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By Jayne Edwards, HMI
Blog post |
Is your school one that puts families and communities at the heart of its work?
Community schools capture the vision and ethos of community schooling in every decision and action they take. This blog looks at our definition of a community school based on the very best practice we have found.
What makes an effective community school?
Earlier this year we published Community schools: families and communities at the heart of school life. It focused on three areas of work:
- strengthening family and community engagement
- helping the community access their assets and resources
- services located together in the school or in community hubs
Here are some of the aspects we felt made a considerable contribution to effective community schools.
Leadership
We often hear from leaders that their schools are at the heart of the community.
However, we found that the most effective community schools place families, communities and their wellbeing at the heart of the school.
This is because leaders in these schools have a strong community vision and sense of civic responsibility. They understand the social and economic challenges faced by the community and the impact these have on pupils and their families. They believe, fiercely, that their school has an important role to play in tackling inequity by working in close partnership with families and the wider community.
Key staff with a focus on family and community engagement
Undoubtedly, tenacious leadership plays an important role in establishing a strong community ethos in a school but it’s the shared vision and actions of every member of staff that turns this ethos into a reality for families.
We visited a number of schools that employed staff with a specific responsibility for family and community engagement. These staff were key to the success of a community school as they had particular skills, aptitudes and knowledge that helped them establish links with families and the community.
Perhaps most important of all is that they carry out their role with drive combined with sensitivity. They believe that, by working in partnership, the school supports families to resolve challenges or, for instance, develop skills and confidence to seek employment.
Parental involvement
In the schools we visited, we were struck by the way the staff involved parents as partners
in education.
The school was as much a place for parents as it was for pupils and staff:
- Parents had open access to a room they could use for meeting up with one another or for attending a family learning session.
- Parents saw the school as the first place to go to for help and guidance, not just related to their children but help for health issues, housing or parenting, or just a chat to clear the air about a problem they might have.
- In some cases, parents took on roles that linked the school and community and developed community leadership skills themselves.
When we visited schools, we were privileged to meet families whose lives had been changed for the better because of the way in which the school had supported them and their children.
What struck us was the respect they had for the school because the school had treated them with dignity and respect.
Partnerships with other services and agencies
It was exciting to see how schools can be central to providing not just education but a range of services to the community.
We saw schools that had services such as health, housing and adult and community learning onsite. These arrangements brought real benefits, not just for the community but also for the school.
It meant that staff from different services could work together to help families overcome challenges. Members of the community also liked having access to services in a central place as these schools were on the doorstep of the local community.
Using school resources and assets
Although some of the schools had new, purpose-built facilities that helped them develop community activities and services, not all did.
However, that didn’t stop schools without purpose-built facilities from finding ways of adapting their building so that the community could benefit. It just meant that headteachers and family engagement staff had to think creatively about how best families and the community could access the school safely.
Creative thinking seemed to be a common theme. We saw examples of how schools had taken the initiative to set up playgroups, work in partnership with sport providers or just create a calm space where families could meet together.
Community schools
Community schools
What can be done to help more schools develop approaches that place families and community at the heart of everything they do?
We made a number of recommendations but we’ll just look at some of the key ones in this blog:
- Local authorities should support schools to appoint family engagement staff as we saw the difference these staff made to family and community engagement.
- All schools should have strategic plans that show how they will work with families and community. This includes thinking about how they can evaluate the effectiveness of the work.
- Local authorities have an important role to play in supporting schools to be effective community schools. We recommend that schools should strengthen the ways in which they work across local authority services and look at how these could be located in schools.
- As local authorities plan to build new schools, they should consider how to include family and community areas within the boundaries of the school.
- It’s important that we have a shared understanding of what a community school is so, nationally, we need a set of defining characteristics for community schools.
This blog only scratches the surface of a report that looks at the features of effective community schools.
It’s not easy to capture so briefly the richness of the experiences effective community schools provide for families and local people. Read more in the full report.
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