For generations, the scenario has remained much the same. Pupil X trudges through his or her front door, collapses on the settee and buries their head behind a Beano, Game Boy or fidget spinner. “What happened at school today?” ask mum and dad, receiving an unintelligible grunt in reply or, at best, the response: “I don’t remember.”

Parents’ taciturn offspring have been just about their only potential source - and a highly unreliable one - of regular information about the mysterious activities of the school day, bar a rummage for clues through the detritus at the bottom of a rucksack. Parents have had to accept being bystanders in their children’s school days.

However, Joanna Murphy, chair of the National Parent Forum of Scotland, believes such frustrations have started to fall away in the past decade. When her eldest daughter, now aged 22, was at primary school in Glasgow, parents only ever breached the school gates for a Christmas carols concert or parents’ night. But by the time her youngest daughter - now in S2 - went to the same primary, parents were “never out of the school”.

The Scottish government commissioned the National Parent Forum of Scotland (NPFS) to assess progress since the landmark Scottish Schools (Parental Involvement) Act 2006, which promised to give parents a much greater say in their children’s education.

The wide-ranging report is based on a survey of 502 parents by pollsters Ipsos Mori, as well as detailed interviews with headteachers and parents. It finds “major improvements” in the way schools communicate with parents - although much work remains to be done.

Murphy says schools have made great use of social media to share pupils’ success and demystify what goes on behind the school gates. Parents also appreciate the teachers who have made themselves visible in the foyer and playground, providing an easy way to offer feedback or raise concerns.

But Murphy says schools should go further, and talks up the idea of regular drop-in sessions, like local councillor surgeries, perhaps held monthly.

The report suggests that local authorities are not yet as committed to “parental engagement” - the favoured jargon in Scotland - as they might seem. While the vast majority have “parental involvement strategies”, only six have made these easily accessible, while three appear not to have one at all.

Meanwhile, parents say that if schools do consult them, it tends to be after the event has already passed.

Parents “often don’t understand what’s going on” in schools, says Murphy, and the school “needs to take the first step in sharing the information”. The first few years after pupils move up to secondary school are identified as a particularly weak area for involving parents - echoing the recent Education Scotland review of the “broad general education” (S1-3), which took a swipe at schools for more general failings at this crucial stage.

“The more parents see the school staff as allies, the better,” says Murphy. The report notes that parents would appreciate schools making more effort to use methods that would ease their attempts to help children learn, including YouTube clips, summer reading lists, textbook recommendations and clear homework policies.

At the moment, the report states, parents are more comfortable with the involvement of what it calls “traditional avenues” - parents’ evening, concerts, fundraising events - than in learning activities.

Parents need help from schools to see that home-learning is not just about homework, but “more intangible aspects” such as building up resilience and respect.

Michael Wood, general secretary of education directors’ body ADES, says that, while “everyone in the [education] system accepts the value of increased parental engagement”, staff could make it easier for parents by encouraging “an open relationship” where schools readily listen to both positive and negative feedback from parents.

A spirit of inclusivity

The report’s findings cut both ways: it is not simply a long list of what schools could do better. It finds that the role of parents in schools is “very much one of passive consumption and not active contribution”.

Murphy makes an analogy with families who are willing to traipse around shops looking for the TV that best matches their needs. “Why wouldn’t you go to that same length for your children?” she asks. “It’s not that everybody needs to be on a parent council or PTA (parent teacher association), but every parent should be engaged with their child’s school.”

The NPFS underlines that previous research has identified potentially huge benefits of parents contributing more to school life. Save the Children, for example, found that 80 per cent of what made a difference to how well pupils did at school depended on what happens outside school. However, the charity’s head of Scotland, Neil Mathers, said after the NPFS report came out that teachers had “continued difficulties...in knowing what works best” with parents.

The report’s analysis of previous research notes that “the more that parents engage in their child’s learning, the more likely it is that they will help raise their child’s attainment.” But much work remains to reap the benefits, particularly in secondary schools.

Ipsos Mori found that just 7 per cent of secondary school parents said that they had helped with learning activities in their child’s school in the previous year, against 24 per cent of primary parents. That is partly down to not having a single class teacher as a point of contact, as in primary school. But another factor is parents’ “sense of trepidation” about their ability to help with increasingly complex learning.

Social and cultural backgrounds may also hinder many parents. Minority groups are poorly represented on parent councils, which are disproportionately made up of women and, in the views of some, offputtingly “cliquey”; only around a quarter of parents surveyed said they reflected school communities’ diversity. There are also disparities in how much money different local authorities provide for the running of parent councils.

Jim Thewliss, general secretary of School Leaders Scotland, acknowledges that while “much good practice exists”, it is “not universal and much can still be done”. But he insists that schools have “fully bought into the power of family learning in its widest sense, in improving attainment and enhancing life chances”.

After the report was published, education secretary John Swinney said that he wanted to “strengthen opportunities for parents to get involved in the life and work of their local school”, and flagged up the government’s imminent response to the education governance review - due this month - as a first step towards that.

The executive director of another group speaking up for families - the Scottish Parent Teacher Council’s Eileen Prior - hopes that the government’s aspiration to create “regional boards” of education will lead to a new era of parental influence in schools, as people from different parts of the country join forces to explore “radical, innovative approaches”.

As Prior puts it, “while parents generally do not want to run schools, they do want their voices heard and, most importantly, to be recognised as partners in their children’s education”.

@Henry_Hepburn