Parents In Education

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Parents in Education

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Summer 2000

THE NEWSLETTER OF THE PARENTS IN EDUCATION RESEARCH NETWORK (PERN)

In collaboration with:

The European Network About Parents in Education (ERNAPE)

The U.K. National Home School Development Group

The Center on School, Family & Community Partnerships, John Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA.



IN THIS ISSUE:

Conference Reports

Recent Research

Home School Agreements

Family ICT Learning

Family Science

Report from Poland

Family Music

Internet Web Sites

New Publications



FAMILY LEARNING IN A RURAL SETTING

From Alwyn Morgan

The small Gwynedd town of Bala, situated at the southern extremities of Snowdonia, nestles on the shoreline of Wales' largest natural lake. The town and surrounding area is proud of its rich Welsh heritage and culture.

The local secondary school, Ysgol y Berwyn, is an 11 -18 predominantly Welsh speaking coeducational school. It serves a low economy area, where 90% of the 460 pupils come from a home background served by agriculture and related industries.

The economy of the community is also reflected in the curriculum through NVQ Agricultural Studies and Construction courses. Both make well established use of local contractors and farms. These courses are offered to pupils intending to find employment locally.

More recently, in response to the growing importance placed upon the potential outcomes of Family Learning and Study Support, innovative practice has been developed that may be of interest to schools in rural settings beyond the boundaries of Wales. These are:

1. An ICT 'Farm Administration' Family Learning course

The School became aware that poor administrative skills were resulting in local farmers not getting grant aid to which they were entitled. After consulting with the two farming unions and the local agricultural college, the response has been two-fold.

Firstly, a basic ICT evening adult education course has been offered to the local farming community. Secondly and concurrently, parents and pupils are encouraged to jointly attend a Welsh medium ICT course in Farm Administration. Fifteen families have signed up for the course.

2. Family Learning 'Sheepdog Handling' course

Until the interruption of the lambing season, the School's Agricultural Department had been running a Sunday morning sheepdog handling course for pupils and parents, with some of the latter being both learners and helpers. This culminated in the participants planning and staging their own Sheepdog Trial, which attracted an entry of almost 70 handlers and their dogs, from across North Wales - Bala already hosts the largest sheepdog trials in North Wales. Next year, in addition to establishing the school's Sheepdog Trials as an annual event, it is also proposed to get the pupils and parents playing an active role in planning and staging the Town's major event.

3. Study Support 'Sheep Management' programmes

The School has its own small farm in its grounds, with a flock that averages at around 30 sheep. However, as the management of sheep is not restricted to term times, the following programmes have been promoted for the pupils:

a) sheep shearing (both hand and mechanical) at a local 'partner' farm. b) a 'lambing care' programmes over the Easter holiday - the School's herd of sheep is sent out to 'partner farms' to ensure 24 hour supervision. c) Rearing and preparing sheep for auction at local markets. This includes participation in 'the sales'. d) grooming a small number of the herd's 'black sheep' for a series of 'country shows' held during the summer holidays.

This programme demonstrates the purpose of education to those pupils who might not aspire to academic careers that take them away from Bala. It is also brings the school, parents and community together to work for the long term benefit of all concerned.

A £3,000 award from Education Extra has helped to contribute to some of the above initiatives.



POLISH RAPPORT

From PERN member Maria Mendel, University of Gdansk, Poland

The schools in Poland used to be the agents of political control over society. The 1989 upheavals changed the system. However, legal changes are not immediately followed by changes in people's attitudes, beliefs and actions.

We have about 2% non-public schools in Poland. Public school parents, who formally do have possibilities to influence a process of schooling, are actually not much involved in it. One of the reasons is rooted in the belief of many Polish parents that schooling is a matter for the teachers' sole concern and responsibility. But transformation is still under way, and it could be changed soon.

However, it is already possible to observe an increase in parental involvement in public school life. There are many small foundations, associations, and parental bodies located at schools, which work for the benefit of the pupils. In some places these organisations become a kind of federation.

For example, the Parents' Boards from 26 schools in Katowice are already consolidated into the first Inter-school "Local Parents Board". But they are not serious partners for the governmental bodies. The main reason lies in Polish law. There is a gap concerning parental bodies on a higher level than individual schools.

One of the factors in the real end of autocracy in Poland was the formation of the Civic Educational Association (STO). STO runs most of the private Polish schools, where parental involvement is part of the system. STO tries to play the role of governmental bodies' partner. The President of STO is an official adviser of Polish prime minister. Based on political change, the "parents issue" in Poland is getting more significant.

In Poland we have no parents' board or any kind of national representation. Before the second world war we had two of them. Recently, Polish parents tried to consolidate their representatives into a strong body on all state levels. The Polish parliament commission "Education of Tomorrow", the "Civic Educational Association" and Katowice Inter-school Parents' Board organised the first meeting of Polish parents' representatives on the 15th of April 2000, in Warsaw.

The 250 participants expressed their will to establish a Polish Parents' Forum, and they started the official preparations for that. Their aims are concentrated on parliamentary representation of parents, and changes of law and regulations concerning parental involvement in decision-making process at schools.

Educational reform in Poland, which formally started on the 1st of September 1999, foreshadows great changes in our system of education. These include:

Reform is to be delivered through many component programs. One of the most important is "Parents at Schools", which has two parts.

One part involves courses of 60 or 120 hours for teachers, parents, and local authority representatives, with workshops on how to co-operate effectively. The courses are accredited and certificate - the certificates confirm, that participants have the abilities to foster school, family, community partnerships.

Post-graduate study in "Community Co-operation Fostering" is also possible. A 220-hour, 2-semester course has already started at the Institute of Education at the University of Gdansk, with a group of 40 studying since the 1st of October, 1999. Two of the students have already obtained full-time employment as the leaders in community co-operation.

