Why is Parent Involvement in Early Years Education Important?

It is imperative that parents contribute to ensuring children get the most from their early education. The partnership between the child's preschool, nursery, or childminder will influence the child's progress.

Research shows that children thrive with a consistent and collaborative approach between home and educational settings.

This highlights how essential it is for practitioners to focus on building relationships with parents. We must explore ways to foster engagement, address the risks of pushing children too soon, and ensure that home and setting approaches are aligned to support the child's overall development.

Children achieve their best when their developmental needs are supported holistically and consistently. Involved parents gain reassurance, an increased understanding of their child's development and milestones, and an appreciation of how their child is achieving and progressing. Consequently, they can encourage their child to consolidate and reinforce what was learnt in their educational setting and naturally extend those skills or knowledge.

Consistency is key to a child's development. Children thrive on routines and familiar expectations, which give them a sense of security and allow them to focus on exploring and learning. When parents and practitioners work closely together, strategies from the setting can be mirrored at home. For example, when visiting the local post office and shop, the setting might introduce an approach to help with the child's anxiety. They then share this with the family and encourage them to visit places within their community.

The continuity of approach here supports the child's anxiety, who may feel more supported and understood, critical for the child's emotional development. Adversely, when there's a lack of consistency, this may leave the child confused, and the anxiety might become more severe.

A key aspect of parental involvement is ensuring parents understand how their child develops. While parents naturally want to see their child succeed, some may unintentionally push too hard to speed up milestones like writing or reading before their child is ready.

Developmentally appropriate practices—adapting activities and expectations to suit a child's age and stage—are crucial. Practitioners can help parents recognise when a child is ready for new challenges and guide them in supporting development appropriately. For example, if a child isn't prepared to hold a pencil for writing, they can still develop pre-writing skills by drawing in sand or forming letters with playdough (which also helps to develop the finger muscles needed for writing).

Well-meaning parents may inadvertently push their child towards milestones that they are not developmentally ready for, and this will cause the child to feel stressed and frustrated. Moreover, to take a dislike to wanting to learn new things. We know that the brain develops in stages, and areas of the brain that mature at their own pace need to be respected. Pushing a child too early can hinder a child's progress.

Instead, fostering a love of play and discovery is critical.

"Play is the work of the child" Dr Maria Montessori

The Early Years Foundation Stage: "Play is a characteristic of effective learning that involves finding out, exploring, and using what children already know."

Guiding parents on how play ties into learning objectives and how making learning opportunities enjoyable and stress-free for all will help them support their child's problem-solving, creativity, and resilience.

Practitioners must work to prevent the silo effect (when a child perceives the setting and home as two entirely different experiences and expected responses) by fostering open communication with families and aligning approaches. The child's emotional well-being can be adversely affected when this doesn't happen. Children feel secure and supported with consistent expectations and proactive links between home and the early years setting.

Consideration must be made around each family's cultures, beliefs, traditions, and socioeconomics. All of this influences how parents may engage with their child's education provider. Every family differs from the next and brings their own opinions and experiences. Some families want their children to enjoy their preschool experiences. Another will want to prioritise academic progress.

The practitioner needs to learn about, understand, and respect these attributes and adapt their approach accordingly. An example here would be considering each family's background when explaining play-based learning to help everyone understand, just as educators help all children access the curriculum.

Parents often face time challenges, possibly working hours and financial constraints. These challenges can make it harder for parents to become involved. So, it is up to the setting to think outside the box, be flexible over meeting times, lend resources, establish a lending library, link families up with local services, etc. The setting aims to ensure all children have the appropriate support regardless of their home scenario.

Cultural Capital refers to the skills, knowledge and experiences a child has had or receives at home. By building relationships with parents, educators can fully understand the child's circumstances and continue to support these outside the home environment to inspire the child's future learning opportunities. However, when parents and educators work together, children benefit from a well-rounded approach that values their individuality while supporting their growth in all areas. Practitioners also have the opportunity to introduce new experiences.

