Using services

Pre-school services

The education authority, when preparing its strategy, will wish to take account of the authority’s policies for early years services and pre-school education and how these involve parents in their child’s education and learning. Effective involvement at these early stages can help parents and children prepare for the transition to school and make involvement of parents in school education easier. The authority may wish to seek the views of providers of pre-school education when developing and reviewing its strategy. The authority’s strategy may also consider how it can engage effectively with parents of children coming into primary education. It may have regard to the kind of support that the authority can offer to a Parent Council to help it carry out its functions of promoting contact with parents of prospective pupils of the school and with the providers of any nursery education to such pupils. This could include the provision of information on where most prospective pupils of the school receive pre-school education. The early years sector is diverse and the pre-school education of prospective pupils will vary in different areas. Some schools will have pupils coming from a range of nurseries and pre-school settings, across a wide area. Other schools will receive pupils from a limited number of settings. It will be for schools to decide what is reasonable effort in promoting parental involvement but the expectation is that schools will work with their Parent Councils to promote contact with parents of prospective pupils where at all practicable.

The main provisions of the Act apply to pupils in primary or secondary schools run by the local authority. The definition of pupil includes a child who is under school age if that child is in attendance at a local authority primary school, whether or not the child is in a nursery class in the school. The parents of such children will be members of the Parent Forum for that primary school and will have the same rights under this Act as parents of school age children in attendance at the school.

Integrated children's services

The Scottish Executive report, For Scotland’s Children, highlighted the importance of all agencies working together to provide high quality health, education and other services to all children and their families and communities. Local authorities, NHS Boards and other appropriate agencies are expected to work together to ensure effective integrated children’s services. In doing so, they are required to draw together core statutory and other planning requirements into a single statutory plan. These include Children’s Services Plans, child health elements of Local Health Plans, Joint Health Improvement Plans and Child Health Strategies, Youth Justice Strategies, Children’s Social Work and, in the context of this guidance, Statements of Education Improvement Objectives and progress reports as required under section 5 of the 2000 Act.

This Act amends the 2000 Act so that the account of the ways in which education authorities seek to involve parents in promoting the education of their children should be updated to reflect their strategies for parental involvement. In particular, education authorities should ensure that their contribution to integrated children’s services planning takes account of the duty on authorities to promote the involvement of parents in the education provided generally by their schools, and how their strategy for parental involvement promotes equal opportunities. In developing their strategy, authorities should consider their schools’ links with other organisations providing advice to parents and seeking to engage with them, e.g. Careers Scotland, health and social services, etc. Rather than concentrating solely on school staff, it is beneficial for the strategy to cover the wider context of providing advice and information to parents.

School standards and performance

Under the 2000 Act, education authorities are required, from time to time, to define and publish measures and standards of performance in respect of the quality of education provided by their schools. In doing so, they must consult with representatives of teachers and parents within their area and give them, and any other persons as appropriate, the opportunity to comment on these measures and standards. This Act amends the 2000 Act such that education authorities are required, when assessing the quality of education provided by their schools, to consider the extent to which a pupil’s parents are involved in the education provided to the pupil.

Ambitions and objectives for schools

Each school must ensure that its school development plan takes account of the authority’s strategy for parental involvement. In doing so, it must also ensure that the objectives set for the school includes objectives as to the involvement of a pupil’s parents in the education provided to the pupil and to the school’s pupils generally. The school development plan must also include a statement of the education authority’s ambitions for the school.