Longer courses in Community Co-operation Fostering are also available, involving three years of study across the social sciences, with vocational training in schools, local governments, and public institutions in the national caring system. Specialist optional courses are also being developed in teacher training colleges, for example "The Bases of School / Family / Community Partnership".

The second part of program is developing many different ways to provide parents with information about their rights, responsibilities, and the possibilities of getting support on solving their problems with children. These include:

Family / School Advisory Centre - for the districts, small cities, and villages. Both parents and teachers will be able to get advice (e.g. on how to help the children, and to increase the levels of students abilities, etc.), current information about school and community life (culture, educational events, etc.), and suggestions for ways of integrating their efforts.

Parents' radio channel and parents' TV channel - both should give advice and information to parents. The first trial of this has been realised by Szczecin (a local TV channel).

Parents' Magazine - these can be local (including information on curricula, optional and evening activities, the role of parents in school life, local environmental conditions, etc), or take a national and international perspective (enabling Polish parents to compare their situation to other parents across the world and co-operate with them). There is always a place for presentations from parent-teacher associations- their achievement, new ideas and problems.

Parents' Home-Page on the Internet. The first Polish parents' web site has been established, operating since the 25th of January 2000 (http://rodzice.vulcan.pl).

Parental involvement in education is getting better in Poland. It has become stronger during the last 10 years. It seems we have found some good ways to change people's habits connected with the former system. The Polish example may convince other countries of the value of real partnership in education as a way to democracy.



PERN CONTACT POINTS

Chair: Keith Topping, The Centre for Paired Learning, Department of Psychology, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 4HN. Tel: 01382 344000. Email: k.j.topping@dundee.ac.uk

Vice-chair: Miriam David, Department of Education, Keele University, Keele, Staffs ST5 5BG. Tel: 01782 583576. Fax: 583555 Email m.david@keele.ac.uk

Secretary: Andrew Brown, Culture Communication & Societies, Institute of Education, University of London, 20 Bedford Way, London WC10 0AL. Tel: 0171 612 6224. Fax: 0171 612 6177 Email: a.brown@ioe.ac.uk

Membership & Treasurer: John Paine, 16 Sandringham Drive, Brinscall, Chorley, Lancashire. Tel: 0161 743 4287.



COLLABORATION NEED

Readers will note some changes in style in this issue, reflecting links forged with other organisations working in parents in education. This field of endeavour is vitally important, but resources are scarce, and communication too dependent on chance.

Links between related organisations are essential if any critical mass is to be developed and sustained which will move the field onward. If you know of another organisation with whom PERN could usefully develop links, please do let us know. We are all in this together.



NEWS OF MEMBERS

Maria Mendel is a PERN member in Gdansk, Poland - see her article elsewhere in this issue. On the 15th September Maria starts a 3-month spell as a Visiting Scholar at the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA.

Greetings to new PERN member Linda Orchard, who hails from Bonsall near Matlock in Derbyshire.



CONFERENCE REPORTS

Roundtable on School, Family, and Community Partnerships

The 10th Annual International Roundtable on School, Family, and Community Partnerships was held in New Orleans Monday, April 24, 2000, just prior to the American Educational Research Association annual conference. It was organised by Joyce L. Epstein, Director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, and her staff.

There was an extraordinarily rich programme of presentations from all over the world. Here we only have space to list them. It is hoped to hold a similar meeting in Rotterdam in 2001, and then link with the AERA meeting again in 2002. Look out for it - and be there!

Space constraint prevent us doing justice here to the INET event. Some detail is given below of two sessions and the concluding plenary, and the other presentations are merely listed - the list itself gives an interesting mapping of the field.

Jerold Bauch, Professor Emeritus of the Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, gave a paper on "New Developments with Phones, Email and the Internet to Link Schools and Homes". The "Transparent School Model" involves telephone-based voice messaging - a computer in the school linked with the telephone system enables teachers to send a voice message to the parents of all students in their class simultaneously (e.g. to advise about tonight's homework), or to the parents of specific students (e.g. to advise that their child is not in school today and no explanation for this is recorded). The system also stores messages from parents in response or raising new issues until the teacher has time to access them.

Thus the system retains the quality of personal communication, while being highly cost-effective, and very convenient on account of its asynchronous nature. It can also offer general information on drug, alcohol and tobacco abuse, conduct telephone polls, give regular student achievement information ("talking grades"), and give congratulatory messages to the parents of students who have excelled themselves. Parents and students can also report dangerous or suspicious activity, anonymising their voices by selecting the "voice disguise" feature.

Similar messaging is available through websites, although of course this limits access to homes connected to the Internet. Where a school does not have its own website, or cannot install new messages on its website server with sufficient speed and flexibility, central sites are available. The Family Education Network (www.familyeducation.com), Achieve.com and Bigchalk.com offer teacher's their own web page to facilitate direct communication between school and home. For further information, contact Jerold Bauch at jerry.bauch@vanderbilt.edu

Jeannie Mackenzie, Integration Manager at Thornliebank and Woodfarm New Community Schools in Scotland, reported on a needs assessment survey with parents with reference to the establishment of Community-based Access to Life-long Learning (CALL) Centres in the newly created pilot wrap-around full-service community schools in Scotland.

About a third of the 330 parents surveyed responded. The respondents included many parents the school had not expected to be interested. They were heterogeneous and had a wide range of different needs, aspirations and interests. Nevertheless, Jean identified three main categories for development:

Key issues were ease of access, local and informal information, and opportunities for peer support. Further details from jeannie@gateside.freserve.co.uk

In the concluding plenary session of INET, it was agreed that recent developments in parents in education were characterised by:

However, there was still a need for better quality research of outcomes, in order be politically persuasive.

List of Presentations

Frederick Smit and Hans Moerel of the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands presented on Evaluation of Experiments with the Role of Parents in Primary Education In the Netherlands.

Adelina Villas-Boas of the University of Lisbon, Portugal presented on The Process of Developing School/ Family/ Community Partnerships in Twenty-Five Elementary Schools.

