Parent-school partnerships: the missing piece in teacher training.

Euan
Jul 31
10 min read

Hand completing puzzle with education images and words: "Teacher Education" and "Parent-School Partnerships." Warm tones, wood background.

A child caught between home and school.

On a rainy Tuesday in north-east England, a Year 4 teacher faced an uncomfortable parent-teacher meeting. Nine-year-old Sam had been struggling for months, but his newly qualified teacher, Ms. Reed, had received only a cursory lecture on “dealing with parents” during training. When Sam’s mother arrived upset about his slipping grades, Ms. Reed nervously read out test scores and suggestions. The conversation quickly turned tense. Sam’s mum felt blamed; the teacher felt under attack. Caught in the middle, Sam shut down, dreading school the next day. Contrast this with another classroom where the teacher had been coached on parent-school partnership techniques. That teacher regularly shared Sam’s small victories with his mum and asked for her insights. Instead of a showdown, their meeting was a collaborative problem-solving session. Sam’s confidence grew as he saw his mum and teacher working as a team. This stark difference in outcomes highlights how a strong or limited parent-school relationship can profoundly shape a young person’s educational experience.

This anecdote is not an outlier, but emblematic of a broader issue. Across the UK, new teachers enter classrooms academically prepared but ill-equipped to engage parents as partners. The result? Missed opportunities to boost student learning, avoidable conflicts, and added stress for teachers and families alike. Experts say it is time to bridge this gap by making parent-school partnership training a core part of how we prepare teachers. Here’s why and how we must act now.

Note to the reader: This article is not about blaming institutions or singling out any part of the system. It’s about recognising a shared opportunity. Teacher educators, policymakers, parents, and school leaders all have a role to play in shaping the future of teacher preparation. By working together, we can shift the dial, embedding parent-school partnerships as a core part of Initial Teacher Education, not as an add-on. The goal is simple: equip new teachers with the understanding and tools to build strong relationships with families from day one. Let’s move forward together.

The gap in UK teacher training on parent engagement.

Walk into any teacher training provision in the UK, and you’ll hear about curriculum design, behaviour management, and assessment. However, you may not hear much about working with parents beyond superficial mentions. Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in the UK currently offers little formal preparation for fostering parent-school partnerships. A 2018 review of teacher training programs across seven European countries (including the UK) found that none had adequate content on parental engagement, and preparation depended largely on individual lecturers’ chosen topics. In England, training providers admit that with so many curriculum requirements, learning to work with families often “gets squeezed out”. The result is that a majority of teachers enter the profession without ever learning which parent engagement strategies actually improve learning, or how to break down barriers with hard-to-reach families.

In a national survey of 1,782 English teachers, most reported receiving no training on the most effective types of parental engagement or on identifying and removing barriers to engagement. Only a minority understood that parent-child interactions at home (like reading together or discussing school) are more impactful than, say, baking for the school fair.

Crucially, this training gap is not about blaming universities or pointing fingers, but about a systemic blind spot. The Teachers’ Standards in England, which guide ITE content, mention parents only briefly (teachers must “communicate effectively with parents with regard to pupils’ achievements and well-being”). There is no explicit standard or module ensuring new teachers know how to forge productive relationships with families. Given time pressures, many ITE courses cover parent engagement in a single lecture or assume early career teachers will “learn on the job.” Unfortunately, learning by trial and error in this area can mean years of avoidable misunderstandings and lost trust. The gap matters because when teachers aren’t trained to engage parents, children pay the price in disengaged families and diminished support at home.

Why parent-school partnerships matter for students.

Research over the past two decades paints a clear picture: students do better when parents and schools work together. This is backed by solid evidence from the UK and around the world:

Higher academic achievement: Multiple meta-analyses have found a strong link between parental engagement and children’s academic success, across all ages. Education researchers have found that active parental engagement equates to 2–3 extra years of learning over a child’s school career. The UK’s Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) likewise reports “extensive evidence” that parental involvement significantly boosts pupil attainment (with consistent findings in at least 10 countries). In fact, a strong parent-school partnership can have a bigger effect on a young person’s achievement than socioeconomic status or even school quality.
Improved behaviour and attendance: When parents and teachers communicate and reinforce expectations, children’s behaviour often improves. Studies have linked robust parental engagement to better student behaviour, greater motivation and resilience, and higher attendance rates. A parent who feels in the loop is more likely to support homework routines or address minor issues before they become major problems.
Mental health and wellbeing: Feeling supported by both family and school bolsters a young person’s wellbeing. Research has associated strong home-school partnerships with lower anxiety and higher self-esteem in students. For example, knowing that their teacher and parent talk regularly can give a young person a greater sense of security and belonging at school.

