Parents as partners in indigenous children's learning
This research was commissioned by the Family-School and Community Partnerships Bureau in
December 2011. The objective was to document, analyse and report on existing innovative
and effective partnerships between schools and Indigenous, most particularly, Aboriginal
families and communities.
The intended outcomes were:
• Acknowledgement, understanding and celebration of successful Indigenous family-
school and community partnerships.
• Provision of documented accounts of successful partnerships to inform and encourage
similar partnerships.
• Promotion of effective strategies to foster family-school and community partnerships
across all schools regardless of sector or socio-economic and cultural conditions.
There is a substantial body of research indicating that parental engagement in the education
of their children has a strongly positive effect on student outcomes. A meta-analysis by
Henderson & Berla (1994) of 66 publications on this topic notes that the most accurate
predictor of student achievement is the extent to which the family is involved in the student’s
education, and that the family’s contribution remains critical from the earliest years of
childhood to the end of secondary schooling. Henderson is blunt:
The evidence is now beyond dispute: parent involvement improves student
achievement. When parents are involved, children do better in school.
