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Parent Coaching for Pupil Progress

The Department for Education’s Alternative Provision Innovation Fund (APIF) supported this programme in testing new approaches to improving outcomes for young people in alternative provision (AP).

The Parent Coaching for Pupil Progress programme was one of three projects which focused specifically on making changes to promote parental and carer engagement in order to improve the outcomes experienced by students.

The programme aimed to train teachers in an AP setting to deliver 10-week engagement programmes to parents/carers of their students. Based on the Family School model of parent and carer engagement, the programme emphasised the importance of family involvement in providing comprehensive support for young people in AP. Involving and engaging parents is at the heart of our approach in The Pears Family School. This has proved highly successful, but many Alternative Provisions do not have the resource to sustain an extensive parent engagement programme.

The focus of the Parent Coaching for Pupil Progress programme was to encourage children to learn to trust adults, modify their behaviour and sustain changes so that they can successfully resume their school career. There was an awareness amongst staff members that a prescriptive parent/carer training course facilitated by the AP would not have secured their engagement. Therefore, the programme was delivered in a format that maintained a sense that teachers and parents/carers were standing ‘shoulder to shoulder’ in supporting the YP.

An independent evaluation of the Alternative Provision Innovation Fund was provided by Ecorys UK. It found the following benefits of the programme:

  • Improved family functioning and relationships;

  • Increased understanding of the young person, and their behaviours within the family context, among education professionals;

  • Increased parent/carer capacity to provide continuity of support between school and home;

  • Greater trust and collaboration between parents and education staff.

You can find out more about the Alternative Provision Innovation Fund here.

If you would like further information about the Parent Coaching for Pupil Progress programme, please email adelaide.o'mahony@annafreud.org.