the impact of parental involvement on children’s education · this leaflet draws on evidence from...

The Impact of Parental Involvement on Children’s Education

Key research

In the early years, parental involvement has a significantimpact on children’s cognitive development and literacy andnumber skills1.Parental involvement in a child’s schooling for a child betweenthe ages of 7 and 16 is a more powerful force than familybackground, size of family and level of parental education2.Parental involvement has a significant effect on pupilachievement throughout the years of schooling3.Educational failure is increased by lack of parental interest inschooling4.In particular, a father’s interest in a child’s schooling is stronglylinked to educational outcomes for the child5.Most parents believe that the responsibility for their child’seducation is shared between parents and the school6.Many parents want to be involved in their children’s education.In a recent study in England 72% of parents said that theywanted more involvement7.

This leaflet draws on evidence from researchto highlight the importance of involvement ofparents in their children’s education. Overall,research has shown conclusively that parentalinvolvement does make a difference to pupils’engagement and their achievement and theevidence indicates that parental involvementbenefits students, parents teachers andschools. This leaflet provides an insight intosome of that evidence.

What is parental involvement?

Children have two main educators in theirlives – their parents and their teachers. Parentsare the prime educators until the child attendsnursery or starts school and remain a majorinfluence on their children’s learning throughschool and beyond. There is no clear line toshow where the parents’ input stops and theteachers’ input begins. The school and theparents all have crucial roles to play8 and theimpact is greater if parents and schools workin partnership.

There is no universal agreement on whatparental involvement is, however there aretwo broad strands.

Parents’ involvement in the life of theschool.Their involvement in support of theindividual child at home and at school.

Interested?

Find out more about helping parents to helpchildren fulfil their potential – send for the‘Involving Parents, Raising Achievement’ packfor schools on working with parents byringing 0845 602 2260.

Or go to www.teachernet.gov.uk to theWorking With Parents area where there is adownloadable copy of the pack.

Have a look at www.parentcentre.gov.ukunder ‘School Life – help your child to learn’for leaflets to support parents.

What is the impact of parentalinvolvement on children’slearning?

Early Years Education

Parental involvement in early interventionprogrammes has been found to equate withbetter outcomes for the child. Most effectiveinterventions involve parents in (pre-school)children’s cognitive development. Play and funand scope for physical activity seem toproduce most effective outcomes. Parents’ selfesteem is very important in determining longterm outcomes for both themselves and theirchildren.

The Effective Provision of Pre-SchoolEducation (EPPE) Project9 is a large scalelongitudinal study which monitors 2,800children's progress across the range of pre-school provision to entry to reception class.

After controlling for the impact of parents'occupations and education, aspects of thehome learning environment were found tohave a significant impact on children'scognitive development both at age 3 yearsplus and again at school entry.

The frequency with which the child playswith letters/numbers at home was linkedwith attainment in all measures.Parents’ drawing children’s attention tosounds and letters was linked to literacyskills, early number skills and non-verbalattainment.

School age children

A study conducted in 199910 found thatparental involvement has significant effects onachievement into adolescence. The study usedanalysis of data from the National ChildDevelopment Study (NCDS) to explore theeffect of parents’ involvement on attainmentat age 16. It examined the impact of certaininputs (parental involvement, peer groupinfluences, schooling inputs) on achievement.

Using attainment in reading and maths itdiscovered that:

parental involvement in a child’s schoolingwas a more powerful force than otherfamily background indicators such as socialclass, family size and level of parentaleducation and contributes to no less than10% of variation in achievementthe involvement of parents in secondaryeducation has an effect on continueddevelopmentvery high parental interest is associatedwith better exam results, than for childrenwhose parents show no interestchildren with very interested parentsprogressed 15-17% more in mathematicsand reading between ages 11-16.

What is the impact of homelearning on children’sachievement?

Many parents are already involved in theirchildren’s education. The time British parentsspend doing homework or reading with theirchildren has increased four times during thepast 35 years11.

Reading

In an experiment designed to assess theeffects of parental involvement in theteaching of reading, research found thatreading attainment was positively affected by parental support12.

