On 10 September, the Council of Catholic School Parents hosted a Master Class in Parent Engagement in Low SES Communities for 100 educators and parent leaders from across NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania.
Professor Harris is Pro-Director (Leadership) at the Institute of Education, London and Director of London Centre for Leadership in Learning.
Professor Harris’ research has mostly focused on organisational change and development. She is internationally known for her work on school improvement, focusing particularly on improving schools in challenging circumstances. Her more recent work has focussed on parent engagement with schooling. She is a co-author of Do Parents Know they Matter?Raising Achievement Through Parental Engagement.
Professor Harris’ workshop looked at the relationship between disadvantage and underachievement of young people and challenged participants to work towards success for every child everywhere. Prof. Harris also offered an assessment of some of the solutions and argued that many have ultimately failed to hit the mark and have been inadequate, not because they or bad or faulty projects but because they are focusing on the wrong things. Finally she argued that we need a new story for disadvantaged schools one that focused on building community and social capital rather than the old story of top down intervention.
Professor Harris highlighted that while some of the reasons for performance lie within the control of the school, the most significant influences of the family context and peer group are not. Schools harnessing parental engagement strategies, she argued, is more important than ever.
Parental engagement in ‘supporting learning in the home’ is the single most important factor in student achievement.
Schools, she says need to ask how they:
- communicate to parents how much they matter
- are helping parents to be co-educators
- make it a genuine two-way relationship.
If parental engagement is to make a real difference to the achievement of pupils, Harris’ research has found that it must be a holistic (and embedded) engagement, rather than one which takes place around certain isolated issues.
Parent Engagement
Professor Harris stressed that parental presence at school DOES NOT EQUAL engagement. School-based involvement such as P&Fs, in canteen, on school boards etc has limited impact on students’ achievement and outcomes. What happens in the home has a much greater effect on achievement than these more traditional school-based activities.
The key difference between involvement and engagement is that engagement is intentionally linked to learning.
Engagement, as Harris sees it, can be defined as supporting student learning at home.
She believes schools must see it as part of their remit to assist parents in this endeavour. Greater parent engagement with learning she argues is needed more than ever before - especially if we are to close the gaps for more disadvantaged students and schools.
What are the key barriers to parental engagement?
Parents, Harris says, cite their own experience of school as one of the most significant barriers to greater parental engagement with school and their child’s learning. This is followed by practical issues (18%), their own perceived lack of skills (15%) and teacher attitudes towards them and greater engagement (13%).
Schools can use this sort of data (based on their own communities) to tailor their parent engagement strategies to best effect.Parents, Harris says, cite their own experience of school as one of the most significant barriers to greater parental engagement with school and their child’s learning. This is followed by practical issues (18%), their own perceived lack of skills (15%) and teacher attitudes towards them and greater engagement (13%).
Building Community - For Equity and Diversity
“For me equity and diversity can be realised if each child succeeds in each setting – some say this is unrealistic but the converse is unpalatable - some children in some settings? Whose children - yours or mine? I firmly believe in securing success for each child in each setting. There is no greater challenge but no higher moral purpose”. - Alma Harris
Professor Harris contends that issues of equity and diversity will only be addressed by building a strong infrastructure of localised and context-specific support between teachers, parents and other professional groups. Building strong communities with schools at the centre will ensure that all young people have the same opportunities and life chances, wherever they happen to live.
Schools are more likely to be effective if they draw their community into their work, for example by engaging parents in school life and engaging local employers and public agencies.
