By Michael Gooch, Forum Strategy Associate & Attendance Specialist
In this article, Michael takes a look at the latest intelligence emerging from ParentKind in relation to parents’ views of school and attendance and shares his reflections and advice on how trust leaders can work closely with parents to support greater levels of attendance and engagement for children and young people.
Throughout this document the term ‘parent/carer’ will be used to refer to all categories of parent and any adult or organisation operating within a parenting role, including members of the extended family and local authorities. Parents/carers are not a homogenous group and as such they have different needs and therefore may require different methods of engagement.
Over the years, there has been extensive research on successful schools that shows that high levels of parent involvement significantly contribute to their success and can help bridge the achievement gap among different pupil groups. ParentKind is an organisation that specifically works with and for parents to harness their views and voice and it has just published the findings of its most recent poll, ‘School Absence Parent Poll’. The poll was conducted between 10th-12th February 2025 and was carried out amongst 1,000 parents of children aged 4-16 across the UK.
Interestingly, key findings from this research would seem to contradict aspects of the previous parent research, ‘Listening to and Learning from Parents in the Attendance Crisis’ by Dr. Sally Burtonshaw & Ed Dorrell (September 2023), showing that perhaps parental attitudes are starting to make a shift back to what they were prior to the pandemic. This is most obvious in ParentKind’s finding that 96% of parents (now) believe it is important for children to attend school every day, if possible, while only 4% disagree.
