Abstract:

School leaders and teachers are two key figures within a school organisation to promote parental involvement. Both should work together to encourage parents to be involved in their children’s education. However, teachers cannot work alone; they need support from the school leaders who have the capacity to design and implement school policies, shape the norms, expectations, and school culture. Moreover, it has been shown that school leaders who create an atmosphere of caring and trust, consistently share and communicate their visions about the importance of parent–school partnership, welcoming and supporting parental involvement, are more likely to involve parents in their children’s education. Parent-teacher communication, teaching strategies and practices, and teacher invitations have been identified as powerful motivators for parents to be involved at home and at school. Partnership between parents and schools plays a crucial role in a child’s development. The partnership between parents/carers and the school needs to be a two-way relationship, the parents need information about what and how their child is learning, and the teacher needs important feedback from the parent about the child´s academic and social development. Positive partnership makes the child feel like the important people in his life are working together for the benefit of him/her.

Simple factors such as giving specific rather than general praise, showing interest in things the child shows interest in and establishing routines that promote health, well-being and regular study still do make a difference in the way that children view school and learning and the value they hold to their working relationship with teachers.

This study was conducted in public pre-schools and primary schools in Slovakia. The aim of the study is to find out how school leaders and teachers filter parents’ involvement in their children’s education and find out the preferred forms of parent-teacher cooperation. We focused on how teachers perceived support from their school leaders in promoting parental involvement and how teachers and school leaders contributed to parental involvement. As the research methods were developed two types of questionnaires, for teachers and parents. The school leaders were shortly interviewed as well. Moreover, there was also analysis of 328 essays (122 teachers and 206 parents). The results are quantitative and qualitative analysed and are supplemented by recommendations for school management but also for teacher training of future teachers at universities.

Keywords:

Parent involvement, school leaders, teachers, positive family - school partnership, helpful strategies.