We know that effective parental engagement has the potential to improve student outcomes, which is, at the end of the day, what we’re all about. For this reason, we’ve put together a list of our favourite 5-minute strategies that will help parents engage with their child’s learning without adding to the strain of everyday classroom practice.

Top tip #1: Learn it, teach it!

We’ve heard the benefits of peer teaching, both in terms of students’ confidence and understanding of key concepts; why not extend this to teaching their families! Challenging students to teach someone at home about the key ideas they have learned in your lesson helps the student consolidate what they’ve learnt as well as share valuable information about their learning directly with their family.

Why we love it: Parents get an insight on what’s gone on in your classroom without you having to lift a finger, and hearing the information from their child means that it will be coming from a perspective that they can really engage with. Scaffolding conversations about learning at home in this way promotes communication skills in your students and encourages students to describe models and draw analogies in order to get their message across to parents, really embedding those higher order thinking skills.

Handy hint: Inform parents that their child will be doing this and provide them with supporting resources (method guides or fact sheets) to support at home if their child struggles. This can encourage students to be resilient and revisit the content (prompted by the parent) if they do not feel secure in their understanding after the lesson.

Top tip #2: Cue-card quiz

Give parents the confidence to help their children at home by equipping them with questions AND answers they can use to quiz their kids.

Why we love it: Giving parents the answers provides them with an active role to play but removes the feeling that they are being tested – they don’t have to be a linguist to help with French vocabulary, or a rocket scientist to help prepare for a Physics test! It also models a great technique that students can use to revise independently, or even prompt them to make their own flash cards as their confidence grows.

Handy hint: Give a little extra explanation alongside the answer, or a modelled response, to allow parents to step in and support if their child needs it.

Tip #3: Snap shots of student success

Sharing images to celebrate student work is a great way to show parents what your students have been learning. This sends a really positive message home, and inspires pride in the work undertaken in your classroom, both for students and parents.

Why we love it: Sending a photo of work completed in class gives parents a really god idea about what is going on in the classroom, and is a more engaging way of sharing subject content than curriculum overviews or learning outcomes. Advertising this to students provides extra incentive to do their best every lesson – even teenagers really value praise, especially is it is echoed at home (despite their practiced ‘not bothered’ comments!).

Handy hint: Send images home on a regular basis to create an informal class scrap book that not only keeps parents well informed, but can act as an evidence trial of learning in your class over time.

Happy sending!