In short, parent-school partnerships are central to student success. As one policy analysis noted, parental engagement with young people’s learning is “strongly linked with improved outcomes” and has become a major focus of education policy globally. Given this, it is alarming that we prepare new teachers extensively in lesson planning and pedagogy, but not as effectively in how to tap into this powerful driver of achievement and wellbeing.

Unprepared teachers, missed opportunities.

Students are not the only group who suffer when teachers lack training in parent engagement… Teachers themselves feel the strain. Early career educators often report being blindsided by the realities of working with parents. Imagine graduating as a new teacher brimming with knowledge about differentiated instruction, only to find your first week on the job consumed by parent emails, questions about homework policies, or a tense call with an upset father. Without prior training or experience, many new teachers feel out of their depth.

Surveys and studies bear this out. International data suggest roughly three-quarters of teachers feel unprepared for handling parent communications and conflicts, largely due to inadequate training during their initial preparation. Newly qualified teachers especially struggle: one global study found 72% of early-career educators felt overwhelmed by parent interactions, compared to just 34% of in-service, experienced teachers. In other words, the less experience a teacher has, the more likely that engaging with parents becomes a major source of stress.

According to OECD data, while 89% of teachers worldwide do some form of professional development each year, only 32% receive any training on communicating with families. This leaves many teachers ill-equipped for “managing aggressive parental behaviour or addressing cultural mismatches” when they arise, scenarios that can escalate quickly without the right skills.

The consequences of this preparation gap are serious. Teachers who feel unprepared may avoid reaching out to parents, missing chances to share concerns or praise. Small problems can fester into big ones when the home-school line of communication is weak. Misunderstandings can snowball – a poorly handled incident can sour a parent’s view of the school for years. Moreover, teachers under stress from difficult parent interactions are at higher risk of burnout. (In one U.S. survey, 37% of teachers had faced hostile or verbally aggressive parent encounters, which raised their burnout risk by 42%). The irony is that these struggles are preventable. With the right training, a new teacher can learn proactive strategies to build trust, defuse tensions, and turn parents into allies. Without it, we set our teachers up to learn the hard way, potentially losing good educators to stress or leaving pupil needs unmet in the process.

Experts and educators call for change.

Teachers and parents on the front lines have long felt this gap, and now researchers and policymakers are voicing clear support for reform: embed parent-partnership training into teacher preparation. “Parental engagement training shouldn’t be left to chance or squeezed into a half-day workshop,” says an education researcher who led the large survey of English teachers. Their study pinpointed specific deficits in teachers’ knowledge and skills and concluded that teachers “require better training to prepare them to facilitate effective parental engagement with learning”. In plain terms, we need to show new teachers how to partner with parents, not just tell them it is a nice idea.

A recent policy analysis in the British Educational Research Journal echoed this, finding a troubling “implementation gap” between the UK government’s pro-parent rhetoric and reality in schools. The authors note that while officials from the government education department often extol parental engagement as key to raising attainment, current policies do not reflect it. They identified inconsistent definitions and a one-size-fits-all approach in policy, as well as a lack of teacher training as a core problem. One of their top recommendations is to ensure “quality teacher training equips new and experienced teachers with the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to facilitate parental engagement with learning.” Policymakers, they argue, should work with teacher educators, school leaders and parents to embed a clear vision of parent-school partnership into training and practice.

Classroom practitioners voice similar views. Many experienced teachers will tell you they “learned by doing” how to talk to parents, but wish they’d been taught earlier. Newly qualified teachers, meanwhile, often seek advice informally from mentors on handling tricky parent conversations, highlighting the hunger for formal preparation.

Critically, evidence shows that such training works. Professional development programmes focused on family engagement can transform teacher-parent relations. In one meta-analysis of 39 training interventions, teachers who learned communication strategies like active listening and conflict resolution saw a 63% boost in their confidence engaging families, and a 28% reduction in stress from difficult interactions. Another programme taught teachers solution-focused communication (a collaborative, problem-solving approach) and the result was 40% fewer contentious encounters with parents, which was a huge relief for teachers and parents alike. “It changes the mindset,” and “Teachers stop seeing parent meetings as a confrontation to endure, and start seeing them as a conversation to leverage for the child’s benefit.” In short, experts agree that giving teachers these skills early on can pay dividends throughout their careers.

