Spotlight on parent engagement: Practice and research. Strategies for engaging parents in their child's learning: One early-years teacher's EPIC story

We (Linda and Beryl) hope you continue to enjoy this regular column which features practical ideas to implement parent engagement based on our Australian research conducted continuously since 2015. We call our particular work, EPIC, which stands for, Engaging Parents in Curriculum. Our focus on curriculum typically uses inquiry approaches or models as the driving strategy to engage parents. Pleasingly, in our research this year, conversations with principals and teachers suggest the need to shift from mostly involving parents in schools to engaging them in their child’s learning is better understood and accepted than we’ve encountered previously. This may be because three of the 37 focus areas in the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) highlight parent engagement (i.e., APST 3.7, 5.5, 7.3) (AITSL, 2017). Despite the shift in how schools articulate their approach with parents, our recent research also shows that teachers are mostly involving parents more than before. Support to “include parents in the educative processes” using a “broad range of strategies” (APST 3.7, AITSL, 2017) however, is still needed and a focus on curriculum is largely missing.