How parental engagement helped us boost behaviour and cut absence

In one Cornwall school last academic year, persistent absence reduced by 23.8 per cent to 19.8 per cent, and then to 8.4 per cent. In another school, it fell by 7.8 percentage points.

Other Cornwall schools saw a significant reduction in weekly behaviour incidents and bullying allegations.

So, how did we do this?

There are many factors impacting attendance and behaviour, but we have focused on tackling one that can be a core feature of school improvement: parental engagement.

Why does parental engagement matter?

Parental engagement is not simply about whether parents attend events, respond to messages or come into school when invited. It helps schools understand the barriers families face, communicate expectations clearly, build trust before difficulties escalate and create a stronger sense of belonging for children and young people.

That’s why Cornwall Council has developed a Parental Engagement Framework to help schools move from informal or ad hoc engagement activity towards a more strategic, evidence-informed and whole-school approach.

The framework is built around seven connected principles: whole setting approach, welcoming culture, communication, support for learning, community matters, raising and realising aspirations, and addressing barriers to engagement.

Schools use these principles flexibly, depending on their context, priorities and the needs of their families.

The framework is free to all schools in the Duchy, and has now reached more than 100. The local authority provides a support package at a small cost, which helps schools turn these principles into practice through coaching, constructive challenge, regular review and guidance.

How effective is the framework?

While we may not be able to attribute every improvement in outcomes to the framework alone (schools are complex systems and attendance, behaviour and attainment are influenced by many factors), the evidence does suggest that the framework has contributed to stronger conditions for improvement.

The evidence base (from case studies, surveys, attendance snapshots, number of schools reached and a Department for Education round table summary) suggests that parents experienced more opportunities to communicate, more accessible information, stronger routes for making their views heard and more purposeful opportunities to participate in school life.

Schools, meanwhile, reported that the framework helped them move beyond engaging parents who were already active in school life and instead focus on families who were less engaged, vulnerable or difficult to reach.

Several schools highlighted the importance of extending engagement beyond parents to include grandparents, wider family members and the broader community.

The evidence related to the families of children with special educational needs or disabilities is particularly important.

Schools reported that structured, relational and responsive engagement helped improve communication with SEND families, strengthen shared understanding of need, support transition and build parent confidence in review and support processes.

In one school, there was a 19 percentage point improvement in parents agreeing that their child’s SEND needs were recognised and appropriately supported.

Practical steps for boosting engagement

So, how can this work support other schools to develop their own approaches to working with parents? Here are five key lessons Cornwall’s schools have taken away:

1. Relationships, trust and belonging drive improvement

Schools reported that families were more likely to engage with attendance, behaviour or learning conversations when trust had been built first.

This does not mean avoiding difficult conversations. It means recognising that challenge is more likely to be productive when families believe the school knows them, understands their child and wants to work with them.

2. The families schools most need to reach are often those least likely to engage through traditional routes

Standard letters, information evenings or online forms may work well for some families, but not for all.

Schools need to know who is not engaging, explore why that might be and adapt their approach rather than assuming that non-attendance means lack of interest.

3. Communication must be consistent, accessible and two-way

Families notice when messages are unclear, when different staff communicate in different ways or when feedback appears to disappear into the system.

Parent voice has the most value when it influences what happens next. Several schools described making changes to policy, communication approaches and family support arrangements as a direct result of parent feedback.

4. Practical support can remove barriers more effectively than monitoring alone

Schools described examples where targeted outreach, support with attendance barriers, family learning, transition programmes and community-based approaches helped families engage more confidently with school, rather than just monitoring attendance.

This is particularly significant in cases where families are experiencing vulnerability, hardship, anxiety, previous negative experiences of education, or uncertainty about SEN support.

5. Staff need confidence, training and shared expectations

Parental engagement depends on many everyday interactions: how staff greet families, how concerns are followed up, how meetings are framed, how information is shared and how disagreement is managed.

If parental engagement is to be part of school culture, staff need a common language and clarity about what good communication and partnership look like in practice.

A call to action

Cornwall’s experience suggests that parental engagement can be a significant driver of school improvement when it is planned, strategic, inclusive and embedded across the whole school.

For headteachers and senior leaders, the question is not simply, “Do we involve parents?” It is, “How well do we engage families as partners in children’s learning, wellbeing and belonging?”

Now may be the right time to look again at your own practice. Is parental engagement in your setting planned and evidence informed? Is it inclusive of the families who are hardest to reach? Are parents’ voices acted on? Are staff confident and consistent? Is engagement embedded in improvement planning, governance and review?

If the answer depends too heavily on individual staff members or isolated activities, there is an opportunity to go further. The strongest parental engagement is not accidental. It is designed, led, supported and sustained.

Nicky Hepworth is a school improvement adviser for Cornwall Council