Additional Support for Learning review - action plan: third progress report

Parents and Carers’ View

Top tips for engaging with parents and carers of children with an additional support need

• Be kind and welcoming ✓
• Ensure parents feel comfortable and supported ✓
• Maintain professionalism ✓
• Engage as equals ✓
• Recognise parents as the experts in their child and respect them in this role ✓
• Actively seek the views of the parents and the child, rather than making assumptions about parent’s knowledge, their circumstances, or intentions ✓
• Be open, honest and transparent ✓
• Accessibility is important: do parents have any disabilities? Use plain English, rather than educational jargon, and explain any terminology ✓
• Ask parents and carers if they would like support at meetings e.g. a friend or an interpreter ✓
• Make sure any resources are accessible and user-friendly so parents can support their child’s learning journey ✓
• Encourage open and honest conversations ✓
• Don’t assume automatic trust or respect – earn it ✓
• Additional support needs are a whole-school responsibility: an inclusive environment must be created in which diversity is respected ✓
• Consider the full context of the family ✓
• Provide resources and assistance without judgement ✓
• Show empathy and understanding ✓
• Work together, with a focus on the child or young person ✓
• Listen actively and be responsive ✓
• Celebrate successes ✓
• Be culturally sensitive and aware ✓
• Check your unconscious biases and prejudices ✓
• Provide regular updates ✓
• Be available to meet parents at times, in ways and in places that work for them ✓
• Make sure parents know what meetings are about in advance and ensure they have access to all the information that you have ✓
• Help parents to make connections with one another for mutual support and information-sharing, if parents would like this ✓
• Offer flexibility and remain responsive to the needs and requests of both the child and parent ✓
• Seek training to understand the impact of intersectional inequalities including poverty, racism, disability and gender-based violence ✓
• Seek training to understand how barriers may impact on a parent’s ability to engage in their child’s education to ensure supportive approaches if parents don’t show up to parents’ night, respond to a phone call, or the child is not submitting homework ✓
• Offer holistic, whole family information and support ✓
• Address issues, concerns and requests quickly and collaboratively with the child and parent ✓
• Remember children’s rights include parents as the champion of their child ✓
• Be child-centred, focussing on meeting the child’s needs and recognising the position of a parent in that child’s world ✓