Parentkind's Blueprint for Parent-Friendly Schools
Our aim in developing the Blueprint for Parent-Friendly Schools is to give school leaders and partners a powerful easy-to-use tool to facilitate long lasting improvements in parental participation and support robust evaluations. It is designed to be shaped and adapted by those who use it to ensure it is relevant and easy for all schools to use.
The Blueprint for Parent-Friendly Schools formalises parental participation with a clear, easy to use parental participation framework for action reinforced with three guiding principles and a shared common language. These are the foundations for school leaders to establish or improve existing strategies, leaving school leaders free to adapt to different elements to fit their own settings.
Find out more here
It is the culmination of five years’ work, which has included:
- Extensive research and review of the evidence – supporting evidence can be found in Parentkind’s commissioned research report with the Research Centre for Children, Families and Communities at Canterbury Christ Church University, which served as a starting point for further consultation and development, in the parental participation framework
- Consultation with over a hundred organisations including, school leaders, key education stakeholders and government agencies involved in education - over the years of creating the Blueprint for Parent-Friendly Schools, we have collaborated with a huge number of education agencies and establishments, policy makers, head teachers and parents. They have helped us refine our Blueprint for Parent-Friendly Schools. We are enormously grateful for all their support and are delighted with the overwhelmingly positive feedback
- Piloting in 21 schools across Doncaster – Our pilot project in the Doncaster Opportunity Area introduced the Blueprint to 14 primary and seven secondary schools in 2019/2020. The pilot captured the impact of schools adopting our Blueprint on pupil attendance rates in schools with previously high levels of absenteeism
What happens next?
We want our Blueprint for Parent-Friendly Schools adopted nationally by policymakers, education agencies and partners and are working tirelessly to make this happen across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. To find out more about our collective approach to positive change click here.
Join us?
To find out more about how you might get involved with our Blueprint for Parent-Friendly Schools, please contact:
Kerry-Jane Packman, Executive Director of Programmes, Membership and Charitable Services
kerry-jane.packman@parentkind.org.uk
Jayne Thompson, Head of Northern Ireland
jayne.thompson@parentkind.org.uk
Tracey Handley, Head of Wales
tracey.handley@parentkind.org.uk
Further reading