Raquel-Amaya Martinez Gonzalez of Oviedo University, Spain presented on Training Teachers for Partnership through Action Research.

Parent-School Partnership Programs in the Balkans were the subject of a presentation by Kathleen Moynihan of Institution Catholic Relief Services, Pristina, Kosovo; Valbona Morina, of Institution Catholic Relief Services, Skopje, Macedonia; and Velida Dzino-Silajdzic of the Institution Catholic Relief Services, Sarajevo, Bosnia.

Linda Gjermani of the Center for Parental Involvement in Education, Tirana, Albania presented on Better Communication Can Lead to Higher Achievements.

Johanna Filp of Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California presented on Issues in the Evaluation of Large Scale Early Childhood Education Programs with Family and Community Involvement.

Michelle LaPointe of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Portland presented on Is There a Role for Parents in a School's Accountability Mechanism? A Look at Two Schools of Choice.

Lynn K. Bradshaw of East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, presented on High Hopes and Harsh Realities for School Partnerships.

Harriet Feldlaufer and Judy Carson of Connecticut State Department of Education, Hartford, CT presented on A Statewide Assessment of School-Family-Community Partnerships in Connecticut: The Principal's Perspective.

Keith Topping of the University of Dundee, Scotland presented on Family-Based Science and Thinking Skills.

Francesca Pomerantz of Read Boston, MA presented on A School-Based Family Literacy Project: Involving Families in Learning And Literacy Through Parent-Teacher Conferences and Classroom Lending Libraries.

Olivia N. Saracho of the University of Maryland, College Park, MD; Yoko Shirakawa of Kobe University, Japan; Flora Macleod of the University of Exeter, United Kingdom; and Roy Evans of Brunel University, Twickenham, United Kingdom, gave a panel presentation on Early Childhood Parent Involvement in Cross-cultural Perspective.

Inge Johansson of the Institution for Thematic Research and Education, Norrkoping, Sweden presented on Parents' View of the Content in New Services for Younger Schoolchildren In Sweden.

Karen L. Mapp of the Institute for Responsive Education, Northeastern University, Boston, MA presented on Making the Connection Between Families and Schools.

Esther Ho of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong presented on Parental Involvement in an Asian Educational System: Impact of Decentralization Policy and Family Background.

Jennifer Wee and Datin Dr. Sharifah of the Teachers' Training Institute, Kuala Lumpur and Universiti Putra Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia presented on Perceptions of Primary Schools' Headmasters and Teachers Towards the Concepts of School and Family Partnerships in Petaling District, Selangor, Malaysia.

Eva Patrikakou of The University of Illinois at Chicago presented on Parents' Perceptions of Teacher Outreach and Parent Involvement in Children's Education.

Eunai Park and Greg Palardy of the University of California, Santa Barbara, California presented on The Relationships between Parental Involvement and Adolescents' Academic Achievement.

Rollande Deslandes of the Universite du Quebec a Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, Canada presented on Direction of Influence between Parenting Style and Parental Involvement in Schooling Practices and Students' Autonomy: A Short-Term Longitudinal Design.

Margaret Beale Spencer and Jill Stoltzfus of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA presented on Incentive-Based Programming for Academic Achievement in an Inner City Environment.

Catherine Jordan of the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL), Austin, TX presented on Creating and Sustaining Collaborative Action in School Communities.

Christopher W. Ashford, Margaret Spencer, and Joseph Youngblood of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA presented on Start-on-Success Scholars Internship Program in High School.

James M. Van Dien of Fairfax County Public Schools, Dickerson, MD presented on Classroom Effects of a Parent Involvement Program.

Nancy Feyl Chavkin of Southwest Texas State University, San Marcos, TX presented on Evaluation of a Home-School Program in Texas-Mexico Border Schools.

Ghazala Bhatti of the University of Reading, United Kingdom presented on Asian Young People: Parents' Aspirations, Children's Achievements, and Teacher's Perceptions.

Elvia Rivero and Janet Crispeels of the University of California, Santa Barbara, CA presented on Engaging Families for Student Success.

Eve Gregory of Goldsmiths College, University of London, United Kingdom presented on Siblings as Mediators of Literacy in Linguistic Minority Communities.

Susi Long of the University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC presented on Informal Peer Interaction and Language Learning: An Ethnographic Look At Second Language Acquisition.

Dinah Volk of Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH presented on "The teaching and the enjoyment of being together . . .": Sibling Teaching in the Family of a Puerto Rican Kindergartner.

Noran Fauziah Yaakub and Zahyah Hanafi of the University Utara Malaysia, Malaysia presented on Parents of Children at Risk: The Case of a Rural Malaysian Elementary School.

Steven Sheldon of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD presented on Insights into Parents' Social Networks: Characteristics and Processes that Affect Parent Involvement.

Haifa I. Tawfeek of the Institute of Medical Technology, Babel Modam, Baghdad, Iraq presented on Discrimination against the Girl Child: The Effect of the Blockade.

Joan A. Marchessault of Rivier College, Amesbury, MA presented on A Qualitative Study of Involvement of Fathers in their Children's Education during the Middle School Years.

Laurie Katz and Jerold Bauch of Middle Tennessee State University and Vanderbilt University, TN presented on Preparing Preservice Teachers for Family Involvement: A Model for Higher Education.

Ruth Handel of Montclair State University, Upper Montclair, NJ presented on Collaboration with Families of Special Needs Students.

Patricia H. Phelps of the University of Central Arkansas, Conway, AR presented on Partnership Roles and Tensions among Secondary Teachers.

Carolyn Wood, Penelope Pence, Leslie Hall, and Sue Gradisar of the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM presented on Circles of Support: Teaching and Learning in Multicultural Settings.

Jacqueline McGilp of the Australian Catholic University, Victoria, Australia presented on Family Involvement in Building Learning Communities,

Christian W. Beck of the University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway presented on Parent Participation and Education in Norway.