The research was conducted using a group ofchildren who were helped with their readingat home by their parents. Their results weremeasured against children who did notreceive parental help with reading, and thoseof children who were given extra readingtuition by a qualified teacher in school, ratherthan by parents at home.

The findings of the study were:

a highly significant improvement bychildren who received practice at home,but there was no comparable improvementby children who received extra help atschoolthe parents involved in the studyexpressed great satisfaction in beinginvolved and teachers reported that thechildren of these parents showed anincreased keenness for learning and werebetter behaved at schoolthe collaboration between teachers andparents was effective for children of allinitial levels of performance, including thosewho at the beginning of the study werefailing to learn to readsome children who were reading to theirparents who could not themselves readEnglish, or who, in a few cases, could notread at all, still showed improvement intheir reading and their parents remainedwilling to collaborate with the school.

Leisure time activities

Research has indicated that no matter what the social class of their parents,participation in such things as visitingmuseums and going to the theatre andopera, when teenagers, has a positive effect on their earnings potential,educational attainments and civicengagement in later life.

This information stems from analysis of theBritish Cohort Study, which collectsinformation at regular intervals from peopleborn in Britain during one week in April 1970.Members of the cohort were all given leisurediaries when they were 16 years old, in whichto record their activities. They havesubsequently been surveyed at age 29 andthis research pinpoints that participating inhigh culture activities during youth haspositive outcomes in adulthood.

The research finds that engaging in leisureactivities such as:

artistic and music-related leisurereading for pleasurewriting for pleasure.

all have positive effects. Each of themincreases the likelihood of getting a firstdegree, taking a course in adult education andbeing a member of a voluntary organisation.They also raise earnings potential in later life13.

Homework

Research indicates that pupils and parentsconsider homework and home learning to be an important part of school life, and theevidence shows a positive relationshipbetween time spent on homework andachievement at secondary school level14.

On the whole, pupils have positive attitudestowards homework and feel that it isimportant to help them do well at school.Positive attitudes to homework are associatedwith positive attitudes at school.

The research suggests that parents are moredirectly involved in homework when theirchildren are younger.

The evidence further confirms that parentsplay an important role encouraging theirchildren to spend time on homework andeliminating distractions such as watchingtelevision.

What is the impact of familylearning on children’sachievement?

OFSTED (2000)15 reported that successfulprogrammes of family learning resulted in thefollowing benefits:

For children:

accelerated development of oracy and pre-literacy skillsimproved standards in numeracy andliteracypositive behavioural and attitudinalchangesenhanced confidence and self-esteemawareness that learning is a normal activitythroughout lifepleasure from collaborative learning.

For parents:

improved competence in literacy andnumeracy progression for over 50% of participants toFE and training or more challenging jobsincreased confidence in contacts withschools, teachers, and the education system,leading to becoming more active partnerswith schools a greater understanding of childdevelopment and of the strategies that canbe used to help children to learn at keypoints in development, improved parentingbetter relationships with children.

Family literacy and numeracydemonstration programmes

Literacy demonstration programmes andfamily numeracy programmes lasting 12weeks, run by the Basic Skills Agency forchildren aged 3-6 years and their parents(mostly mothers) showed improvements inchildren’s literacy and numeracy, parents’literacy and numeracy and parents’ ability tohelp their children16/17.

For the children:

the proportion whose low reading levelwould leave them struggling in school fellfrom 67% to 35%the proportion whose even lower readinglevel would leave them severelydisadvantaged for learning fell from 24% to 9%progress in number and mathematicallanguage was statistically significant.

For the parents:

the number of parents actively involved in their children’s schools increasedsignificantlyby the end of the course parents increasedtheir contact with their children’s school invarious ways such as involving themselvesin school activities and providing support in class.

What about fathers and theirinvolvement in their children’seducation?

Fathers play an extremely important role intheir children’s lives and a plethora of researchindicates that father involvement issignificantly related to positive child outcomes

We know that fathers are often very involvedin their children’s lives. For example, fathers areoften the main carers for children whilemothers are working. Research states that, in36% of dual earner families, after the mother itis the father, more than any other individual,who cares for children18.

