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Parental Engagement and Technology Strategies – when did you last look at yours?

3 Comments
  1. Having worked through these issues with a number of schools I think that parental engagement might well be considered as a subset of a larger piece of work – a school communication strategy. None of the schools I worked with had considered how parental engagement fits within a much broader approach to communication. What are the key messages the school wants to get across and who are their key audiences?
    I also think it is helpful to think about making the most of opportunities to draw parents into that very productive conversation that is possible around their children’s learning. Thinking of communication as one way and as broadcast misses some of the most exciting affordances technology offers. I recall that the original Becta material (which you might remember Mike), stressed the creation of a three-way conversation between child, parents and school. The Futurelab report on parental engagement (available here http://bit.ly/cyOonZ) does an admirable job of reminding us that the third party in all this – the child – needs to be given a voice. I think it is one of the more salient tragedies (out of many) arising from the present administrations antipathy to technology that the very great potential of parental engagement through technology has been mostly abandoned.

  2. Thanks Alex. As always, thoughtful comments.
    The triangle between learner, parent and school is critical and when we added Mentoring; Partnership and Dialogue it became very powerful as it resonated with thinking in school and at home.
    In this piece I was building on work with school staff at an event who valued a refreshed take (or challenge) on what they need to revisit, maybe the recent DFE announcements about parent lessons will include a focus on links with school..?
    Mike