Parent types, how to work with them, and why principals should know the composition of their schools.

One of the fundamental rules of entrepreneurship is getting to know your customers well; their needs, motivations, habits, and expectations. Leaders should form a custom of walking in their customers' shoes, and, from that perspective, develop and implement a wide range of strategies. These, when well-aligned result in a service or a product cherished by the consumers.

Much attention has been given to the examination and development of different types of primary consumers of education, the students. It is quite understandable that theoretical and practical exploration of pupils' characteristics lies at the centre of focus for many teachers and educational administrators alike. It is believed that unlocking this mystery might lead to increased student outcomes, attainment, and general engagement/satisfaction with school life.

We, educators, are so focused on this race to understand and measure our ever-changing student population, that quite often we forget about parents. They are the education sector's secondary customers who I believe should be treated with as much, if not more, attention and care. Just as we endeavour to adapt our instruction to the different predispositions of our students, it is my opinion that schools should strive to align all their systems to the parental composition of their communities.

A clear and well-executed communication strategy, one which takes into account the inclinations of different types of parents, is a must for all educational organizations.

In this article, I explore three types of parents identified by Ball, Bowe & Gewirtz (1996) in their seminal research on the marketization reforms within the UK education sector. Much has changed in the world since the 90s, but despite that, I consistently find these types to be applicable across not only time but also socio-cultural contexts. Below I explore the characteristics of each parent type and provide recommendations on what approaches could teachers and school leaders utilize to get the best out of what should constitute a symbiotic, parent-school, relationship.

The easiest way to identify a skilled parent is by the quantity and quality of questions they might have for the teachers and school leaders. Those are the parents who read through the policies, and programmes of learning, and always stay on top of all the developments within the school community. Due to high engagement in their child's learning, they usually have a deep understanding of educational practices and can engage in in-depth conversations on the topic, oftentimes successfully decoding the professional jargon of the educational field.

When choosing a school for their child, skilled parents tend to engage in school/child matching, visiting multiple schools to find one that best fits the vision for their child - be it a need for high academic outcomes leading to enrollment into a top university and a strong future career, or a school which allows the child to flourish socially, engage with a variety of non-academic activities and simply "be happy". This objective/goal orientation of school choice can be viewed through the lens of the Means-End Theory and its use in product/service marketing, something which I will discuss in a future newsletter.

Skilled parents tend to have higher than average socio-economic capital which allows them, to a certain degree, to ignore the fundamental constraints of school choice (distance, travel, and safety) to find the best school fit for their child. Finally, skilled parents understand that no school is perfect, and when deciding where to send their child, following a systematic rejection of outliers, tend to base their final decision on feelings and intuition derived from participation in school visits, events, and open days.

Having a large population of skilled parents within a school is, in my opinion, a double-edged sword - a significant benefit and, at the same time, a challenge. When everything goes well, skilled parents are a dream to work with, yet when the school fails to deliver on its promises, they are the first ones to point out the shortcomings.

Below are a few of my recommendations for the successful integration of skilled parents into the school community:

1. Channel their energy - skilled parents are each school's PTA dream, teachers and school leaders need to be proactive in identifying these parents and inviting them to take on an active role in the organization of school academic and non-academic activities. Most skilled parents develop a 'feel' of the school during events and activities. You should actively work to design and incorporate these moments into your school calendar.
2. Keep them informed - skilled parents like to stay up to date on school developments and future changes. School leaders and class teachers alike should aim to keep them informed with a weekly newsletter or class blog. Edtech can also come in handy with a weekly/fortnightly breakdown of student performance at school, playing into the goal orientation of the skilled parents.
3. Let them speak for the school - skilled parents are very knowledgeable about education and more often than not they like to share their experiences with other parents. Invite them for your open days and parent evenings, providing a platform to share their perspective on the school with potential families.

Semi-skilled parents or, as described by researchers the "newcomers" quite often have as strong of an inclination to choose a perfect school for their child as skilled parents, yet they might lack the capacity to fully engage with the educational market. With mixed knowledge of contemporary educational practices, they tend to rely much more on media reports, word of mouth, gossip, and rumours when selecting and interacting with schools.

