout this resource, 'parent' includes guardian and any person who is liable to maintain or has parental responsibilities in relation to, or has care of, a child or young person, and should be seen as key partners in supporting their children.