Tony Townsend of Monash University, Victoria, Australia presented on The Third Millennium School.

Kees van der Wolf of the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands presented on Parental Involvement and Behaviour Problems in Dutch Secondary Schools.

Maureen Ryan of Victoria University, Victoria, Australia presented on Drugs and Diversity.

Volker Krumm of Salzburg University, Salzburg, Austria presented on The Role of Parents in Conflicts between Students and Teachers: A By-product of a Study on Abuse of Power by Teachers.

Fred Ramirez of California State University Fullerton, Fullerton, CA presented on Teachers' Attitudes Toward Parents and Parental Involvement in High School.

Maria Mendel of the University of Gdansk, Poland presented on Parents' Involvement in School Life in Poland.

Shawn Moore and Sue Lasky of the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada presented on Closing Emotional Distance: An Analysis of Parent-Teacher Interaction.

Kelly A. Kolodny of the University of Connecticut, Sudbury, MA presented on Collaborating in Support of Inner City Children: The Relationships between Families and Community Agencies and Organizations in a Poverty Level Neighbourhood.

The day closed with a plenary summary of topics and results and a discussion of studies and projects needed to fill gaps in knowledge.

SSBA International

The Scottish School Board Association held its first International Conference on 6-20 May 2000 in Glasgow, Scotland.

For PERN, both Keith Topping and Sheila Wolfendale offered workshops, multiply repeated. The number of delegates was modest, although interesting work from many countries was reported. The "book of the conference" is: "Representing Parents in School Decision Making Around the World: Encouraging Partnerships in Education", edited by Ann Hill and Bryan T. Peck, published by the SSBA in Dumfries, Scotland, 2000 (ISBN 1 900 673 070). See SSBA contact details in the "Publications" section of this issue.

Presentations were made about SACCLink - an informal parent-led linking programme between South Ayrshire local authority and Chuzhou City in the Anhou Province of the People's Republic of China, focused on "Parent partnership in Education". Details will be found at: http://www.fraser-cook.freeserve.co.uk/

Report From AERA

The main AERA programme featured a large number of presentations about parents in education - it is clearly a hot issue at the moment. A significant proportion of these involved staff from the Center on School, Family And Community Partnerships. Your reporter was only able to attend a few of these, but many of the abstracts are available on the AERA website (www.aera.net/), searchable by keyword.

Richard Duran of U.C. Santa Barbara reported on a community-based technology learning centre for immigrant families - those most in danger of "falling through the Net". Hispanic families are half as likely to have computers in the home as white families, and this gap is increasing. His project designs and implements computer-based literacy activities for immigrant Latino families, using Spanish as the primary language, operating in 10 week cycles.

Weekly two-hour meetings take place in local school computer labs. Pre-post assessment data indicates statistically significant gains in computer literacy skills. A "Strategies Guide" for others pursuing similar projects is being developed. Further details from duran@education.ucsb.edu

AERA SIG

The American Educational Research Association has a special interest group (SIG) on School, Family And Community Partnerships (previously known as the Families as Educators SIG). Details on the AERA website at www.aera.net/



YOUR NEWS WANTED

Why not say a little about your own research in your PERN newsletter? Small scale action research is fine. Just a few sentences (100-200 words) on your work with parents in education. Or about a conference relevant to parents in education - send us details to help your promotion of the event. Or you might want to send reference details for publications in this area. If you have a book or report out, send a copy for brief review (not critical!) in the Newsletter. Or send us a review of a publication you have found useful - remember to include exact title, authorship, publishers, ISBN and price. Or you might just want to sound off about something - send a letter to the newsletter. Or you might need a research collaborator - what better way to find one than through PERN? Send your news item or request to the Chair (Keith Topping).



CONFERENCES COMING

BERA 2000 will be held in Cardiff from 7-9 September 2000. The closing date for submissions was 31 January 2000. Further information on the web at: www.york.ac.uk/depts/biol/symposia/bera2000/

The European Educational Research Association will meet in Edinburgh from 21-23 September 2000, hosted by the Scottish Educational Research Association - see http://www.eera.ac.uk/

IPPR Parents & Schools Conference

The Institute for Public Policy Research is holding a one-day conference in London on September 19, to discuss home-school relationships, and launch its latest publication: "Creating Stakeholder Schools: Issues and visions for home-school relationships".

Speakers include:

The fee for the conference is £85, including VAT. PERN members who attend the conference will receive a free copy of the publication "Creating Stakeholder Schools".

If you are interested in attending, please contact Maxine Vlieland at Specialist Conferences on 0207 727 9732, or at vlieland@compuserve.com



PUBLICATIONS

"The Contribution of Parents to School Effectiveness" is a new book edited by PERN's Sheila Wolfendale together with John Bastiani, published by David Fulton in March 2000 (ISBN 1-85346-633-6; £15, c. 160 pages). School and educational attainment is dependent on many complex factors and is usually seen as a key outcome measure against by which school effectiveness can be judged. The book aims to establish whether or not educational achievement can in part be ascribed to the quality and range of home-school links. It provides a timely contribution to the continuing debate on the nature of the pivotal relationship between schools and families. Contents: Introduction. Measurable Outcomes: SHARE Project, Book Start, The Docklands Project, City Challenge. Qualitative Outcomes: The LEA Perspective, Capturing the Vision, Future Directions.

Sally Power and Alison Clark have a paper titled "The right to know: parents, school reports and parents' evenings" in Research Papers in Education, 2000, Volume 15, Number 1, page 25.

I-Wah Pang and David Watkins have a paper titled "Towards a Psychological Model of Teacher-Parent Communication in Hong Kong Primary Schools" in Educational Studies, 2000, Volume 26, Number 2, page 141.

"Sharing Books with Babies: Evaluation of an Early Literacy Intervention" is a paper outlining the benefits of an early book reading initiative in Kirklees, West Yorkshire. Greater effectiveness than the Birmingham Bookstart project is claimed, this being attributed to a greater emphasis on interaction in parent support groups and less on the books themselves (Educational Review, Volume 51, Issue 3, 1999).

