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CHAPTER FOUR: AWARENESS AND USAGE OF INFORMATION AND SUPPORT FOR PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT
Having ascertained levels of parental involvement in the previous chapter, this chapter now examines awareness and usage of information and support for parental involvement.
4.1 Awareness of information and support for parental involvement
All respondents participating in the telephone interviews were asked to spontaneously cite the sources of information and support they were aware of in relation to parental involvement in schools. As shown in Chart 4.1, the Making the Difference leaflets had a high level of awareness, with all local authority respondents indicating that they were aware of these, compared with 66% of school based respondents. 33% of school based respondents also referred to local authority information on parental involvement.
Levels of awareness of other sources of information and support were lower, with 57% of local authority staff and 30% of school staff citing the Parentzone website; 60% of local authority respondents recalled the Parents as Partners in Learning Toolkit compared with 19% of school respondents. Around half (54%) of the local authority employees and one fifth (21%) of school staff were aware of Guidance on the Parental Involvement Act. Lower proportions of both types of respondents were aware of the Parents as Partners website and newsletters in relation to parental involvement.
Local authority respondents also cited some sources that schools did not and it is likely that this relates to their job within their local authority and their key role as providers of information to schools. Just under one in four (23%) Local Authority staff mentioned Scottish Executive seminars / meetings, 20% referred to parent / parental involvement materials such as newsletters or packs, and 17% cited the Learning and Teaching ( LT) Scotland website. Only 6% of school respondents cited the Scottish Executive website as a source to obtain information on parental involvement.
Chart 4.1 Awareness of sources of information and support for parental involvement in schools
Notes to Table
Source: Q2 (Schools), Q1a ( LAs) Values below 6% not labelled
Base: All School respondents (248); All Local Authority respondents (35)
* Only applicable to schools
4.2 Usage of information and support for parental involvement
All respondents were then prompted with a list of sources of information on parental involvement and asked to state the ones they had ever accessed. As Chart 4.2 shows, all local authority staff and 77% of school staff had accessed the Making the Difference leaflets. Around three in four (77%) school staff had accessed Guidance on the Parental Involvement Act in comparison to 51% of local authority staff.
75% of school respondents had accessed local authority information on parental involvement. Similar proportions of school (63%) and local authority (57%) respondents had accessed the Parents as Partners in Learning Toolkit and the Parentzone website (57% local authority staff and 61% school staff). The Parents as Partners website was the least accessed source of information with 51% of school respondents and only 14% of local authority staff accessing the site.
Once again, local authority staff also mentioned Scottish Executive seminars or meetings (23%), parental involvement groups / forums / seminars (17%) and LT Scotland website (17%).
Chart 4.2 Sources of information and support for parental involvement ever accessed - prompted
Notes to Table
Source: Q3 (Schools), Q1b ( LA's)
Base: School respondents aware of sources of information and support for parental involvement (241); All Local Authority respondents (35)
* Only applicable to schools
Most parents attending the focus groups and in-depth interviews had not accessed information on parental involvement specifically. Where information sources had been accessed, this was generally because of a very specific informational need such as research on autism or Asperger's. Often sites such as Parentzone had been accessed because of a link from another site, rather than because of awareness of the specific site. Only a small number of respondents had accessed Parentzone, although, when presented with 'screenshots' of the website, were complimentary about this site in terms of its layout and content. One respondent had also accessed the LT Scotland website and again they were complimentary about the information they had been able to obtain as well as the ease of navigating the website.
The qualitative data also showed that parents were unlikely to be pro-active in searching for information unless there is an immediate, strong, personal relevance to them. For example, some parents had looked for information on bullying because of incidents involving their children at school.
"I went to the local authority to try and get some information on bullying and how to deal with it because my daughter was being bullied at her school. I didn't feel the school were very forthcoming when I asked for information and not at all helpful in the way they were dealing with it. I was worried about how much it was affecting her school life and confidence in herself and wanted to do something about it."
(Glasgow, Female, C2DE)
In summary:
- Awareness and use of the Making the Difference leaflets was universal among local authority staff and relatively high proportions of school staff recalled them;
- Respondents had accessed a range of different sources of information and support in relation to parental involvement in schools and, for most sources, higher proportions of local authority staff than school staff had accessed each;
- Parent respondents had utilised very few sources of information on parental involvement and, when they had, it was generally because of a very specific requirement.
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