Parental involvement is an agenda energetically pursued by many schools looking to leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of higher standards for their students. Of course, many parents have always been involved in actively supporting their child's learning. But there is now a much greater recognition of the need to get more parents on board, manifested in a multitude of approaches and programmes.

Largely influenced by the standards, inclusion and citizenship agendas, the 1997 White Paper Excellence in Schools in England set out three key elements for securing parental involvement: providing parents with information; giving parents a voice; and encouraging parental partnership with schools. In practical terms, this has resulted in the enhancement of parent governor roles, greater involvement in the inspection processes, the provision of annual reports and prospectuses, the requirement of home-school agreements, and the need to provide more information on the school's curriculum and performance.

But what evidence exists on the impact of parental involvement and family learning programmes on student achievement? A recent study by Professor Charles Desforges, commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills, sought to answer this question by conducting a comprehensive literature review of reliable research evidence on the relationship between parenting and pupil achievement and engagement.

As the review acknowledges, it is relatively easy to describe parental involvement activities - e.g. helping with homework, talking to teachers, attending school functions, becoming a school governor - but it is more difficult to state whether these activities have an effect on student achievement as there are so many other factors involved. Early studies suggested that in-school involvement (such as the last three examples above) encouraged pupil progress, but the growing research evidence suggests a more complex picture.

It has been known for a long time that social class affects pupil educational outcomes and yet recent, large-scale analyses of data from the US, and this country, show that parental involvement in the form of parent's interest in the child and, in particular, parent-child discussions, has a greater effect. Parental involvement in this form can have a significant positive effect on children's behaviour and achievement despite factors such as social class or family size.

How parental involvement works
Research shows that parental involvement is highly significant but how does it work in practice? A number of models are discussed in the review. It identifies that, for younger children, parenting provides the child with a context to acquire school-related skills along with the opportunity to develop qualities of motivation and self-worth. For older pupils, the parenting role is less about specific skills and more about motivation. A number of key studies were acknowledged, including EPPE (the Effective Provision of Pre-school Education project) which is a major, DFES-funded, longitudinal study. One important finding relevant to early literacy development is the impact of a positive home learning environment, which includes reading, library visits, playing with letters and numbers, teaching nursery rhymes and singing.

The values that a parent promotes over time, through enthusiasm and positive parenting, make a difference: they impact on the student's self-perception as a learner, and on their motivation, self-esteem and educational aspirations. Parental involvement at home is therefore, according to this review, more enduring and direct than parental involvement at school. Where ethnicity is concerned, the evidence suggests that the general impact of parental involvement links across all the ethnic groups studied, although there are differences in how they express their support.

The report identifies that there are large differences between parents, whatever their ethnicity, in terms of their involvement in their children's education. There is a positive relationship with social class and the mother's level of education, and a negative relationship with being a single parent, poverty, and where there are problems with the mother's mental health. How parents see their role is critical, as is their confidence about being able to help their children.

Pupils have a mediating role
The review explored the influence of the pupils themselves in promoting good connections between home and school. In a study of children in Year 6 and Year 9, there was some evidence that children could play an 'active' or 'passive' role in mediating parental involvement; the extent to which children invited parents to get involved in their school work was influenced less by thinking it would help their achievement and more by their pleasure in being in the company of their parents. Passivity was often related to children 'protecting' their parents to save the parent getting stressed or guilty, e.g. having to find money for a school trip.

In summarising the parental involvement evidence, the report concludes that the key context for parental impact on school outputs is in the home. Depending on their child's age and development, parents can help them acquire the foundations for literacy (and numeracy) through playing word and number games. The major parental influence however is through the modelling of values and expectations.

Can these skills be learned?
The review identifies three key approaches to promoting parental participation in education, though there are overlaps. There are activities that improve the connection between schools and parents; family and community education programmes aimed at parental involvement; and parent training programmes aimed at promoting parental psycho-social health and/or relationship skills.

In the US there is longer experience on enhancing parental involvement, through programmes such as the National Network of Partnership Schools, a major research and development programme now with 1000 participating schools in areas of severe deprivation. Initial research findings indicated that where parents were specifically involved in reading activities, students gained in their reading scores; and when schools reached out more, more parents became involved. According to the review, the work of the Network has had an impact on policy and practice with many states looking to extend school-parent or school-community involvement. The Network claims to have had an impact on student achievement as well as the number of student disciplinary actions.

In the UK, the promotion of parental involvement is widespread and active, at LEA level, through the involvement of the voluntary sector, charitable bodies, research institutions, major national initiatives and locally based school projects. While there is a lot of activity, evaluation, according to this review, is weak, although Ofsted commentaries and reports identify parental involvement as a key ingredient in an "invisible cocktail of factors" promoting achievement. Good practice institutions, in the Ofsted view, commit a great deal of school energy and resource to this work, communicating with parents through literature, and consultation and celebration events.

The review describes some of the major UK programmes that promote parental involvement, including the Share programme and Inspire in Birmingham. Share aims both to motivate parents about their own education and increase pupil achievement. Despite a lot of enthusiasm generated for these projects, objective evaluation is difficult. The REAL project (Raising Early Achievement in Literacy) is highlighted as one example where there has at least been an attempt to provide evidence-based practice. The conclusion is that parental involvement can be raised, but it is unclear whether it makes a difference to pupil achievement.

The evidence around family learning and the ALBSU (now known as the Basic Skills Agency) family literacy demonstration programmes is also examined. While acknowledging the contribution these programmes have made to expanding and funding this work, the review challenges the assumption that intergenerational programmes work. In particular, the objectives for the parent-child joint session were not clearly identified which made evaluation difficult. Given that this is the core feature of many family literacy programmes, the report questions whether family education programmes have any added value over other programmes or approaches. It acknowledges, however, that there is insufficient evidence to draw clear conclusions.

So while Professor Desforges and his team identified that parent-child involvement at home is far more important to a child's achievement than their social class or level of education, they do not suggest there are easy solutions. However, in listing the challenges - including extreme poverty, depression, the effect of barriers set up by school and 'inappropriate' parental values about education - it is surprising that poor parental literacy skills and low self-esteem (which are closely connected) are not mentioned. They are also silent on how schools should take this agenda forward at a time when the concept of extended schools is being actively considered.

The review also fails to mention the wider agenda around the Skills for Life national strategy to improve adult literacy, numeracy and language. Any research programme around parental involvement needs to take this into account, though not be dominated by it, in order to fit within a broader approach to promoting parental involvement. And yet where there are challenges, we do need to look beyond the school to the experience of community-based adult literacy educators to guide the way for extending parental involvement among these hard-to-reach parents. Programmes need to take a more holistic approach, as the Desforges review concurs, but should include parental involvement to enhance parental self-esteem and skills, as well as student achievement. Where schools are concerned, this means embedding a whole-community approach to parental involvement, incorporating a literacy dimension for both parents and children, within the school development plan.

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