The revised Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) has once again reinforced the importance of parental engagement in early years settings. Positive relationships remain in the guiding principles of the framework and the role of the key person has been extended in terms of their responsibilities towards supporting parents: 'The key person must seek to engage and support parents and/or carers in guiding their child's development at home' (EYFS statutory framework, para 1.11).
Note the term 'engage and support'. It will no longer be enough for settings simply to give out leaflets or put up posters about supporting a child's learning at home; enabling parents to support their child's development now carries that statutory 'must'. While 'engage' may mean to 'involve intensely' or 'to interest', the use of the word 'support' implies an expectation that practitioners will work actively to increase parents' knowledge of early learning and confidence in their role as 'first educators'.
Luckily for practitioners making this step change in the way they work with parents, there is help at hand from NCB's 'Parents, Early Years and Learning' training in parental engagement - or PEAL for short.
HOME LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
The importance of good parenting and the early home learning environment has been shown clearly by research examining children's educational and social outcomes. The Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE, 2004) findings underpinned the development of PEAL and continue to influence current revisions of the EYFS.
EPPE shows that the activities that parents and children do together in the home from birth have a significant impact on outcomes at age three, age seven and later on, at age 11 and 14. A recent report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on the effectiveness of interventions supports these conclusions, finding that that those programmes that focus on parental involvement in children's education are the most effective in improving outcomes.
ORIGINS
PEAL originated in 2005 through the collaboration of the National Children's Bureau, Coram Family and the London Borough of Camden, which were jointly funded by the then Department for Education and Skills to devise a programme that supports parents' involvement in their children's early learning and development.
Over 5,000 practitioners across the country participated in PEAL training sessions between 2006 and 2009. Since then the training has been rolled out via local authorities and has included childminders, reception classes and a wider range of settings and services. Today the programme continues to help practitioners meet the requirements of the EYFS to work in partnership with parents to enhance children's learning and development.
GENUINE PARTNERSHIPS
PEAL helps settings to establish genuine partnerships with practitioners. If parents find it difficult to talk to practitioners or feel that they are rarely listened to, then guidance on supporting their child's learning at home is likely to be less than effective. Practitioners, leaders and managers are encouraged to reflect honestly on their relationships with parents. Are practitioners regarded as the 'experts' on the children in the setting or are parents' views of their child genuinely taken into account?
PEAL puts forward a model of a balanced relationship between practitioner and parent. In this relationship, the parent's specific knowledge of their own child complements the practitioner's more general knowledge of children's development and learning. Information about the child passes from parent to practitioner and from practitioner to parent. This two-way flow of information gives rise to a shared understanding and a more complete knowledge of the child.
Parents sometimes feel an understandable anxiety around supporting their child at home: they may have concerns over buying the 'right' toys and equipment, educational approaches that differ from their own childhood experiences, or may feel insecure about their own skills and abilities. Yet the EPPE research found that activities that carried the most impact were sharing books and visiting the library, singing songs and rhymes, playing with letters and numbers, playing with friends, going on visits, drawing and painting. PEAL encourages practitioners to reinforce the value of these simple, activities so that parents feel confident in their role as the first and most enduring educators of their children.
The 'Sharing PEAL with Parents' resource pack contains plans for three facilitated sessions that introduce parents to some of the themes addressed in PEAL. The sessions aim to raise parents' confidence and knowledge about how they help their babies and young children learn at home, as part of everyday life. Further examples of good practice contributed by settings to PEAL are also available free on the website. For further details about how PEAL training can help you, visit www.peal.org.uk.