At spark™, we use the understanding of the critical role of parental involvement is in shaping positive outcomes for children. The software is specifically designed to strengthen the partnership between parents and early years settings, supporting parental engagement at the level families currently feel comfortable with. We offer a differentiated approach so parents can participate, and take on more as they become more confident and interested. All the while, it helps them be stage-appropriate so children gain confidence and learning is fun (for all involved). Ultimately, the setting can work to encourage each family to have a mobile app called spark@HOME. At this point, the partnership is working at its optimum.

Supporting Routines and Activities

spark™ helps practitioners and parents plan developmentally appropriate activities that enables parents incorporate learning opportunities into daily routines. By turning everyday moments—like mealtimes, bath time, and story time—into educational experiences, parents can support their child's learning without feeling overwhelmed. This approach ensures consistency between home and the setting, reinforcing key skills in familiar and meaningful ways.

Flexible Communication and Collaboration

The spark™ software enables practitioners and parents to provide updates on a child's progress and share insights about their learning journey. Parents can engage by sending electronic communications at a time that suits them, and the software supports them to share observations and information from home that supports the work in the setting. This ongoing dialogue and daily in-person interactions with their child’s key person helps parents feel confident in their role as active participants in their child's education, ensuring a seamless and supportive experience for the child.

Differentiated Support for Families

spark™ takes a differentiated approach to parent engagement, recognising that every family's circumstances are unique. Parents can access resources and guidance at their own pace, empowering them to engage in a way that aligns with their comfort level. Through daily communication, collaborative planning, or tailored activity suggestions, spark ensures that all families have the tools to support their child's development.

From my personal experience, working with parents is hard work, and practitioners have little training in it. It is easy to appease parents with what they require: the hours they need, the security and general happiness for their child, and perhaps a few photos of what their child has done that day.

Communicating Adequately

I found educators needing training to give parents feedback about their child's day, so it was beyond the regular contribution, "He's had a good day". However, practitioners can only inform parents about what the child has learnt or is learning if they work with the children beyond entertaining them. It is the practitioner who continually plans experiences that meet the children's next steps and can explain the objectives (intent), what the child has been doing (implementation), and what they enjoyed and learnt (impact). Doing this helps the parent be stage-appropriate with some ideas on what could be done at home to consolidate or extend the learning.

Respect

The concept of a parent and parents has become varied as families present themselves in different forms: in culture, structure, as a single parent, same-sex parents, or parents living with their parents, etc. Accepting and understanding the family's structure has to be a foundation on which to build a working relationship. In my experience, some families are quickly upfront about their child's ‘two mummies’, while others who might feel judged keep their circumstances to themselves.

Overall, parents are busy people. They may have work demands, making it difficult to talk at drop-off or collection times. Building a relationship with a family who rushes in each morning and pushes their child through the door, or where a nanny, mother's help, or au pair does the school runs, is a challenge and also makes communicating difficult.

Parental Role

Many parents don't understand they have an essential role in their child's early education. They may consider it to be just your job. They may steer clear due to their own negative experiences of education, their feelings of ignorance about the EYFS, or there may be other priorities. Priorities with home scenarios, tight finances, mental health issues, or other challenges will limit involvement and make building meaningful, trusting relationships with each party respecting the other more difficult.

Practitioner’s Role

For all these reasons, it is imperative that educators make a real effort to learn about the family and investigate how they can be helped to support their child's learning. Families are unique, too, and we should treat them as such and differentiate. In a similar way in how we work with the EYFS for the children.

It is essential to continually understand and meet the family's needs while building trust. This works best if key persons and other prominent educators take time to welcome and help parents feel as safe and secure in the setting as we do for the children. I remember one particular parent staying to settle her child in for a whole term! She brought her knitting. Her child was fine; it was the mother who needed the reassurance.

In my experience of visiting many settings, working with parents is often lip service. In this instance, practitioners possibly don’t understand how much parents can influence their child’s progress, or the setting doesn’t place much importance on this. It does take lots of effort to seize the opportunities to embrace real partnership-working, especially when there is already so much to do. Bringing parents on board starts at the show-round stage, and key persons have to build trust so that parents are willing to listen and take on board new information.

