At a friend’s school, parents are invited to stay and support their children’s learning once a month on a Friday.

After this “soft start” had been running for a few months, the headteacher asked for feedback from the parents and they told her they wanted to understand better how children learn. The result was a workshop for parents, run by the head.

Those parents would almost certainly agree that the school was doing a fine job of helping them support their child’s learning at home. And you might imagine that this kind of work would be central to what all schools routinely do. But according to a survey of 4,600 parents by Education Scotland last year just shy of a third do not agree that their child’s school was undertaking such projects. Nearly half don’t think their school organises activities in which they and their children can learn together.

There are several reasons why we should care about these figures. First, as Eileen Prior, the executive director of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council points out, they probably underestimate the problem, given disengaged parents are unlikely to take part in an online survey. Second, research shows that if parents are engaged in their children’s learning, that has a positive impact on their attainment. So how can schools do this?

In Scotland, the pressure is now on to start finding answers. In this week’s issue we report on the headteachers’ charter, which the Scottish government plans to enshrine in law and will set out school leaders’ responsibilities.

One of the duties they propose placing on headteachers is the duty to involve parents. Already, good-quality parental engagement is something inspectors will be looking for when they come calling.

Headteachers, however, have made it plain that parental engagement is complex and they are not comfortable with this being used as a sign of a school’s success.

Attainment and attendance

But clearly schools could be doing the basics better - how hard is it to make sure parents have advice about supporting their children at home? Research by the Education Endowment Foundation also shows small things such as keeping parents abreast of homework and coursework via text messaging can improve attainment and attendance.

Another basic change with the potential to make a huge difference would be if schools started to encourage parents over the threshold at pick-up and drop-off times. The figures show that parents with children at nursery feel far more involved and engaged. It is likely that this is because these parents have daily contact with the people who are educating and caring for their children.

Fast-forward to primary and all too often regular exchanges between parents and educators are discouraged, with firmly locked doors sending out a clear signal to parents that under no circumstances should they attempt to enter the school building.

Is it so extreme to suggest that at primary, parents might be allowed to enter the classroom in order to pick up their children? Maybe the last 15 minutes of the school day could be dedicated to this process and we could all reap the rewards from the daily casual conversations that would ensue between pupils, parents and teachers.

Such a change would enable teachers to raise issues with parents as they came up and in a more casual way than they are able to do at present. It would also help schools reach the parents who do not turn up for parents’ night, or who do not engage in carefully planned events. Trust could be allowed to build gradually and a rapport could be established. Heck - we might even get to know each other.

@Emma_Seith