The Journal of Educational Research (www.heldref.org), Volume 93, Issue 3, 2000, includes two papers of interest. S. J. McCarthey offers "Home-School Connections: A Review of the Literature" (pages 145-154), although this is narrow and considers only some of the major US studies. D. Bloome and colleagues offer "Interpellations of Family/Community and Classroom Literacy Practices" (pages 155-164), following the well-trodden path of socio-cultural interpretation of literacy practices.

Garry Hornby's book "Improving Parental Involvement" offers a general and practical introduction to the field. Continuum International, 1999, ISBN 0 304 70552 7.

Washington State School Directors' Association have published a "Tool Kit for School-Family-Community Partnerships" - a binder including many activities at many levels of involvement. For details, email cmcelroy@ospi.wednet.edu or efrausto@psesd.wednet.edu

"Working with Parents" is a collection of papers about the professional/parent interface in a variety of contexts, edited by Ann Wheal and published by Russell House.

The National Youth Agency produced a report titled "School, Family, Community: Mapping School Inclusion in the UK" in 1999 (ISBN 0 86155 213 X), which considers the effects and effectiveness of school-family-community links in the UK by reference to evaluative evidence (£13.95, tel 0116 285 3709).

"Parents and Schools" is the newsletter of the Campaign for State Education (CASE). Anyone can subscribe to the newsletter without being a member. CASE also produce a booklets titled: "Home and School Links: Practice Makes Perfect", "Giving Parents a Voice - Parental Involvement in Education Policy Making", "Could Do Better: School Reports and Parents' Evening - A Study of Secondary School Practice", as well as shorter briefing papers. CASE is at 158 Durham Road, London SW20 0DG, or www.mandolin.demon.co.uk/case.html

In 1996, the Scottish Curriculum Council on the Curriculum (S.C.C.C.) produced a booklet: "Parents and the Curriculum: A Statement of Position from Scottish CCC", which stemmed from a previous consultation paper called "The Heart of the Matter". Although brief, this is thoughtful and balanced, drawing heavily on the work of John Bastiani, and foreshadowing the social inclusion agenda. It is written in very general terms, however, so those seeking specific practical advice are likely to be disappointed. See http://www.sccc.ac.uk/

The National Parent Teacher Association of the USA has "National Standards for Parent/Family Involvement Programs". A new publication is "Building Successful Partnerships", outlining many field-tested strategies, published by the National Education Service in Bloomington, Indiana. A preview of the book will be found at http://www.nesonline.com/

"Getting the Best Out of a School Board: A Practical Guide" sounds like obtaining wine from the first must, but is actually a practical "what to do" guide for school board members themselves. Available from the Scottish School Board Association, Newall Terrace, Dumfries DG1 1LW. See http://www.schoolboard-scotland.com/, email ssba@schoolboard-scotland.com, Tel: 01387 260428, Fax: 01387 260488. The SSBA also offer "How Good Is Your School Board?" - performance indicators for school boards, and various other training booklets.

"Partnerships with Parents in Practice" is a booklet created by the staff of Newall Green Infant School in Manchester, very practical with many resource items to copy. It is available from Manchester Inspection and Advisory Service, The Acorn Centre, Royal Oak Road, Wythenshawe, Manchester M23 1EB, at £9.95 plus £2 p & P.

"An Equal Opportunities Guide for Parents" has been produced by the Equal Opportunities Commission for Scotland. Although brief, it considers such issues in relation to home-school relationships at several levels, and explores areas not everyone will have thought about - useful for school board members or governors, also. Available in hard copy or on the EOC website: http://www.eoc.org.uk/

LETTS Educational have published two books in their "You and Your Child" series: "Numeracy" (ISBN 185758 9750) and "Literacy" (ISBN 185758 9742), both at £4.99. Aimed at all parents, they are general and contain little new.

Dorling Kindersley have produced a fat glossy catalogue devoted completely to Family Learning resources (sold by themselves). Covering a wide age range, some of the electronic publications for younger children are particularly interesting, although much is not at all new. See http://www.dk.com/



WORLD WIDE WEB NEWS

What Should Parents Know About Standardized Testing in Schools? (www.accesseric.org:81/resources/parent/testing.html) is one of the excellent topical overviews offered by AccessERIC, from its set of Parent Brochures (www.accesseric.org:81/resources/parent/parent.html).

What Should Parents Know About Performance Assessment? (www.accesseric.org:81/resources/parent/pba.html) is another of the topical overviews offered by AccessERIC from its set of Parent Brochures.

Parent Soup Education Central: Standardized Testing (www.parentsoup.com/edcentral/testing) is a useful primer which presents balanced resources by which parents can learn to conceptualise desirable and undesirable policies and practices related to standardised testing.

Talking to Your Child's Teacher about Standardized Tests (http://ericae.net/edo/ED315434.htm) is an ERIC Digest offering a checklist of questions to ask your child's teacher before test administration, as well as a checklist of questions to guide your proper responses to the test results.

Questions About Tests (www.testpublishers.org/question.htm) is a good source of basic definitions, and of explanations of standards, fairness and appropriate usage of tests. This file is an offering of the Association of Test Publishers (ATP) (www.testpublishers.org).

The Parent Teacher Conference - Five Must-Ask Questions (www.familyeducation.com/article/0,1120,1-2499,00.htm). Parent-teacher conferences are a critical component of student evaluation. The Family Education Network offers parents, in checklist format, the questions that will help to generate productive, informative parent-teacher conferences.

Parents' Page (http://cresst96.cse.ucla.edu/CRESST/pages/infoparent.htm) The National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) (http://cresst96.cse.ucla.edu/index.htm) offers full-text articles of high current interest, as well as a selection of the best Web resources designed to help parents to understand assessment processes and to support their children's achievement.

http://www.schoolsnet.com/ claims to be for pupils, parents and teachers (in that order). Most of the material seems to relate to school choice and examinations as yet.