Lessons from systems that get it right.

The push for better parent-engagement training is not happening in a vacuum. Around the world, some education systems have already better woven the concept of family partnership into the fabric of teacher preparation, and offer inspiring examples for the UK.

Canada: Many Canadian provinces explicitly include family engagement in their teacher standards. Notably, British Columbia dedicates one of its nine professional standards entirely to parent involvement. This means every trainee teacher in B.C. is expected to learn how to establish respectful, trusting relationships with parents and communities as a core competency, not an optional add-on. Quebec has also developed separate competencies for working with parents. This clear expectation sends a powerful message that engaging families is part of being a teacher, not ancillary to teaching.

Australia: The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers include a specific standard (Standard 7) on working with parents and carers. From the outset, Australian teachers are trained to “engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers, and the community,” aligning with the idea that teaching involves partnership. Some Australian states, like Queensland and South Australia, have comprehensive parent engagement policies that go hand-in-hand with teacher training and school practice.

United States: While the U.S. is diverse in practice, momentum is growing in teacher education programmes to incorporate family engagement. Several states have begun requiring coursework on parent-teacher communication for licensure, and national frameworks (such as the U.S. Department of Education’s Dual Capacity-Building Framework) stress building both educator and parent capacity to partner effectively. Initiatives like home-visit programmes and family liaison training are increasingly common in districts looking to improve student outcomes by bridging home and school.

These examples show that it is possible to prioritise parent-school partnership training on a large scale. Countries that treat parents as co-educators, and prepare teachers accordingly, tend to see more consistent parent participation and trust in schools. The UK has its own cultural and policy context, but the underlying principle travels well: when teachers are trained to engage parents, everybody wins. While there are more mentions of parents in the Early Career framework in England, we can adapt ideas from abroad (for instance, ITE modules focused on parent engagement) to fit our system.

A call to action: prioritise partnerships now

Improving parent-school partnerships through teacher training is not a silver bullet for every educational woe; however, it is an urgent, attainable reform that could make a real difference now. As we strive to recover learning losses and support student wellbeing in the wake of disruptions like the COVID-19 pandemic, strengthening the home-school connection is low-hanging fruit. It is time for policymakers, training providers, and indeed parents themselves to champion this cause. Here’s what’s needed:

Policymakers: Acknowledge the evidence and better support teachers and schools to implement the standards of the teacher standards and Early Career Framework. The government should integrate parent-school partnership training into the requirements for Initial Teacher Training (ITT) courses and early career development. This could mean mandating that all ITE programs include modules on effective parent engagement, conflict resolution, and cultural competence. It also means refining policies so that parental engagement is not encouraged only in theory but enabled in practice. For example, by aligning accountability measures to value family engagement efforts. Funding and guidance should be provided for pilot programs that embed parents into teacher training.
Teacher educators and school leaders: Make room in a packed curriculum for this critical skill set. ITE course leaders can collaborate with experienced teachers and parents to design practical training, from building key relationships and trust, simulations of challenging parent meetings, to assignments that send trainees to engage with families in the community. School leaders can continue that growth by mentoring new teachers in family engagement and ensuring ongoing professional development in this area. However, this does assume that in-service schools leaders are already carrying out meaningful parent-school partnerships. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. As research recommends, it is vital to guide both pre-service and in-service teachers to examine “what parental engagement is, why it matters, and which types of engagement are likely to be effective.” In short, treat parent partnership skills with the same seriousness as lesson planning or subject knowledge.
Parents and parent organisations: Lend your voices and expertise. Parents can advocate for teachers to receive this training, and after all, families stand to gain when educators know how to communicate and collaborate meaninfully. PTAs and parent advocacy groups might push for policy changes or offer to participate in teacher training workshops (for example, by speaking to trainee teachers about positive partnership experiences or cultural barriers). Importantly, parents can also approach their child’s school proactively: initiate constructive dialogue, share insights about your child, and work with teachers as partners. This models the very collaboration we want new teachers to learn.

Making parent-school partnership training a cornerstone of teacher education is about building bridges: bridges between theory and practice, between school and home, and ultimately between teacher and child. A child like Sam should never feel like his two worlds, home and school, are at odds. With educators and families on the same team, children feel supported on all sides. Embedding this principle into how we train teachers will not fix every challenge overnight. However, it will equip the next generation of teachers with the understanding that educating a child is a team effort. That lesson, above all, is one we cannot afford to leave untaught.