In conversation with a friend recently, I was taken aback by a phrase he used and how it captures the role of those involved in education, and teachers in particular: “sowing the seeds of possibility”. Teachers are in a privileged – if sometimes very challenging – position to influence the aspirations and futures of young people, and a big part of Teacher Support Network’s role is giving individual teachers the freedom to make the most of their role, less fettered by the challenges that can sometimes overwhelm the profession. Last week, we took significant steps to help overcome one challenge in particular.

Parental involvement in a school’s work is an issue that will be familiar to teachers across the country. On top of this, as a parent myself, it is a subject that has pronounced relevance to my family life, too. The emphasis of our involvement in the education – and lives – of our children changes as they grow older; a transition mirrored in their relationship with their teachers and our contact with the school as parents. In primary school, we were afforded direct contact with their teachers, standing by the coat pegs at the school’s entrance every time we dropped them off and collected them. In secondary school contact has been far less frequent; some would say rightly so given young people gradually taking more responsibility for themselves.

On top of this, finding a slot to meet in both the school and our professional timetables seems to become more difficult every year. Like many parents, we try to be involved in the school in other ways; giving a talk on Holocaust Memorial Day, helping in a school play or getting involved in the jumble sale. But these things are of course very different from discussing a child’s progress; meeting with teachers to share our own insight into our child’s interests with the knowledge and experience of those whose job it is to help children realise their potential.

At Teacher Support Network our work has shown that barriers still exist between teachers and parents, which can lead to stress and anxiety on both sides. This is verified by the experiences of our partners at the charity Parentline Plus. For this reason we have released the report ‘Beyond the School Gate: how schools and families can work better together’. Surveys carried out by both charities found that 64 per cent of teachers said they had been subjected to verbal or physical abuse by a parent. This is horrifying. Whilst 62 per cent of parents said they had been patronised, sidelined or ignored when trying to deal with an issue in their child’s school. Teachers overwhelmingly reported that those parents who do not engage, or with whom there is a bad or difficult relationship, have an enormous impact on their wellbeing and work, and both parents and teachers felt that if a child’s education was suffering as a result of a difficult home life, some form of external support such as a Parent Support Worker would be vital.

The report demonstrates that poor parental engagement is having an adverse effect on pupil, parent and teacher wellbeing. Many parents said they had felt patronised, sidelined or ignored by their child’s school, and an equally worrying number of teachers said that they had been verbally or physically abused by a pupil’s parent. Clearly the need to develop and maintain a more effective dialogue is essential

As a result, we made several recommendations, including the creation of a comprehensive Home School Agreement which involves the consultation with the whole school community, and the provision at every school of adequate access to a visible parent support worker who is trained to deal with a spectrum of family and emotional issues and whose role and remit is fully understood. Those schools that engage with parents and the wider community, communicate well and ensure teachers have sufficient time and support to do so,reap the benefits.

We’re hoping that these recommendations are taken into consideration by policy makers at a national and local level. Our experiences have shown that when parents and teachers work together effectively, those seeds of possibility blossom far and wide.