“The social contract between home and school has been fractured,” claimed the former head of Ofsted, Amanda Spielman, commenting on the challenges schools faced following the lifting of lockdown restrictions in 2023.
Here we are, three years on, and for many schools that fracture has never fully mended.
But what stops schools from engaging parents? And how can leaders support their teaching staff to improve parental engagement?
How manageable is parent contact?
The good news is that, overall, most teachers say the amount of contact they had with parents in the Autumn term was manageable. According to a TeacherTapp survey, this was true for 81 per cent of both primary and secondary classroom teachers.
However, when we break this down by seniority, the toll on senior leaders becomes more apparent. Just 71 per cent of primary senior leaders describe parent contact as manageable, and the same is true for 77 per cent of secondary leaders.
This is a problem that needs to be addressed, particularly because as a profession, teachers are facing a retention crisis – and particularly, a shortage of headteachers.
Failing to address the additional stress caused by poor parental communication will only lead to more teachers being either pushed out of the classroom, or put off pursuing additional responsibilities.
Phone calls
A phone call home can be a quick and high-quality way of communicating with an individual parent. It’s not always possible to speak face-to-face, letters take time, and a note passed via a student isn’t always appropriate.
But the thought of calling home worries some teachers more than others.
To explore this, we ran a small experiment with our Teacher Tappers. Half were asked how they felt about making a positive phone call home, and the other half about making a negative one. This allowed us to unpick whether the barrier was the phone call itself, or the nature of the message.
When sharing negative news, 72 per cent of teachers said they would feel confident picking up the phone. When sharing positive news, this rose to 93 per cent.
But 6 per cent of teachers described themselves as “not at all confident” when sharing negative news, compared with just one per cent when making positive phone calls.
Which teachers don’t like phone calls?
At the most extreme end, the 1 per cent of teachers who are “not confident at all” even when making positive phone calls are more likely to be early career teachers (3 per cent compared to 1 per cent overall).
Teachers who describe themselves as “not very confident” are also more likely to be younger – 10 per cent of teachers in their 20s fall into this group, compared with just 4 per cent of teachers aged 50 and over.
Could training help?
The majority of teachers have not had any training on communicating with parents. Only 7 per cent of classroom teachers and 10 per cent of senior leaders report having received training in the last 12 months.
A further 19 per cent of classroom teachers and 26 per cent of senior leaders say they have had training in the past, but not recently.
The rest? Nothing. This means 74 per cent of classroom teachers and 65 per cent of senior leaders have never had training on parental communication.
Because relatively few teachers report having had training, it’s difficult to draw firm conclusions about its impact. However, we do see a difference in confidence.
Among teachers who have never had training, only 60 per cent say they feel very confident about phoning home. Among those who have had training, this rises to 68 per cent.
The angry parent
One reason some teachers are reluctant to pick up the phone is the fear of facing an angry parent. While we might hope all communication will be professional and collegiate, the reality is that this isn’t always the case.
So how prepared are teachers to deal with these situations? The answer depends on the role. Around half of senior leaders say their school has clear guidance on how to respond to inappropriate parent communication.
Among classroom teachers, only a quarter say the same – suggesting the guidance may exist, but isn’t as clear or accessible as it could be.
The good news is that clear guidance appears to make a difference. Among classroom teachers who say their school has clear guidance, 23 per cent feel completely confident dealing with inappropriate parent communication.
In schools without clear guidance, that figure almost halves. Just 13 per cent of classroom teachers in these schools say they feel completely confident.
So, what should leaders take away from this?
Putting the findings into practice
If parent engagement is something you would like to improve in your school, before you make changes, ask yourself the following:
- Do you already have guidance in place for how to deal with parent communication? If yes, how easy is it to find, and are you confident staff know where it is and find it helpful?
- What do you have in place for your least experienced members of staff? Is there an opportunity for phone calls to be made with another more experienced member of staff?
- What training have your staff had on parental communication, and how useful did they find it?
- How many channels of communication do you use between home and school, and how is each channel used? Can staff limit the time messages are sent, and are expectations about contact communicated with parents?
Small changes can make a big difference, and huge overhauls to existing communication systems aren’t always the best approach. Generally, the problem isn’t the channels themselves, but rather how equipped and supported teachers feel when communicating with parents.
Grainne Hallahan is a former teacher, who now writes and analyses daily questions at Teacher Tapp.