Parents may need to overcome their obstacles, and we also need to overcome them! They may need help understanding or speaking English adequately, so important information needs to be communicated better. Some parents may need more confidence in talking with someone they consider 'an authoritative figure'. A parent (and possibly the educator) might like to hide behind communicating via an app rather than also talking in person. Other families may need help using apps and digital platforms.

I found parents always wanted the best for their children, but there was a wide range of expectations. Some were very laid-back and intended to leave the 'educating' to us. Some were only happy if a child brought something home with them each day to prove they had done something! Others would expect their child to write without the pre-writing skills in place, plus a variety of expectations over acceptable behaviour and child-rearing practices. Then, a handful would work consistently with us using their spark@HOME app and talking about what we were working on, successes celebrated, and discussions about what's next. In fact, children whose parents used spark@HOME could be nine months ahead of their peers.

Expectations and Considerations

Working with settings across the globe, it is clear that parents have different views on their early years and the teaching of their children. However, these varied views are evident in the UK too. Educators must be skilled at respecting them while educating them sensitively to what is expected developmentally and in line with the EYFS principles.

From the practitioner's perspective, nothing stands still, and those ‘drop-off’ and ‘collection times’ can be hectic. Finding the time to talk with each family while caring for a group of children simultaneously is a challenge! When there's an influx of parents collecting their children, providing updates to all is somewhat impossible. So, maintaining relationships and ensuring no family is left out relies on the key person's skill. If it is a setting with a high turnover of employees, then consistency of information for parents becomes difficult. Parents will find it easier to communicate with trust and consistency and confide in practitioners.

Organising parent evenings or consultations to engage with parents is also challenging as a setting. It is always the parents you want at a particular event who, again, don't bother to turn up! I have had that experience many times in my time in running provisions.

Other challenges include balancing friendliness and professionalism. Practitioners must distinguish between being warm and approachable and maintaining professional boundaries. Small settings, or if families are involved as volunteers in the setting with the children, can make it more difficult to be friendly while ensuring that the relationship is professional.

Helping and managing expectations is part of this balanced relationship. Juggling the needs of the entire group of children and what can be realistically offered consistently should be made clear to parents from the outset. For example, giving a detailed written diary of events may not be possible.

Educating parents about the EYFS and their child's learning journey can also be a hurdle. In my experience, many parents need to become more familiar with the EYFS principles and understand why learning objectives must be stage-appropriate. Therefore, there is a skill for educators to communicate this in a way that supports and helps parents understand how they, as parents, can help their children at home.

Meanwhile, it is essential to remember that parents have needs that may go unrecognised and need support. Some families benefit from being pointed toward additional resources, whether mental health challenges, parenting advice, or practical help with their child's development. However, not all settings have the necessary connections or resources to provide this effectively, making it harder to offer support.

Parental involvement is crucial in early childhood education. It fosters consistency between home and the early years provision to support children’s development. Collaboration helps parents understand milestones, use play-based learning, and avoid pushing children too soon, which can hinder progress.

Consistency in approaches between home and the setting provides emotional security and supports development. Practitioners must respect cultural and socioeconomic differences, adapt communication, and offer resources to effectively engage all families.

Challenges include limited time, balancing expectations, and building trust. Clear communication and collaboration empower parents, enhancing children’s learning and ensuring a holistic, positive educational experience.

About the Author - Catherine Lyon

Catherine has over 50 years of experience in early years education, and the child is always at the centre of her practice.

Award-winning 'Outstanding' provider of nursery education sites including an NMT award for Staff Training and Development encompassing her Training and Assessment Centre that delivered Cache qualifications. A software designer of early years programmes, also finalised many times and Internationally. Catherine's an experienced Ofsted Inspector and Quality Asurance Assessor and continues as an EYFS Consultant in the UK and internationally.

Grab the free eBook next: REFLECT - The Key Person
A quick read covering: how you can support them best, recruitment and retention, relationships with parents and LOTS more.

