Education Parental Involvement in Schools in Primary Schools in England

Parental Involvement in Primary Schooling

The Standpoint

The first years of school is the most important in a child's life. It is during these years that the child establishes his or her academic personality. This is however not all. The years at primary school also helps a child to form and verify the values learned at home. It is therefore extremely important for parents to form a kind of partnership with primary schools. In this way the school and parents together can learn from each other how best to educate the child. Parents are also very important in helping their children with any problems that could be experienced in school. This will not only make the task of the school easier, but also help parents to establish a relationship of trust with the school.

For the years before the start of school, parents are the most important persons in a child's life. This is why it is also important for parents to remain part of a child's life at the beginning of school. This will make the transition between preschool and primary school, or indeed between home life and school life, easier for the child. Also, children are obviously also important to parents, and the concern is to give a child the best education possible. This can only occur by parental involvement in primary schooling. A parent needs to show interest in the child by connecting with teachers and the school system, as well as by talking to the child about what has been learned through the activities at school.

This topic is very important to me, since I feel that much of the problems experienced by young people may be due to a lack of parental interest in their early school years. Parents sometimes seem to feel that their part in educating their children is over, and the school takes over. The school however focuses mostly on the academic part of education, while morals and values should be established at home. When problems arise in later life, the school system is blamed. But I think it is time that parents take more responsibility for the education of their children.

The Scope

Since only six months are given for the project, the scope must necessarily be limited. The problem is however that parental involvement in schools, as well as social problems arising from a lack of involvement, is a global problem. Teenage pregnancy, gang membership and a lack of respect or responsibility are only a few of the problems faced and caused by youngsters in the world today. Tracing all of this back to the amount of parental involvement in schooling is a difficult and time-consuming task. Also, all problems do not have the same cause. And again, finding the appropriate cause for each problem is difficult to do by only one person in a limited time. I have therefore decided to limit my scope to primary schools, and to England.

Primary schooling represents the first stages of a child's school career. This is the first stage of life away from home. The foundation upon which the child builds a school career is then found in the initial upbringing in the home. Because parents then play such a fundamentally important role in the life of a child for such a long period of time, I feel it is important that this role should be important especially in the primary school career. Like the beginning years at home, the primary school then forms the basis of the rest of the child's schooling, which is the foundation for life at college and at work. It is therefore important that this initial foundation be laid correctly and strongly in order to lessen the chances of the child getting involved in socially unacceptable and damaging activities in the future.

My selection will therefore be made from primary schools in England as representative of my topic. I feel that this will perhaps provide the basis for wider research in the future. Parental involvement in schooling cannot be stressed enough. This is especially so in the primary school phase, since the child is still young and can be influenced more easily than an older child.

Data

In my study, my aim is to gather both qualitative and quantitative data. My quantitative data will be gathered by focusing on questions to teachers. I will ask them how regularly parents are involved in their children's schooling. I will also take note of the kinds of activities the school offers to involve parents. Finally, I will determine how many parents are involved on a regular basis, and how many prefer to mostly remain uninvolved.

For qualitative data I will rely on teachers, parents and children. I will ask teachers their opinion of the benefits of parental involvement in the school careers of their children. I will also ask if there is a notable difference with regard to for example academic performance, between children whose parents are involved regularly and those without regular parental involvement. I will ask children how they feel about their parents being involved with their school careers, and finally I will ask parents their feelings about the matter.

Both kinds of data may be difficult to obtain, since schools may have confidentiality policies regarding the records I want to access. Interviews of the kind I have mentioned for qualitative data may also be difficult to obtain. This could however be handled by establishing a relationship of trust with my interviewees. The data will be analyzed to establish a possible correlation between parental involvement and student performance and/or satisfaction in schools.

Reading

Of course there is a lot of literature about parental involvement in the school careers of their children. Particularly notable to me was the lack of resources on the Internet that specifically focus on English primary schools. Even when I tried to focus my search specifically for that area, it appears that only American schools enjoy prominence on the Internet.