The Family-School and Community Partnerships Bureau conducted a series of focus groups with parents of school age children in 2009. The purpose of these was to find out how parents viewed the quality of teachers and teaching, the effectiveness of schools and the education system, and the nature of the relationships between schools and parents.

The parents in this study felt passionately about their children emerging from their school years as well rounded human beings. They expressed the need for schools to provide a safe environment for their children, and to take on a significant role in their socialisation as well as their intellectual development.

This group of parents wanted their children to feel valued, nurtured and respected in the school environment. In essence, they felt that children would thrive in school if they were happy and had a good relationship with their teacher. It followed, then, that some key attributes of a quality teacher were linked to strong interpersonal and communication skills.

Other skills and attributes of a quality teacher were considered to be a love of working with children and being able to engage them effectively, being well prepared, providing an orderly classroom and catering for the various needs and abilities of students, and being accessible and responsive to parents.

Quality schools, and in particular principals, are expected to reach out to parents and families, striving to maintain open communication, a sense of welcome, and a ready and respectful responsiveness to parents concerns.

Lack of adequate funding for schools and teachers to effectively do all that is required of them was the key concern raised by the focus group participants in terms of the education system as a whole. This also related to the view that while parents highly valued communication between schools and families, they were sympathetic that more was not done due to time and resource constraints.

In general, family-school and community partnerships were viewed in the context of traditional forms of communication such as newsletters and parent teacher interviews.

Parental involvement was largely referred to in the context of helping around the school with activities such as classroom reading, canteen duty, sport clubs and school fairs.

A key learning for the Family-School and Community Partnerships Bureau is that much more needs to be done to raise the awareness of both families and schools about broader concepts of parent involvement, engagement and partnership. Approaching the education of children as a shared responsibility between families and schools has many well researched benefits. However, these benefits can only be realised if the underpinning factors are understood, appreciated and effectively harnessed in relevant policy and practice contexts.