Building relationships

Published 04/07/2024.  Last updated 31/07/2024

Parents and families value positive and meaningful relationships with school staff.  These should be nurtured prior to pupils transitioning to the school and continue to be developed throughout the child’s learning journey.  Pupils benefit from and settle into secondary school more easily when they see collegial relationships and closer partnership working continuing to develop between home and school.  This in turn helps any issues to be addressed at an early stage.

Staff working with parents and families should be aware of the provision within the community that also support their parents and families.  Working together as a community ensures that families can access to right support at the right time and be responsive to changing needs.

Know your community

  • Consider how your engagement with families addresses the attainment gap whilst taking into account the context of your community.

How family engagement is operated

  • Families should be involved at every opportunity so communication platforms that are being used should be accessible to all.

Make participation easy

  • Think about how you promote events to families whilst being aware of the barriers they may face.

Get in early

  • Utilise and build upon opportunities that key transition phases provide to support families.

Know your community

  • Be aware of the context and use different groups in your local community to support families. Examples could include working with local/national charitable organisations.

How parental engagement is operated

  • Engage families by being flexible in how these are accommodated. For example, consider the timings, locations and settings through open mornings and informal events. Many families may find attendance difficult for many reasons so speak with families and find out what they want and need.

Make participation easy

  • Provide a variety of opportunities and use these to collate the opinions of our families. For example, during parents' evenings conducting small-scale surveys.

Get in early

  • Establish early connection through P7 transition events, enhanced transitions for pupils that require additional support and a follow up S1 event. Use the first few months to make meaningful connections.

'If you hadn’t kept phoning and coming around, I wouldn’t be sitting here, filling in an application for a job. Thanks for doing that.' (Ex-pupil)

'It's been great to see how the school uses our feedback to help students and shows us what difference our comments make.' (S3 Family)
^ Back to top

Building relationships

Published 04/07/2024.  Last updated 31/07/2024

Parents and families value positive and meaningful relationships with school staff.  These should be nurtured prior to pupils transitioning to the school and continue to be developed throughout the child’s learning journey.  Pupils benefit from and settle into secondary school more easily when they see collegial relationships and closer partnership working continuing to develop between home and school.  This in turn helps any issues to be addressed at an early stage.

Staff working with parents and families should be aware of the provision within the community that also support their parents and families.  Working together as a community ensures that families can access to right support at the right time and be responsive to changing needs.

Know your community

  • Consider how your engagement with families addresses the attainment gap whilst taking into account the context of your community.

How family engagement is operated

  • Families should be involved at every opportunity so communication platforms that are being used should be accessible to all.

Make participation easy

  • Think about how you promote events to families whilst being aware of the barriers they may face.

Get in early

  • Utilise and build upon opportunities that key transition phases provide to support families.

Know your community

  • Be aware of the context and use different groups in your local community to support families. Examples could include working with local/national charitable organisations.

How parental engagement is operated

  • Engage families by being flexible in how these are accommodated. For example, consider the timings, locations and settings through open mornings and informal events. Many families may find attendance difficult for many reasons so speak with families and find out what they want and need.

Make participation easy

  • Provide a variety of opportunities and use these to collate the opinions of our families. For example, during parents' evenings conducting small-scale surveys.

Get in early

  • Establish early connection through P7 transition events, enhanced transitions for pupils that require additional support and a follow up S1 event. Use the first few months to make meaningful connections.

'If you hadn’t kept phoning and coming around, I wouldn’t be sitting here, filling in an application for a job. Thanks for doing that.' (Ex-pupil)

'It's been great to see how the school uses our feedback to help students and shows us what difference our comments make.' (S3 Family)
^ Back to top