Research evidence relating to fathers tells usthat:

fathers who devote time to their sons aregiving them a greater chance to grow up asconfident adults. Boys who feel that theirfathers devote time, especially to talk tothem about their worries, school work andsocial lives, almost all emerge as motivatedand optimistic men19

father involvement in children’s educationat age 7 predicts higher educationalattainment by age 20, in both boys and girls20

for boys, early father involvement protectsagainst delinquency in later life21

the involvement of fathers exerts aninfluence on children’s positive attitudes to school22.

What happens when parentsaren’t involved?

Research evidence clearly states that children’sprogress can be hindered by lack of parentalinvolvement.

In a study designed to test whether theeducational performance of children wasinfluenced by parents the research foundthat children were disadvantaged not bysocial class, but rather by lack of parents’interest23.

The key findings of the study were:

children whose parents showed a high levelof interest (regardless of social class), hadhigher test scores at age 8 and 11the scores of those children whose parentsshowed little interest deterioratethe children with interested parents pullahead of the rest whatever their initialstarting point.

In another study, childhood experience andparental factors were tested linked to a widerange of outcomes in adulthood24.

Where there was no report of parentalinterest there was a high rate of notobtaining qualifications after 16.Educational failure is increased by lack ofparental interest in schooling.Father’s lack of interest in schooling is aparticularly powerful and progressivepredictor of lack of qualifications.

What are the challenges toparents becoming involved?

We know that many parents are alreadyinvolved in their children’s education.However, some parents face challenges tobeing involved.

The Department for Education and Skills(DfES) commissioned research with parents in2001 in order to identify whether parents wereinvolved, to what level and discover theperceived barriers to involvement25.

Key findings from our research are:

approximately 1 in 3 parents (29%) feel veryinvolved in their child’s school life. Primaryschool parents were more likely to feel thisway than secondary school parents.Mothers were more likely to say that theywere ‘very involved’ than fathers72% of all parents agreed that theywanted more involvement58% of parents believed they had anequal responsibility with the school fortheir child’s educationwhen asked about barriers to becominginvolved, parents cited the competingdemands in their lives such as workcommitments, demand of other children,childcare difficulties and lack of timegenerally.

Parents’ difficulties with basic skills are also abarrier to being involved in their children’seducation. Research conducted by the BasicSkills Agency26 found that:

34% said they had difficulties reading froma children’s book.18% said they found it difficult tounderstand and recognise numbers.

In addition, it is well documented that parentswho themselves didn’t enjoy school, or hada bad experience at school, may havedifficulties communicating with teachers,which may affect their level of involvement.

What difference do familiesmake to children’sachievement?

The term parents is used here to refer to thewide-ranging arrangements adults have forlooking after children. The past 30 years haveseen rapid changes in family structures.

There are 1.7 million dependent children inEngland and Wales27.Nearly one in four (22.9%), live in one-parent families28.More than one in 10 dependent childrenlive in a step family29.Two out of three mothers with dependentchildren either have jobs or are activelyseeking work compared with fewer thanhalf 20 years ago30.Many children live in workless households,with over two million (17.6%) in householdswhere there are no adults in work31.Experience of life in a single parent family or with jobless parents during childhoodare usually associated with disadvantagedoutcomes for young adults32.The effect of the disruption of a familystructure is more pronounced oneducational outcomes than the experienceof parental unemployment33.

Poor educational attainment can betransmitted down generations. A keyinfluence in a child’s educational attainmentis the attainment of their parents, alongwith the interest that a parent or carershows in their child’s education. Improvingeducational outcomes for one generationis a key factor in helping to break thiscycle of deprivation34.

What is children’sunderstanding of parentalinvolvement?

Research has highlighted that children areoften mediators in the link between homeand school.

A research study conducted in 200135, focusedon children’s experiences and perspectives onparental involvement, at home and at school,in their education. Interviews were carried outwith 70 children aged 10 and 14 years from avariety of backgrounds.

