Home-school relationships: Making connections between children's

learning at home and school

Futurelab Research Insights Day29 April 2010

Lyndsay Grant

Structure

• Research presentation– Two recent Futurelab

studies– Questions and sharing

experience

• Fishbowl conversation– Add topics and questions

for discussion on post-itsImage credit: _tris_ flickr

Context: trends for future scenarioschallenges to family life

increasingly mobile, distributed, reconstituted families

expectations about lifelong learningpeople expected to learn throughout career, younger and older

generations may have much to learn from one another

challenges to the institutional role of schoolsschools may not be seen as the only, or main, site of learning

Questions

• What is the relationship between learning at home and school in a new media ecology?

• Can digital media ‘bridge the gap’ between home and school?

Two recent studiesHome-School Relationships

Learning in families

‘Bridging the gap’ with digital media?

• Online Reporting and Home Access– access to information– access to educational

resources

• ‘Seamless’ learning– anytime, anywhere access– ‘transparent’ schooling

Parents’ engagement in children’s learning

• Engagement in learning at home significant– All kinds of learning, not just homework– Involvement in school no impact, but...

• Not a synonym for home-school relationship– Engagement in school learning requires a good

home-school relationship

• How can relationship support children’s learning?

Parents’ views of digital technologies for family learning• 90% of parents use technologies when

learning in family• 61% would like to use technologies more

A range of technologies:• Internet search (57%)

• TV, DVDs, Videos (34%)

• Social networking sites (10%)

• Digital cameras (8%)

Parents and teachers

• Enthusiastic about using digital media for communication:–Direct and timely communication–Up to date, reliable school

information–Online homework–Positive feedback

Digital communication between parents and teachers

• Circumventing the ‘unreliable messenger’ of the child

• Prevent children ‘playing off’ parents against teachers

Young peopleWant to be involved in home-school communication:

“Don’t talk behind my back”“Putting across my side of the story”

Children’s role• Children actively mediate

their parents’ engagement in their learning

• Children exploit opportunities from school and home to further their own ‘personal learning agendas’

(Edwards et al 2002, Maddock 2006)

What is the purpose of a home-school relationship?

Solving problems at school“80% of the problem is at home” (teacher)

Ensuring home supports the school agenda“we’ve squeezed all we can at school,

now we need to squeeze at home” (teacher)

Connecting learning between home and school

Children’s out-of-school experience a hindrance“they are a generation of passive Nintendo-ites who only want to learn visually and passively” (teacher)

Out of school activities (writing, digital art, sport) seen as having no bearing on school learning and invisible to teacher

School seems irrelevant to real life“why do we have to learn this?” (child)

A two-way relationship?• Learning at school inspires

learning in the family– 58% of parents say their family

learning usually relates to subjects and skills studied at school

• But learning at school should also build on learning in the family

– 63% of parents think school should build on learning in the family, while only 50% agree that it currently does so

Learning at home...

... is different to learning at school

“I see my role as a parent as being someone who tries to impart an interest in the world and a love of the process of acquiring knowledge rather than as a “technical” teacher” (parent)

“like they [parents] cheer you on and stuff” (child)“you care what they think more than anyone” (child)

Different cultures of learning

• Children draw on ‘funds of knowledge’ from home and community

• Alignment of home and school cultures makes transitions easier

• Greater discontinuity means a greater ‘distance to travel’

(Lam and Pollard 2006, Crozier and David 2007)

Bringing school and home into conversation

• Discourses combined to form a ‘third space’ – drawing on home and school learning

– Enabling children to navigate and build bridges between home and school

– And to become resourceful and resilient, drawing on all available resources and opportunities

• Shift : learning not ‘owned’ by school, but produced by child:

How can children be supported to make the most of all opportunities and resources available?

Future challengesWhere will responsibility for children’s

entitlements to education lie?- if responsibility distributed between child, family,

community and school will some fall between the cracks?

Where will boundaries remain necessary or desirable?

- maintaining privacy and balance- should everything be seen as a potential learning

opportunity?

What next?

Developing the home-school relationship using digital technologies

Handbook New research

Connections and overlaps between children’s digital literacy at home and at school (digital participation)

More information

Learning in families:www.futurelab.org.uk/projects/learning-in-families

Home-school relationships:www.futurelab.org.uk/projects/home-school-relationships

lyndsay.grant@futurelab.org.uk

1. There must always be one empty chair2. There must always be five filled chairs3. You can only talk if you are in the ‘fishbowl’4. If you want to join the conversation, sit in

the empty chair5. When someone takes the empty chair one

person must volunteer to leave the fishbowl

Photo credit: Learn4Life flickr