Free Electronic Encyclopaedias

A number of free electronic encyclopaedias are now available on the world wide web, ideal for children doing homework with or without the assistance of their parents, or for children being educated at home, or for children unable to attend school owing to illness or injury.

The grandparent of them all, Encyclopaedia Britannica is freely available at http://www.britannica.com/ - 76,000 articles, 3,000 more than in the 32-volume printed version. (Do not confuse with their http://www.eb.com/ site which requires subscription).

Funk & Wagnall offer the complete content of their printed encyclopaedia online, along with other resources, at http://www.funkandwagnalls.com/.

Others offer free online abridged versions of their print encyclopaedia - see http://encarta.msn.com/ and http://www.encyclopaedia.com/.

Resource Central (www.kalama.com/~mariner) and Internet Oracle (www.internetoracle.com/encyclop.htm) offer links to wide range of other encyclopaedias and dictionaries. Also see the Infoplease almanac at http://www.infoplease.com/ and the Virtual Reference desk (www.refdesk.com).



PARENTS & the INTERNET

More than three out of four parents (78%) say they would become more involved with their child's school experience if they had greater access to teachers, curriculum, and event schedules via the Internet, according to a recent survey conducted for http://www.learningpays.com/.



FAMILY SCIENCE

An experimental evaluation of the TIPS (Teachers Involve Parents In Science) programme was reported by Frances Van Voorhuis of the Center on School, Family and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore at the INET Roundtable prior to AERA (see elsewhere in this issue).

Sixth and eighth grade middle school students (n=253) were assigned either to interactive (TIPS) science homework (which required them to discuss topics with parents or other family members) or non-interactive science homework.

The 18 weekly TIPS assignments included a letter to the family explaining the purpose of the assignment, a clear explanation of the tasks involved, a description of the simple materials needed and the investigation, a student-led interaction, a form for reporting the outcome of the investigation and conclusions, and signed written comments by the parents back to the school. The ATIPS assignments had the same content without the interactive components.

The returned homework assignments were marked (graded) by the teachers. Process data on assignment completion and demographic data were also collected. Preliminary analyses indicated that amount of time spent on the science homework assignments was correlated with subsequent achievement. However, higher levels of family involvement were associated with higher subsequent achievement, accounting for a significant proportion of the total variance. Family involvement was also associated with higher levels of homework completion. Students whose mothers were educated to a higher level did better. Males performed better than females and sixth graders better than eighth graders.

There has been relatively little previous work on family involvement in science, especially with upper age ranges, and certainly little which has used a rigorous quasi-experimental design, so this work is an important and original contribution to knowledge. The full report should be available in Autumn 2000 from Frances, email francesv@csos.jhu.edu.



CALL FOR PAPERS

"Literacy and Learning in Home and Community Settings": will be a special issue of the Journal of Research in Reading (www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/asp/journal.asp?ref=0141-0423), to be published in 2001. For proposed submissions, a 200 word abstract should be submitted to special issue co-editor Dr. Mary Hamilton, Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YL, email m.hamilton@lancaster.ac.uk, by 1 October 2000. Closing date for receipt of full papers will be February 1, 2001.



HOME-SCHOOL AGREEMENTS

From new PERN member Greta Sykes, Educational Psychologist

Parents, children and teachers (187 in all) from four inner London primary schools participated in a research project which aimed to gather stakeholders views on areas of responsibilities (targets) that should feature in four schools' home-school agreement. A range of strategies was used, including focus groups, questionnaires, checklists and semi-structured interviews. School council meetings allowed pupils to express their views of issues that were important to them.

The research was based on three key questions:

  1. Do parents, children and teachers see home-school agreements as capable of enhancing trust and understanding between parents, children and teachers?
  2. What key targets were their main concerns and did the three stakeholder groups differ in their main concerns?
  3. What implications can be drawn for positive parenting and teaching skills to support children as active learners?

The most pressing concern expressed was about homework - how much and when to set it and mark it (teachers), how to get help from their parents with it (children), and how to get children to get it done (parents). Punctuality and listening to each other were also of high concern to parents, children and teachers. Parents and teachers also expressed that they wanted discipline and good behaviour tackled better, and children wanted bullying sorted out.

The list of top concerns emerging from the research which should feature as targets in the home-school agreement were:

Research question #1 was overwhelmingly answered affirmatively. Parents and children who were consulted about the value of home-school agreements expressed a particularly keen interest in them. They saw them as helping to develop more trust, understanding and awareness about key areas of responsibility by all three stakeholders, leading to better achievement in school.

Some of the main reasons for the usefulness of home-school agreements could be summarised as:

The research focused particularly on parents from ethnic minority, refugee and low income families. It showed that arrangements for consultation about the setting up of home school agreements were particularly well used by parents from refugee families during coffee mornings, when the targets were translated and discussed. These discussions contributed to a sense of sharing and working together. They led to the home-school agreement being translated by the parents into four additional languages in one school. This was also an example of how the home-school agreement could be used positively as a process tool, rather than seeing it as an imposition or allowing it to become a mere product.

As part of the continuous process of consulting with parents, the home school agreement can allow for issues to be discussed early, and for strategies to be put in place that can support parents and children by setting up small steps to success. It can also help to involve parents more actively in the decision-making processes in schools. Both areas have strong implications for positive parenting and teaching skills.



PARENTING FORUM

The Scottish Parenting Forum was established in 1996 by Children in Scotland - a consortium of voluntary, statutory and professional organisations working with children and their families. The Forum provides information, advice, briefing papers, fact sheets and a regular news bulletin (in hard copy and via the Internet). It hosts seminars, conferences and working groups; lobbies policy-makers, and undertakes research on the needs of parents and the impact of policies upon them, with a view to developing good practice. It's main focus is support for parenting. Details from: SPF, 5 Shandwick Place, Edinburgh EH2 4RG, tel 0131 225 8484, fax 0131 228 8585. See www.childreninscotland.org.uk/polscott.htm. Also see the Children in Scotland "Children, Families and Learning Network".



