Supporting parents to raise pupil attainment

A third of children at Grays Nursery and Infant School have SEN, but a new approach to working with parents has given a significant boost...

Grays Nursery and Infant school, Newhaven, East Sussex sits in an area of socio-economic deprivation. All schools in the town have high levels of Free School Meals (FSM) and Special Educational Needs (SEN), including my own – over a third of our children have SEN and almost half my current Y2 are on the SEN register. These pupils are particularly vulnerable to under-achievement.
I have been headteacher of Grays for seven years and also executive head of our nearby Junior school, Southdown, for the past year. Grays is a good and improving school with many outstanding features, our rates of progress are above average but our attainment levels have – in the past – held us back.
This led us to investigate ways of raising pupils’ attainment and the realisation that our number one priority should be doing more to support parents.
Looking at the research surrounding parental engagement, such as the studies carried out by Charles Desforges, we saw that – for children under seven – parents have a much larger impact on educational achievement than schools. At Grays, we noticed a significant dip in children’s learning over the holiday breaks, so it became clear that, if we were going to raise standards, our first step had to be getting parents on board.
More specifically, we discovered many of our parents lacked confidence in developing their children’s learning at home, so the challenge for us was to hear and respect their views and find a way to support them. It was at this point that we became aware of the Achievement for All programme and its focus on parental engagement.

Better communication

Like most schools, we believed we were inclusive and that parents felt involved in their children’s learning. But when we examined this more rigorously we recognised that, in practice, this meant we let parents know what was happening at the school through newsletters; the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) held social events; and we put on some curriculum meetings. None of this gave parents proper practical guidance on what they could do to support their children, how they could do it, and how they could be confident in doing it. There was no real two-way relationship.
A key change introduced through Achievement for All was the ‘structured conversation’, the purpose of which is to establish a wider school culture of listening to the thoughts and aspirations of parents of young people with SEND.
All staff were trained and a number then put this into practice in their discussions with parents of pupils with SEN. Their feedback was highly positive; they told the team how successful they had been and how different it felt. The impetus then came from the staff to radically change our approach for all parent consultations to ensure we could give them at least 20 minutes once a term, with longer for pupils with SEN. When you consider the meaningful time you have with parents during the usual 5-10 minute session, you realise that the teacher speaks for 90% of the time with a little left at the end for questions. There’s not much room for true dialogue. 
We also recognised that evenings were not necessarily the best time for parents – if you’re a single parent with a young family it can be difficult – so we offered more opportunities to meet. This meant a reorganisation of the timetable to ensure staff were released to offer morning, afternoon and evening slots and to properly plan for reliable supply cover. There is, of course, a financial implication, but the value of the progress is considerable. 
Having a nursery on site is also a valuable facility for us and has meant that we can offer crèches to look after young children during the consultation. 
Detailed records are kept and I monitor these, so if a parent hasn’t made it in then we arrange a new time, or make a home visit. We already carry out home visits for children prior to Reception so we have an existing protocol for this and our families have an expectation that this is part of our ethos. Again, these are timetabled so that a teacher and teaching assistant can make the home visit without the pressure of a ticking clock. The parent feels more at ease in their own environment and the children love it; it gives them a connection between home and school if their teacher has seen their toy, or their pet.

Connecting online

The other essential element for us is the use of technology. Through a mix of funding – a grant obtained from the National e-Learning Foundation, donations from parents who could afford to do so, and PTA activities – we purchased laptops and subsequently small netbooks that we send home with our children. Many of our parents only have access to the internet through their mobile. Some do not have access at all, so all the devices are wifi enabled, the latest models have 3G connectivity and the learning platform is compatible with mobile devices. 
Children take the netbooks home every week and for at least one holiday a year. Pupils can log on and enter a password using picture icons: if you’re five and have SEN then you can’t always write your name. There’s a little damage – the occasional Ribena spill or spaghetti bolognese incident – but we cover that on our insurance and over the whole time we have done this we have had zero thefts or losses. The families appreciate and respect the opportunity it gives them.
The learning platform has separate areas for each class and all staff have been trained to upload images, video and words into their area. What the platform means in practice is that a parent can sit with their child, look at the science lesson they did in class and reflect on the learning – they can ask questions and share the experience the child has had. They can also hear the practitioner guiding the children and learn from this themselves. 
Each child has his or her own space called an e-portfolio. It can be seen by the child, her parent, and the teaching and support staff who work with them. Again, the staff upload content onto this space and it shows the goals that have been agreed with the parent. The parents can also upload materials – this might be to show a child working on a project or writing his or her own name for the first time. Sometimes it’s as simple as a message saying ‘Mummy is very proud of the work you’ve done today’. The children gain hugely by those little confidence boosts and it’s especially significant for our SEN pupils. For them it’s those small steps of progress between the NC sub-levels that need to be recognised and rewarded. Sometimes, of course, it’s practical work that demonstrates progress and use of video and images is a much better way to show this than a few comments on a workbook. 

Training for parents

It’s important that the technology has been embedded in our practice and I’ve made sure that everyone can use it easily. Parents are given workshops and we run regular coffee sessions, so if anyone has a problem they know they can see someone. We make sure parents know that it’s not a problem if they’ve lost their password, we simply reissue it.
I monitor use of the learning platform so I can see how often someone is logging on and, if they haven’t been using it for a while, I follow up to check if there’s a problem. Once they start using it, many parents find they are already familiar with this way of working – as one young mother commented to me at a training session, ‘Well, Mrs Terrey, you know what, it’s just like Facebook, isn’t it?’ I hadn’t quite looked at it like that but I suppose it is; with safety, privacy, and an educational-basis. 
We can see the impact stronger engagement with parents has made to our children’s learning. We now engage with 100% of parents in structured conversations, our progress is very good, and our attainment has reached national average – given the starting point of many of our children and the significant levels of SEN, that’s huge for us. Last year we measured our learning levels immediately after the summer break and the dip was half that of the previous year. We are continuing to work with Achievement for All. The programme has supported us in focusing on an area that we knew was important – offering us ideas and solutions, linking together separate elements of our management and monitoring practice – and helped us to shift our achievement levels.