Why engage your community?
Community engagement is 'meaningful, respectful partnership between schools and their parents, whānau, and communities ... focused on improving the educational experiences and successes for each child.' (ERO, 2008)
What the research says
The School Leadership and Student Outcomes BES found that the most effective home-school partnerships are those in which:
- parents and teachers are involved together in children's learning
- teachers make connections to students' lives
- family and community knowledge is incorporated into the curriculum and teaching practices.
The Family and Community Engagement BES found that the most effective partnerships:
- treat families with dignity and respect and add to family practices, experiences, values, and competencies (rather than undermining them)
- build on the strong aspirations and motivation that most parents have for their children's development
- offer structured and specific suggestions rather than genearl advice
- provide group opportunities as well as opportunities for one-to-one contact (especially informal contact)
- empower those involved by fostering autonomy and self-reliance within families, schools, and communities.
Home-school partnerships that are tailored to the unique needs of a particular school and community are more successful than those using a standard approach (Brooking and Roberts, 2007). However, some ways of working with families and communities are effective across a wide range of contexts.
Identifying actions
Research in schools (for example, Bull, Brooking and Campbell, 2008; Taylor, 2008) suggests that partnerships work best when actions are:
- the result of shared reflection on current practice
- planned for and embedded within whole-school development plans
- goal-oriented and focused on learning
- evaluated and reflected upon by both partners as part of ongoing improvement.
Providing support from leaders
The evidence is clear that effective partnerships require:
- strong leadership
- a shared vision
- whole-school commitment.
Establishing relationships
Evidence (such as from Gorinski, 2006; Taylor, 2008; Bull, Brooking, and Campbell, 2008) shows that successful partnerships:
- have collaborative and mutually respectful relationships
- are responsive to different community characteristics
- adapt, rather than adopt, new ideas
- involve two-way engagement in which each partner learns from, and teaches, the other.