这篇文章是通过AI翻译的，我们希望内容能够通顺易懂。如果您有任何问题，请随时发送电子邮件给 Catherine: [email protected]。

为什么家长参与早期教育很重要？

家长参与对于确保孩子能够充分受益于早期教育至关重要。孩子与学前班、托儿所或保育员之间的合作关系将直接影响孩子的进步。

研究表明，家庭与教育环境之间的一致性和协作方式能让孩子茁壮成长。

这凸显了从业人员与家长建立关系的重要性。我们需要探索促进家长参与的方法，避免过早对孩子施加压力，并确保家庭与教育环境的方式一致，以支持孩子的全面发展。

评估在孩子进步中的作用

当孩子的发展需求得到全面且一致的支持时，他们能达到最佳状态。参与的家长能够获得更多的保障，对孩子的发展和成长有更深的理解，同时也更加欣赏孩子的学习与进步。因此，他们可以鼓励孩子巩固和加强教育环境中的所学内容，并自然地扩展这些技能和知识。

支持有特殊需求的孩子

一致性是孩子发展的关键。孩子在日常和熟悉的期望中茁壮成长，这种环境让他们感到安全并能够专注于探索与学习。当家长与从业人员密切合作时，教育环境中的策略可以在家中得到延续。例如，当带孩子去当地的邮局或商店时，教育环境中可能会采用一种方法来帮助孩子缓解焦虑，然后与家人分享并鼓励他们在社区内的其他地方应用这种方法。

这种方式的一致性支持了孩子的情绪发展，让孩子感到被理解和支持。相反，如果缺乏一致性，可能会导致孩子感到困惑，甚至加剧焦虑。

评估一组孩子的发展

家长参与的一个重要方面是确保家长了解孩子的成长过程。虽然家长希望看到孩子的成功，但有些家长可能会无意中施加压力，试图加速孩子掌握阅读或写作等技能，而这些技能可能超出了孩子当前的发展阶段。

适合发展的实践——根据孩子的年龄和阶段调整活动和期望——是至关重要的。从业人员可以帮助家长了解孩子何时准备好迎接新的挑战，并指导他们如何适当支持孩子的发展。例如，如果孩子尚未准备好用铅笔写字，他们可以通过在沙子上画画或用橡皮泥制作字母来培养写前技能（这些活动还能帮助锻炼手指肌肉，为写字做准备）。

教学策略及其影响

家长可能无意中推动孩子去完成他们尚未准备好的里程碑，这可能会导致孩子感到压力和挫败，甚至对学习新事物失去兴趣。大脑是分阶段发育的，尊重其自然发展的节奏非常重要。对孩子过早施加压力可能会阻碍他们的进步。

相反，培养对游戏和探索的热爱至关重要。

“游戏是孩子的工作”——玛丽亚·蒙台梭利博士

《早期基础阶段》指出：“游戏是一种有效学习的特征，它涉及发现、探索和运用孩子已知的事物。”

指导家长了解游戏如何与学习目标相关，以及如何通过使学习过程愉快和无压力来支持孩子的解决问题能力、创造力和韧性，这对于孩子的成长至关重要。

对从业人员和教育者的好处

从业人员必须努力防止孤岛效应（即孩子将教育环境和家庭视为两个完全不同的体验），通过与家庭保持开放的沟通并调整教育方式来防止这种现象的发生。如果没有这样的沟通，孩子的情感健康可能会受到不利影响。而当家庭与教育环境之间的预期保持一致并主动沟通时，孩子会感到更加安全和被支持。

对教育环境的好处

在教育过程中，必须考虑每个家庭的文化、信仰、传统和社会经济背景。这些因素会影响家长与孩子教育提供者的互动方式。每个家庭都有自己的特点、观点和经验。从业人员需要学习、理解并尊重这些特点，并相应地调整自己的教育方法。例如，在向家长解释以游戏为基础的学习时，需要结合他们的背景让他们理解教育目标。