RECENT RESEARCH

Home-School Links and Achievement

Carpenter, Paris and Paris (1999) explored data from a survey of 124 schools in the USA selected by their state as "exemplary" in delivering effective programs to youngsters in poverty. Those that scored above average on state-wide tests were compared with those that scored below average.

Reliable differences were found favouring the higher performing schools in a number of factors, including: the number of volunteers working in classrooms, the frequency of communication with the homes of students, and the schools' reported involvement in community literacy activities.

Similarly, Taylor, Pearson, Clark, & Walpole (1999) studied 14 schools across the US with moderate to high poverty levels, grouping the schools by student's average reading achievement. In the most effective schools, significant school factors included strong links to parents and strong home-school communication.

References:

Carpenter, R. D., Paris, A. H., & Paris, S. G. (1999). Exploring reading practices in K-3 classrooms that link schools, families and communities. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, Canada.

Taylor, B. M., Pearson, P. D., Clark, K. F., & Walpole, S. (1999). Beating the odds in teaching all children to read (CIERA Report No 2-006). Ann Arbor: Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement, University of Michigan (www.ciera.org).

What Parents Want

New research based on 12 focus groups of parents meeting across Scotland concluded that the vast majority of parents regard glossy governmental publications as vague, boring, irrelevant and worthless.

The parents wanted a focus on their own child in their own local school, and preferred to obtain information verbally from local stakeholders. For the majority of parents school choice was not an issues. The parents' focus was on the total experience of schooling for the whole child, not narrowly upon attainment. Parents wanted feedback on their child's progress, practical advice on how to help at home, policy and practice on bullying and discipline, the transition to secondary and what to do in the event of problems.

Now the Scottish Executive have set up a new research project titled "Involving Parents in their Children's Education", which does focus upon parental involvement in the education of their own children. Examples of good primary and secondary practice are to be sought out and documented. The resulting document is to be distributed to all schools, school boards and PTAs in Scotland to inform and assist the development of new initiatives.

And to inform the Scottish Executive, perhaps? Those who volunteered to reinvent the wheel have already submitted their tenders.

Money Talks

Jane Martin and Professor Stewart Ranson of Birmingham University and Carol Vincent of the Institute of Education have produce a report entitled "Little Polities - Schooling, Governance and Parental Participation", based on an ESRC funded research project.

The project found that most parents are primarily interested in the educational development of their own child, even if they do not attend parent's evening or other meetings. Silent parents were often just under-confident, and the louder parents tended to be the more socio-economically advantaged.



The CENTER ON SCHOOL, FAMILY AND COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS

A focal point for much important work, this Center is directed by Joyce Epstein. It is closely linked with CRESPAR (The Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk) at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

The Center operates an "International Network of Scholars" (INET) with interests in this area, with membership from 30 countries around the world. There is no membership fee. Application forms can be obtained from the Center (http://scov.csos.jhu.edu/p2000/center.htm). Also see the Center's website for details of the information and publications which may be obtained from there.

Every other year, the Center sponsors an International Roundtable meeting of the INET, a day prior to the American Educational Research Association annual conference. Members from other nations (e.g. European colleagues in the ERNAPE network) are encouraged to conduct International Roundtables in their own countries in alternate years. The next such event will take place in Rotterdam in 2001. Watch this space for details.

The Center also has an extensive "National Network of Partnership Schools" in the US. This features a twice yearly newsletter ("Type 2"), "Partnership Awards" to recognise high quality programmes in the area. A recent paper in the Journal of Education of Students Placed At Risk (2000, 5, 61-76) by Mavis Sanders and Joyce Epstein describes the Network (currently including over 1,100 schools, 130 school districts = local authorities, and 12 states).

The Network is clearly an excellent example of a means to disseminate research to influence practice and policy. Reprints of the paper may be requested.

Further information about the Network, including the full text of previous newsletters, will be found at www.csos.jhu.edu/p2000 (email nnps@csos.jhu.edu). Links to other related organisations will also be found here.



FAMILY SPORT

From David Law, Director of Sport, Ashton-on-Mersey School, Sale, Cheshire

A Family Learning project established at Ashton-on-Mersey School was a natural development of the school's status as a specialist college and work undertaken with the family of feeder primary schools.

Following discussion with Education Extra (a charitable organisation that supports out of school hours learning), and Ashton's main partner schools, the scheme was launched early in the new academic year as part of the Campaign for Learning's weekend of Family Learning celebrations.

The initial response was amazing - 52 children turned up for tennis coaching in the sports hall, supported by 34 parents who opted for some ICT training. Since the launch, the numbers have levelled to more manageable 32 children and 25 parents, and the progress made by both sets of participants has been excellent.

The tennis staff have been assisted by senior pupils who have used the experience to undertake the Junior Sports Leaders Awards, which meets the action plan drawn up for the school as a sports college.

The parents following the ICT courses have been divided into two groups, those who are undertaking lessons on a purely personal basis and those who wish to follow an examination course.

All in all, this Family Learning project has got off to a marvellous start, to the considerable benefit of all concerned.



PARENTS & ICT

From Rob Porteous

The Dolphin System was originally designed as a method for peer-assisted learning in ICT in schools. However, the vision is to go far beyond that, and a "home user" version has recently been developed and is being piloted.

Children have become the source of computer advice for the family. Siblings tutor siblings. For more details, see http://www.dolphinsystem.net/ or email rob@enlighten.uk.com.

The vision: entire learning communities, centred on schools, where teachers, children, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles are all involved in learning together. There are a large number of members of the wider community (especially older people) who are acquiring computers in order to be able to communicate with relatives overseas. Many of them could benefit from basic skills teaching in how to get the most from their equipment. Many children love being teachers.

