Read the extract from the Parent Carer Engagement Framework Case Studies written by Together For Families in Partnership with Parent Carers Cornwall about the success of using this in Doubletrees School. 

Context
We are a special school that caters for pupils from across mid and east Cornwall. Our pupils are aged from 2 to 19 and have a wide range of multiple and complex needs including, PMLD, moderate to severe learning needs, communication needs, including ASD 100% of our children have EHCP’s in place. We have over 43% pupil premium. We have an increasing roll and are currently over PAN (96) with 98 pupils on roll. Many of our pupils are transported to school by taxi and buses so we do not see many of our families on a day-to-day basis. We are a school with high expectations and a drive to reflect and continuously improve.

Focus
Our ABC’s are the core vision which underpin everything we do at Doubletrees School. “Achieve, Belong, Communicate, Develop and Enjoy!” Integral to this is our whole school approach to ensure effective parental engagement which has been a strategic focus for us this year. This is because we have reflected on what has worked well for us during the Covid 19 pandemic and how we can build on this. During the pandemic we noticed some parents were under confident to know how to support their young person with remote learning. There was a real ‘fear’ of how to support with learning, contrasting their ease and confidence with the complex ‘care’ aspect. We also wanted to act on the feedback parent carers have provided us as part of our EHCP review surveys. We wanted out families to feel better informed in what and how their young people were learning and how we work in partnership to achieve their targets. We also wanted to increase the activities and range of events we offer; because of the Covid Pandemic, some of these have slipped over the past couple of years and we wanted to re-establish and improve what we do in this area.

Approach
We started out by using the parental engagement audit tool to review our existing practise. Prior to this, we had put actions in place to build parent and community relationships, but these were limited to more informal and ‘ad hoc’ strategies. The audit allowed us to focus on and target key areas.
We reflected on the feedback parent carers have given us throughout the year. We then collated further information from staff to gain wider views, opinions, and ideas. The main areas in the Parental Engagement Framework we focussed on for ideas and support were:

Quality of education
•• Principle 4: Support for learning.
•• Principle 3: Communications.
Once we had identified the key areas, we explored Cornwall LA’s Parental Engagement Framework for evidence-based resources that could support parent carers with their children’s learning. Our key actions included:
•• Reviewing how effective our parent partnerships meetings and our EHCP review meeting were, and to ensure they were well attended; consistently delivered and focused on how we work together to support their children’s learning.
•• Reviewing the quality of our home school letters and communications (including home school diaries) and again, ensuring they have clear content and support learning.
•• Explore how the family app for Evidence for learning (Assessment tool) can be used to support remote learning and engagement with parents/carers across the school.

•• Post Covid; we wanted to open our school back up again - look for more opportunities for feedback with the aim of increasing our engagement opportunities through parent information, sharing workshops, 2-way communication ‘coffee shop’ walk and talk meetings, website help guides, open day sessions and celebration events.
•• Ensure parents know who to go if they have a concern and review with staff what worked well during Covid and to carry forward the best practise in the future. Ensuring clear protocols were in place for how and when we respond to parents.
Parental surveys showed parents wanted a variety of activities across the year. Not one approach particularly stuck out as preferred.
The project was led by the Headteacher, but all staff were involved. It was an agenda item during all senior leadership team (SLT) meetings and staff meetings. The Headteacher, family liaison officer and the school pastoral and behaviour lead met monthly to monitor progress against the intended outcomes.

Impact
We have seen a positive impact in many areas:
•• Parent carers report they now understand the progress their child is making, and how this is assessed. There are regular opportunities to discuss the actions that the school and parent carers will take together to support progress. This year we went from 85% to 96% attendance at parent partnership meetings.

