Improving Parent, Family & Community Engagement Practice
School leaders, teachers and other staff have a pivotal role in promoting and empowering effective parent and family engagement, including through the cultivation of genuine home-school partnerships linked to children’s learning.
Because resources and readings are plentiful, it can be difficult to quickly identify those that are most likely to be useful.
The Federation is available to provide advice and assistance and recommends these as core practical resources.
If you are looking for further resources, including for diversity groups, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Australia’s Family-School Partnerships Framework (2017)
The original Family-School Partnerships Framework was endorsed by all Australian Education Ministers and published in hard copy in 2008.
Intended primarily for use by school leaders, teachers and school teams, the framework was recently updated to incorporate developments in engagement and partnership research, policy and practice and published as an online resource.
We recommend use of the 2017 version as the content relating to the core principles and key dimensions of family-school partnerships has changed in important ways.
If you find the website difficult to navigate, there is a mud map to help.
The revised framework includes a School Assessment Tool to assist school communities to assess current family and community engagement practices and evaluate their progress when implementing strategies to strengthen engagement.
This tool is an updated version of the one that was published in the ‘Strengthening Family and Community Engagement in Student Learning Resource’.
The Family-School Partnerships Framework (Revised, 2017)
A Mud Map of the Family-School Partnerships Framework
Parent and Family Engagement: An Implementation Guide for School Communities (2020)
This practical guide is a key outcome from a four-year project recently completed by the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY). It provides school leaders and educators with practical guidance on the implementation of successful parent and family engagement practices, focusing on ‘the how’ rather than just ‘the why’. The guide draws from a wide body of research to provide evidence and examples of how to make engagement relevant and effective.
The Parent Engagement Implementation Guide
Learning Together: Engaging Parents and Families in School Learning (2013)
Produced by the Catholic Education Office (Archdiocese of Melbourne), this Support Materials for Schools resource booklet offers guidelines for school leaders working with staff groups to strengthen their approaches to parent engagement. It has wonderful sets of provocation questions structured under six headings which reflect an ongoing cyclical process (leading, listening, planning, building capacity, reflecting and relationships) plus some excellent activities. The book is designed to be used in tandem with a DVD but is not dependent on this, and can otherwise be supplemented with alternative resources.
Parent Engagement in Children’s Education (2011)
Parental Engagement in Learning and Schooling: Lessons from Research (2012)
Parent Engagement: A Review Linking Policy and Programs (2016)
Other Resources to Note
Let’s Read Them a Story! The Parent Factor in Education (OECD, 2012)
Parental Engagement in the Career Development of Young People
Educating Children with a Refugee Background
Parent Engagement in Action - A Guide
Gearing Up for Parent Engagement in Student Learning – For Primary Principals & School Staff (2019)