Parent involvement in education plan published

Plans to create closer links between education at home and school have been published by the Scottish Government.

The Learning Together action plan is backed by £350,000 of funding to encourage parents to become more involved in their child's learning.

The plan has 13 "goals" and 52 action points, including involving parents in school decisions such as allocating Pupil Equity Funding and initiatives to encourage greater engagement between schools and under-represented parents, especially fathers and minority groups.

There will also be programmes to encourage parents to volunteer in schools.

Education Secretary John Swinney said: "We want every parent and family to have the right support in place so that they can be involved in every stage of their children’s learning and development.

“We know there is a strong link between parental engagement and academic achievement and this plan will play a key role in helping to reduce the attainment gap.

“This action plan will help cement Scotland’s place as a world leader in parental involvement and engagement and I look forward to working with a wide range of partners to deliver this plan in the coming three years.”

The document was welcomed by parental engagement body Connect. Executive director Eileen Prior said: "Strengthening partnerships and collaborative working for the benefit of children is at the heart of what we do every day and we will be happy to work in a collaborative way with Government, local authorities and all other partners to make family engagement in our education system as good as it can be.

"Gathering evidence of what works and supporting school communities to work in ways that suit their families is key to success and absolutely central to our work."

Save the Children's Scotland director Mark Ballard said supporting learning at home would help close the attainment gap between rich and poor pupils.

"Children learn so much at home, especially in their early years, and parents play the central role in this. Implementing the plan in full could make a vast difference to children’s learning outcomes and we will continue to work with the Scottish Government to make that a reality," he said.

Scottish Liberal Democrat education spokesman Tavish Scott accused Swinney of deliberately confuising parents over their right to withdraw their children from standardised testing.

"The engagement of parents also depends on the Scottish Government being straight with them," he said.

"SNP ministers have been anything but when it comes to their rights and the value of national testing for P1s. It has resorted to stonewalling then deliberately confusing them in an effort to quash a parental boycott.

"One of the recommendations in the plan published today is to support parents to participate in the assessment and reporting process. Trampling over parents on national tests is completely at odds with that and, just like the tests for P1s, it needs to stop."