In the Autumn term only 81% of parents felt they knew how to support their child with their learning - this has increased in our most recent survey and 100% reported that ‘the school gives me and my child the support they need to succeed, and the school lets me know what my child is learning.’ We also standardised the approach and information that must be shared at our parental consultation meetings to ensure ‘standardised experiences’ across the school. 100% of parents said they had the opportunity to review their child’s work. Newsletter communications from class teams has increased ‘learning’ content.
•• Recent surveys showed that 81% of parents now understood how we assess our children compared to 72% in the Autumn term 2021. Evidence for learning has started to be used by learners’ families; this has been successful in recording and maintaining the remote learning ‘two-way conversations’ and as a result we have improved links between home and school for shielding learners during the Covid 19 pandemic. We have quality assured remote learning virtual/live opportunities through parent and learner comments and engagement in activities being logged. Parents and learners were able to upload photos and videos of them engaging in class based virtual/live remote learning opportunities, thus sharing what was effective and what needs further development to increase engagement.
•• We have increased the opportunities for parent carers to join in the celebration of success in learning, for example through open sessions and sharing assemblies. Onsite and remote open/ sharing learning days have also been introduced. Every class has held one each term this year. Attendance at these events has increased term on term.
•• “Toolkits” and a detailed programme of workshops events have been implemented to guide parents and to provide resources around the most effective ways to support children were well received. Uptake total numbers were quite low, but they did gradually increase.
•• The programme on offer was extensive and varied and it included support from Parent Carer Cornwall. Subject leads were keen to offer sessions too! Feedback of those who attended was very positive.

Finally, 95% (up from 85%) of parents know they can approach us when they have a concern or need someone to talk to, and when they have raised concerns with the school they have been dealt
with properly.

Key learning
It is important that you ask for feedback and create opportunities for engagement that are genuine otherwise you can miss out on key learning opportunities. The initial day we had together at the beginning of the pilot project when we explored the toolkit really supported us to narrow down our focus on what mattered. This project has really supported us to create a shift in emphasis, away from the relationship between parents and our schools, to a focus on the relationship between parents and their children’s learning. Parent carer engagement has become more embedded in the school ethos and families are increasingly seen as partners in their child’s education. As a school we believe strongly that efforts put into working with families and forging community partnerships can pay dividends to the school.

What happened next
Since the completion of this case study in 2022 we have used the Parental Engagement Framework to:
•• Continue to evaluate our provision and then plan our next steps, integrated, within our whole school improvement plan.
•• Reviewed our family support worker role. We now have a specific role in school for parental engagement.
Parental surveys were telling us they would like us to focus on creating more clubs and activities at school. This area can be limiting to young people with disabilities, so we needed to link up with our wider community to develop and improve our offer. We also wanted to review how we could further address the barriers to parent carer engagement. Since the case study we have used the toolkit to address:

Principle 5: Community matters
Principle 7: Addressing the barriers to parental engagement.

Actions have included:
•• The Family Engagement Lead implemented a parental engagement action plan. (Using the parent carer toolkit and audit) Parents were given a clear and supportive menu of activities to get involved with. The parental engagement action plan is evaluated for impact termly. The audit is updated and shared with stakeholders.
•• Reviewed the quality of the relationships we have with parents. This included a wider offer of external agencies and school staff offering support groups for parents.
•• We reviewed our use of social media to ensure it was effectively used a tool to raise information sharing with parents. We have encouraged parent carers to attend events run by staff in school and by other organisations by promoting their events and sharing information in newsletters and through social media. We held specific events in school where possible and offered for parent carers to attend online.
•• Created a ‘family connection’ leaflet, providing support, information, and advice for parent carers once a month – specifically in relation to education and learning support at home, activities to do at home and to take part in through other services, inspiring stories and support, workshops, and mental health support for parent carers.
•• Utilised feedback to support to broaden our extra-curricular offer in school.

Impact
As a result of the steps we took, our latest parental survey reported that:
•• 93% of parents felt the school supported their child’s wider development.
•• 93% felt that their child could take part in clubs and activities in school.
•• 100% of parents felt we keep them well updated on what and how their child learns.
Parental comments included:
“All the staff involved are amazing, thank you for all your support with everything.”
“Thank you to all the class team for the help and support you have given to my child; it is very much appreciated.”
“My child is always happy to come to school and always happy when he returns home. He certainly makes the most of all his experiences.”
“I am so pleased that my child continues to be happy and engaged at school. Thank you to the whole team for your ongoing support.”
This also supported us to secure our OFSTED outcome last year where we achieved good overall with outstanding for behaviour and attitudes. The report included that, ‘Pupils experience a wide range of opportunities to enrich their learning. There is a clear focus on ensuring pupils are fully involved in the community. Pupils participate in local community events and beyond. It helps them to develop their awareness of the world around them.’
Going forward we will continue to use this framework, which is an embedded tool in our school evaluation process. We have signed up for our next project… we have been accepted to be a part of the family learning pilot, an exciting next step on our journey.

"Thank you, Doubletrees School, for a brilliant, well planned, informative event today. I came away with lots of information that will help me to plan xx’s transition into adult life and what comes"

"Just excellent-thanks"