Parents and Teachers working together

Productive partnerships between parents and teachers consistently lead to better academic and social outcomes for students including those who experience disadvantage linked to disability, an indigenous family background and/or poverty. Developing and maintaining productive parent-teacher partnerships can be difficult, however. This chapter outlines the reasons for these difficulties and presents evidence-based practices for facilitating productive partnerships between parents and teachers. The discussion focuses on three spheres (communication, school culture, and decision-making) and looks at both barriers and enablers in these spheres. It is determined that effective home-school partnerships are underpinned by warm and supportive school cultures and rely on positive communication between parents and teachers and shared decision-making.