Sam Freedman Discussion Paper recommends unified parental engagement and family learning policy

Sam Freedman, senior fellow at the Institute for Government and former senior policy adviser at the Department for Education, sets out how family learning and parental engagement agendas can be revived to benefit learning at all ages.

The discussion paper, Bringing it all Back Home – Reviving and Unifying the Family Learning and Parental Engagement Agendas, is written by Sam Freedman and published by Campaign for Learning.

Sam Freedman highlights the potential impact of interventions on pupils’ attainment as well as other critical issues, including mental health, children’s social care and pre-school education. His paper argues that the new government has an opportunity to bring together different streams of work which aim to support children and families into a coherent strategy. These include pre-existing schemes and new initiatives, such as the Parent Pledge, family hubs and the Multiply programme.

Sam Freedman said:

“The new government should start with a single Children and Families Strategy that combines children’s social care, special education needs, mental health, parental engagement in education and family learning. A new Children and Families strategy should also unify family learning and engagement policy in England.”

Sam Freedman’s full list of recommendations:

1. The DfE should develop a single Children and Families Strategy that brings together policy on children’s social care; SEND; mental health; parental engagement and family learning. It should set out the relative roles and responsibilities of local authorities, other parts of local government, academy trusts, and central government.
2. The Children and Families strategy should unify parental engagement and family learning policy in England.
3. The DfE should develop the “Parent Pledge” set out in the white paper. This should involve an expectation on academy trusts to have a parents strategy; and should also offer a package of guidance and support to trusts based on the EEF evidence review and existing programmes.
4. The DfE should invest a small amount of money to recruit parent support advisers to help trusts develop their strategies, within the Regions Directorate.
5. The DfE should ensure that their current FE funding and accountability consultation does not reduce the availability of family learning programmes by forcing providers to focus on immediate labour market outcomes.
6. The DfE should ensure that some family learning programmes are included within the mix of provision funded through the Multiply scheme. Mayoral Combined Authorities and Unitary Authorities should work together to develop programmes that have enough scale to be evaluated.
7. The DfE should use the family hubs network to evaluate large scale parenting support and family learning programmes across multiple different hubs.

Juliette Collier, National Director of Family Learning at Campaign for Learning, said:

“Sam’s thought-provoking discussion paper sets out why we need a Children and Families strategy that unifies family learning and parental engagement policy in England.

“As well as positive outcomes for children, family learning approaches have wider benefits for adults too, including increased confidence in supporting children’s learning, learning progression, skills development and positive health outcomes.

“In this light, we share Sam’s concerns about the potential impact of the DfE’s current FE funding and accountability consultation on the funding and participation in family learning provision.

“Family learning is usually non-qualification based. The Department for Education has proposed that a new set of outcomes measures should apply to non-qualification provision including entering employment or moving closer to the labour market. These are inappropriate measures for family learning where the emphasis is on children and parents improving learning outcomes together.”

To download Sam Freedman’s paper, Bringing it all Back Home – Reviving and Unifying the Family Learning and Parental Engagement Agendas, go to: https://www.campaign-for-learning.org.uk/bringing-it-all-back-home