Semi-skilled parents also place a much stronger emphasis on the memories of their own experiences as a pupil, something described as an 'apprenticeship of practice' (Lortie, 1975) in educational research. Parents, and teachers alike, having spent twelve years within compulsory education develop ideas and expectations on what good education should look like, oftentimes basing these judgements on the most vivid (positive or negative) memories. This results in parents aiming to either find a place that resembles that image or, at all costs, avoid the terrible experience they themselves have had at school. Based on this, they are quick to develop much stronger opinions about a teacher, or school from a much weaker information source, omitting the nuanced nature of the educational process.

In most cases, semi-skilled parents want to actively participate in their child's education, but find it challenging to balance this with their medium socio-economic capital. They seem to be more concerned with finding a 'good school' rather than, like with skilled parents, the right school that fits their child's unique needs.

Here are a few tips for working with semi-skilled parents:

1. Parent workshops - the best way to combat parental misconceptions is to provide them with educational opportunities, such as curriculum nights, workshops, and open classes. For comparison, a well-established school I know, with a strong reputation among parents holds over fifty parent workshops in any given school year.
2. Match the parent time - a quite controversial thought, but I believe that school events that expect parental participation should be scheduled at a time and date that fits most of the parents, not teachers and admin staff.
3. Declare your value - semi-skilled parents develop their perception of a school based on social media, news reports, word of mouth, and oftentimes gossip. Educational leaders should make sure that their schools are visible across a wide range of platforms (social media, print media, school rankings) and that the school vision and core values are consistently presented and reinforced.

The third type of parents identified in the research, and in my opinion most prevalent, are detached or disconnected parents. They are characterized by very limited participation in their child's school life - mostly due to a lack of socio-economic capital. As with the previous two types, this one should not be seen in absolutist terms as one will eventually come across very wealthy parents with lots of resources on their hands, who simply choose not to be involved in the domain of their child's education and everything associated with it. Due to this, it might be quite frustrating for the teachers and educational leaders to actively engage with these parents, especially in cases where there are concerns about student academic progress, well-being, or even safeguarding.

Disconnected parents tend to have a very limited understanding and knowledge of modern education practices. As stated by one of the interviewees, they feel 'bamboozled' by what they are being told about the school. Because of the limited capacity to engage with the software of schools (pedagogy and curriculum), these parents usually pay more attention to the tangibles such as school location, travel time, hardware (school facilities and equipment), cleanliness, student/staff appearance, and observed behaviour. Particularly the last two factors play a decisive role in the way disconnected parents judge the quality of the school, as they wish for their children to be in an environment that places significant importance on student mannerisms. These superficial observations lead to parental 'perceptions of service' which are then confronted with their expectations and result in feelings of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the school.

Working with detached parents:

1. Make the information concise and accessible - all information and essential updates should be shared through various channels. Good information saturation increases the chances of all parents receiving the message and acting upon it. Keeping it short and concise is the key objective. If schools share their key announcements on only one channel (usually email) they are failing at communication and should not be surprised when faced with a limited parental response.
2. Maintain your hardware - it might sound cliche but a clean and well-kept school environment matters, not only to parents but also to students and staff alike. I've been to schools with great facilities (swimming pools, auditoriums, sports halls) that looked and felt dirty due to a lack of attention to daily cleaning. I've also been to very old and tiny schools with plain hardware that felt cosy, warm, and clean. Details matter.
3. Make parenting easier - disconnected parents very often do not have the time and resources to engage with their child's education. We can't blame them for working hard at making the ends meet. Schools should develop systems which proactively provide parents with information (positive and negative alike) on their child's progress and actionable steps they can take to act upon it. There is nothing worse than feedback that parents do not know how to act upon.

A word of caution: the presented parent types should not be treated in absolutist terms and definitely should not be assigned based solely on one of the described characteristics. They can instead serve as lenses through which school leaders and teachers should examine their interactions with the community developing suitable approaches and systems, always taking the time to examine both the impact and feedback.

Recommended thought experiment: Having read about the different types of parents, what is the composition of your class or school? How many skilled, semi-skilled, and detached parents can you identify?

Example sources of data you might use are parent account logins into the school information management systems, participation in school events, yearly downloads of school policies and documents, survey participation data, late submissions of permission slips etc.

How can you use this knowledge to alter the way you interact with your parent community?