Children need opportunity to consolidate learning on the computer. With such a full curriculum, it is often difficult for the children to be time-tabled to have adequate computer time. Children who have a computer at home are often well ahead of their peers in basic computer competence.

Some schools are solving this problem by setting up after school open learning sessions where pupils and their parents can be involved in doing homework assignments together. Skills training can take place in an integrated way, both in class, through after school sessions and at home (for those pupils who have access to a computer there).

Parents can assist teachers with training pupils in school, children can teach parents, siblings and other family members at home. After school and holiday sessions in school enable those without a computer at home to learn as well. All members of the learning community have access to the system wherever they are working through a school 'extranet' - like an intranet but accessible from elsewhere. (This means of involving home and school learning is already in existence and working effectively in a number of schools).

There is huge potential for ICT to be used in developing pupils' investigative skills. The internet and CD-ROM encyclopaedias provide a wealth of opportunity for pupils to learn the skills involved in collecting information, and desktop and Web publishing packages provide an unprecedented opportunity for developing the skills of communicating and presenting to a wide audience.



FAMILY MUSIC: West Walton Family Learning Initiative

from Maggie Barwell and Mick Robinson

West Walton is a sprawling rural village in Norfolk, with a primary school bursting at the seams with 205 pupils aged 4-11. The school is concerned that over 70% of reception children score below the national intervention score in the Bury Infant Test, a result of the lack of pre-school provision in the village. The school has therefore embarked on an ambitious response to encourage parents to become actively involved in the education of their children.

The philosophy is a simple one:

The project is all about enablement - facilitating adults and children to achieve goals and to experience success together, and giving parents the skills to support their children's learning.

Involving parents has been achieved through running after school activities for families. Parents are invited to attend with their children and activities are advertised by newsletter and posters. However personal contact from the class teacher, the Headteacher or Learning Support Assistant has been very effective in encouraging the faint hearted!

Clubs run on 3 nights per week from 3.15 - 4.15 and include:

Outcomes:

Feedback from Pupils:

Feedback from Parents:

Feedback from Professionals:

What you have here is precious (Consultant, Education Extra)

This 'Education Extra' funded project is in its second term out of six. Feedback as well as new ideas from pupils, parents and staff are to be an important feature of all future work, generating a genuine sense of ownership of the project. Its success is richly deserved by all involved in the partnership for they have been instrumental in rising to the challenges and making it work. Anyone wishing to see the project in action or to discuss any aspect of it, is warmly invited to telephone (01945 583620) or visit the school.



BASELINE ASSESSMENT REPORTING TO PARENTS

From Sheila Wolfendale

A report has been produced which provides an account of a national survey into the 'reporting to parents' dimension of Baseline (on entry to school) Assessment, which became mandatory upon LEAs and primary schools with effect from September 1998.

A short questionnaire was circulated to all 91 QCA-accredited Baseline Assessment Schemes (the overwhelming majority of these being local education authorities) and a response rate was obtained of 55%, that is, 51/91 completed the questionnaire and also sent BA documentation. PART I of the report describes the questionnaire findings. This snapshot in time confirms considerable range and diversity in practice. BA schemes are complying with the 'reporting to parents' accreditation criterion (by definition, they would have had to satisfy QCA on all the criteria to gain accreditation).

However, judging by questionnaire responses, a substantial number are minimally complying. Nevertheless, an encouraging number are actively seeking to involve parents in the assessment and reporting process. A small minority view parents as partners in these processes.

The second part of the survey comprised close inspection of the supporting BA documentation (PART 2 of the report), which provides further and substantial evidence of the range and diversity of practice. The sections in BA schemes on parents were put into assigned, predefined categories, and this procedure helped to present differences and commonalities between schemes.

It is considered from this survey that:

  1. there is strong evidence of effective 'reporting to parents' practice
  2. there are, nevertheless, examples of rather more indifferent practice
  3. there is a wide range and diversity of practice
  4. effective practice is substantial enough at this point in time to enable a list of 'effective practice indicators' to be generated (contained in the Discussion Section of the report)
  5. the categorisation and effective practice indicators could contribute to debate concerning a need for greater consistency of practice in this area.

The findings are discussed, within the context of contemporary literature and other reports on Baseline Assessment.

Data from this survey could pave the way to further evaluation studies involving BA scheme users directly, i.e. schools/teachers themselves, in describing their reporting to parents practice.

The authors would like to express appreciation and gratitude to the respondents for their co-operation and generous responses.

Further details are available from Sheila (see PERN contact points box in this issue).



HOME SCHOOL AGREEMENTS - A TRUE PARTNERSHIP?

The Research and Information on State Education Trust (RISE) held a dissemination seminar on 23 May.

This included a presentation of research, just completed, on Home School Agreements. The research examined the implementation of this policy in schools, and the attitude of parents, students, governors and headteachers to Home School Agreements.

The research has been carried out for RISE by Dr Janet Ouston and Suzanne Hood and was funded by the Nuffield Foundation.

Following the presentation of their research at the seminar there was a response to its findings from two London headteachers and a parent from each of their schools. The two schools which will be responding were not case study schools.

Copies of the report are now available. Further information from RISE (The Research and Information on State Education Trust), Correspondent: Barbara Collins 54 Broadwalk London E18 2DW, tel: 0208 989 4356, www.mandolin.demon.co.uk/rise.html



JOIN PERN

PERN is an association of individuals and organisations concerned with the promotion, dissemination and use of research about the participation of parents, families and other carers in the education of children, at home, in the community, in school and more widely.

The purposes of PERN are to:

PERN offers a substantial newsletter, website, discounted rates at regional conferences about parents in education, and access to and listing in a directory of key workers in the area. Subscription Rates: Individual membership £25 Student affiliate membership £10 Institutional membership £40. Send your full contact details, membership type and cheque made payable to PERN to the treasurer - see Contact PERN details on page 3 of this issue.