C7. Engage parents
Build positive partnerships with families. Strong relationships support student success.
Resources to support growth in this behaviour
Whether this behaviour has been chosen through Step 1. Diagnose, highlighted through reflection or coaching, or identified as a school or trust priority, you can now follow the steps below to develop and embed it in your daily leadership practice.
Step 2. Learn: Read Everyone Succeeds: 54 Leadership Behaviours to Transform Your School to understand what great leadership looks like in practice. Each behaviour is grounded in research and real examples from schools and businesses.
Step 3. Reflect: Use the Everyone Succeeds Workbook to apply ideas to your own context.
Guided reflection, practical actions, and space for planning turn understanding into improvement.
Step 4. Apply: Work through the Leadership Toolkit for this behaviour. Use the Engage Parents toolkit to design purposeful communication, build trust through consistency, and strengthen partnerships that support student success.
Step 5. Coach and practice: Use the Engage parents Coach and Practise Frameworks to strengthen the behaviour through reflection on communication and action steps that build trust, practising constructive conversations so partnership replaces tension.
These can be used individually or with colleagues to embed key behaviours.
Step 6. Plan: Set measurable goals using the 90 Day Leadership Planner.
Turn improvement into action by tracking your focus and progress over time, with completed examples for different career stages.
Step 7. Lead: Apply your learning to real situations through the Scenario Finder.
Over fifty scenarios link directly to the behaviours that help you solve the challenges that matter most in your school.
One book suggestion
The Four Pillars of Parental Engagement. Robbins, J. and Dempster, K., (2021).
This book strengthens the behaviour by demonstrating how meaningful partnership with parents supports student outcomes and strengthens trust. Buy the book.
References from the Everyone Succeeds book
Dufur, M.J., Parcel, T.L. and Troutman, K.P., (2013). Does capital at home matter more than capital at school? Social capital effects on academic achievement. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 31, pp.1-21.
Education Endowment Foundation (2021). Parental engagement. [online] EEF. Available at: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/parental-engagement.
Hattie, J., (2008). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Routledge.
Robbins, J. and Dempster, K., (2021). The Four Pillars of Parental Engagement. Buy the book.