Parents as Partners in Learning
Parents as Partners in Learning

How pupils can help

Pupils have a really important role in encouraging their parents to get involved with the school.  Once they are made aware of how important it is that their parents get involved and support the school they often have a host of good ideas about how this could be done.  They often know what would work best for their parents and their families.

Schools are encouraged to develop pupil discussion groups as part of their work on citizenship and enterprise education.  There may be committees or groups considering equality issues in the school: a Hungry for Success committee or an Eco group.  All of these groups could be asked to consider how parents and the wider community could be involved and support their learning in these areas.

Ways for authorities, schools and parents to involve pupils include:

  • School/pupil councils
  • An authority-wide pupil forum
  • An authority-wide consultation forum for disabled children and young people in line with the Disability Equality Duty
  • A representative on the Parent Council (properly prepared and supported)
  • circle time/golden time - where teachers and children in primary schools have a chance to talk together and share news and information informally
  • Youth involvement in Locality Planning and Community Planning networks
  • Graffiti/noticeboards which act as a permanent comment board
  • Scope for joint work or projects between staff/parent members and youth/pupil representatives
  • Including them in formal and informal consultation processes when new ideas are being developed
  • Being part of the social events
  • Helping in practical ways with activities at the school.

Example 5 - pupils interviewing parents and teachers

In East Lothian, a Task Group of parents was established by a consultant to explore the development of a parental involvement strategy.  The group decided to involve pupils in the process and the consultant met with representatives from school/pupil councils in several primary and secondary schools.

The pupils then interviewed their teachers and their parent or carer at home to get their views on parental involvement.  Some children interviewed step-mums or dads, which was a very good experience for them both and in some cases the first time the step-parents had ever been asked to consider their involvement.  All views gathered by the pupils will help develop the strategy.

Comments from children and young people as part of developing this toolkit

'It [the toolkit] should tell parents and teachers to remember to ask us. We can help them with a lot of things.'

'It's not true that kids and their mums and dads won't want to work together. Just because we have arguments about tidying up at home and staying out late, it doesn't mean we aren't all interested in what happens at school. We want it to be a good school too.'

'The toolkit should tell people to ask grans to help. My gran teaches me lots of good things. Some of my friends don't have grans they see all the time. People could come and be grans for every child who needs one.'

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