Parental involvement through in-class volunteering: how the strategy was implemented in a small school in rural Ireland

• Main Author: Liddy, S
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-2010
• Subjects: Educational administration; School administration

The purpose of this research as to investigate parental involvement in a two-teacher school in rural Ireland. Edwards et al. (1991) observe, “Parental involvement is one of the toughest issues facing today’s schools”. A number of researchers have studied parental involvement and concluded that there are advantages of the approach for pupils. In Ireland, the National Parents Council (NPC: 2010) affirm on their website and when parents are involved in their child’s educational life, their children achieve better outcomes through their school years. In this action research study, an in-class volunteering programme was organised in the junior classroom of a rural school for a ten-week period. Seven parents volunteered to help in the classroom for one lesion weekly for ten weeks. The volunteers worked with the pupils on literacy, mathematics and board game activities. The attitudes of teachers, parents and pupils towards parental involvement and parental volunteering were appraised through a variety of qualitative data collection methods-interviews, diaries and observation. Three of the parent-volunteers were chosen at random and interviewed pre and post the volunteering programme. The pupils participated in a group interview in the form of circle-time once weekly to discuss the volunteering lessons. The pupils also recorded a reflection in a diary after each session. Three teachers from other small rural schools in the West of Ireland were interviewed to gain a wider perspective on parental involvement and volunteering. The researcher kept a research diary throughout the study. Findings indicated that parents and pupils reacted very positively to the volunteering programme. The response from the three teachers interviewed was varied. Two of the teachers stated that they would be comfortable working with parents in the classroom. Overall, findings reveal it is possible to successfully organise a parental volunteering programme in a small school.