Many children interviewed had a strongsense of privacy over their home lives andfelt that schools should not be informedabout personal details unless they seriouslyaffect their education. Furthermore, homeand school were perceived as contrastingexperiences, with different sets of values. Forexample, home is equated with support andrelaxation and school with rules, timetablesand mixing with peers.

Parents and Information andCommunication Technology(ICT)

Information and communication technology(ICT) is becoming a vital tool for parents’involvement in children’s education.

Research relating to use of ICT by parents andchildren indicates that:

the attitudes of both parents and childrentowards computers were generally positive.Among parents with access to a computerat home, 41% felt that this helped theirchildren achieve better results at school36

looking at the use of computers forchildren’s learning and development, in astudy conducted in 200137 around 30% ofadults in households with children under16, said they used computers for helpingwith their children’s schoolwork, generalknowledge and for developing theircomputer skills. In terms of generalknowledge/learning and computer skills, itis the households with children agedbetween 6 and 10 where usage ofcomputers for these tasks is highest.

1Institute of Education (2002). Technical

Paper 8A. Measuring the impact of pre-

school on children’s cognitive progress.

2Feinstein,L & Symons, J (1999)

Attainment in Secondary School: Oxford

Economic Papers, 51.

3Desforges, C (2003) The Impact of

Parental Involvement, Parental Support

and Family Education on Pupil

Achievement and Adjustment. DfES

Research Report 433.

4Douglas,J.W.B (1964) The Home and

School.

5Hobcraft (1998) Childhood experience

and the risk of social exclusion in

adulthood. CASE Briefing Nov 1998.

6Williams,B, Williams,J & Ullman,A (2002)

Parental Involvement in Education: DfES



Parental Involvement in Education: DfES


8The Scottish Office (2003) Parental

Participation in Schools.

9Institute of Education (2002). Technical

Paper 8A. Measuring the impact of pre-

school on children’s cognitive progress.

10Feinstein,L & Symons, J (1999)

Attainment in Secondary School: Oxford

Economic Papers, 51.

11Gershuny,J (2000) Changing Times –

Work and Leisure in Post Industrial

Society.

12Tizard,J. Schofield,W.N & Hewison,J

(1982) Collaboration between teachers

and parents in assisting children’s

reading.

13Robson, K (2003) Teenage Time use as

Investment in Cultural Capital: ISER

Working Paper 2003-12.

14NFER (2001) Homework – A recent

Review of Research.

15Ofsted (2000) Family Learning: A survey

of good practice.

16Brooks,G et al (1996) Family Literacy

Works NFER/BSA.

17Brooks ,G et al (1998) Family Numeracy

Adds Up NFER/BSA.

18Ferri,E & Smith,K (1995) Parenting in

the 1990s London: family Policy Centre.

19Katz,A (1999) Leading Lads: Young

Voice.

20Hobcraft,J (1998) Childhood experience



21Hobcraft,J (1998) Childhood experience



22Flouri,E, Buchannan,A & Bream,V (2002)

‘Adolescents’ perceptions of their

fathers’ involvement – significance to

school attitudes’ Psychology in the

schools Vol 39 (5) 2002.

23Douglas,J.W.B (1964) The Home and

School.

24Hobcraft (1998) Childhood experience


adulthood. CASE Briefing Nov 1998


Parental Involvement in Education:

DfES Research Report 332.

26Basic Skills Agency 1995.

27Office for National Statistics, 2003.



30Utting, D (1995) Family & Parenthood:

supporting families, preventing

breakdown. Joseph Rowntree

Foundation.


32ISER (2002) Childhood Parental

Behaviour and Young Peoples

Outcomes.

33ISER (2002) Childhood Parental

Behaviour and Young Peoples

Outcomes.

34DWP, (2002) Opportunity for All. Fourth

Annual Report.

35Edwards,R, David,M & Allared,P (1999

Parental Involvement in Education –

Children and Young People’s Views).

ESRC.

36Becta (2002) Young People and ICT.

37DfES Research Report 358 2001 –

Trends in ICT – Access and Use.

References

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