Shared Understanding of Behaviour with Families

As leaders in education, we always have children’s best interests at heart. Whether it’s academic progress and attainment, or personal and emotional development, we strive to provide exactly the right conditions to enable all our young people to thrive.

And we can’t do it alone: we need the ongoing support and commitment of families, to make sure we are able to deliver a unified, coherent message across both home and school.

In this article, we explore some of the barriers to effective family engagement and offer 4 practical ways to increase involvement with parents and carers around behaviour support.

We also examine the integral part that the language we use around behaviour plays in creating a shared understanding across the entire school community, both within and beyond the school gates.

Challenges around positive family engagement

While we unanimously welcome, encourage, and, indeed, rely on positive parental support to cement our messaging around behaviour, there are sometimes obstacles that can stifle effective family engagement.

Differing perspectives on behaviour

No matter what type of school we work in, behaviour can often be a contentious issue. Opinions can vary widely and we, as staff and leaders, may hold different views to those of our students’ parents and carers.

As a result, there is sometimes a disconnect between home and school with regard to overall ethos and approach. Equally valid but differing perspectives can lead to friction between leaders and teachers, and parents and carers, making it challenging to work together effectively.

Obstacles to clear communication

Key to closing the gap between school and home is effective communication. However, school life can be hectic, with staff juggling multiple competing priorities on a daily basis. This can affect efforts to set up clear communication channels with parents and carers, resulting in families feeling shut out, unheard and undervalued. Left unchecked, this can lead to feelings of frustration, anger, and, eventually, disengagement.

In many school communities, parents and carers keep in close contact with one another, and share their views on both actual and perceived issues in school. This could be in-person or on messaging apps.

Without regular input and clarification from leaders and teachers, misunderstandings can very quickly become magnified, and small issues can suddenly escalate. To avoid this, we need to be unified and clear with any communication around our school’s unique behaviour identity and approach to behaviour support from the outset.