Learning together national action plan: update

Parental Involvement and Engagement (PIE) Census

For many years, schools have been surveying parents and carers, seeking their views on many aspects of school life and using this information to make improvements. This is a central feature of school improvement planning, providing opportunities for parents to share their experiences of engagement and contributing to priorities for the school going forward.

The Parental Involvement and Engagement (PIE) Census aims to minimise any local variability in how, and what, information is collected in relation to parental involvement and engagement. All local authorities are invited to use a set of key core questions and an online data collection platform. This evidence can be used for informing and monitoring local improvement activity and meeting commitment and goals set out in the Learning Together plan. 

As each PIE Census is designed to ensure that every local authority asks the same key core questions, this data is then shared with the Scottish Government. This can produce a national picture that helps to inform and monitor national policies and enables benchmarking. 

However, the PIE Census also offers flexibility, for example, by enabling each local authority to ask their own additional questions in their local Census.

The first PIE Census was undertaken in 2018 to 2019, with 24 local authorities sharing data with the Scottish Government. Twenty local authorities then collected data using the PIE Census 2021 to 2022, 18 of which shared their data with Scottish Government in time for inclusion in the published analysis.

The PIE Census provides important and consistent evidence for local authorities to monitor and establish progress in parental involvement strategies and support the wide range of needs of communities.

This update strongly encourages all local authorities to work collaboratively in the development of the PIE Census to assist with their own future gathering of consistent and robust data.