Parental Involvement in raising the Achievement of Primary School Pupils: why bother? (Updated)
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Parents
What were parents asked to do with their children?
The study suggests that some of the materials and tasks sent home to parents could have been developed to be more useful. The parents were asked to undertake highly skilled activities such as doing number games or supporting children reading. These are tasks requiring specialised subject knowledge and schools did not seem sufficiently aware of this. (Perhaps this is not surprising, given how much teachers have to internalise and routinise their professional knowledge to put it to use in busy classrooms.)
The authors describe the types of responsive and informed interaction demanded by these activities as one of the most difficult aspects of inducting young learners into the curriculum. In some cases these tasks were chosen because the teachers felt that they had too much to do and parents could provide additional practice at school tasks and could be trained to do these tasks. This could mean that those children whose parents already had high level skills or access to the subject knowledge benefited more than children whose parents did not. Those schools where support was most needed because of the low 'base level start' were often the most frustrated in getting parents involved. It was also usually these schools where parents' attendance at training workshops was lowest.
