Parenting Contracts

Parenting Contracts (PCs) and Parenting Orders (POs) are intended to be important additions to the interventions available to promote better school attendance and behaviour with the aim of enhancing pupils' educational prospects and to avoid putting them at risk of criminal or anti-social behaviour. These measures are intended to help ensure that parents take their responsibilities seriously to ensure that their children are regular attenders and that they behave well at school.

The governing body may delegate certain responsibilities relating to PCs to the head teacher and the head teacher may commit funds on behalf of the governing body where the governing body has chosen to delegate this power. The overall policy decision of whether PCs should form part of the school's behaviour policy must, however, remain with the governing body.

In previous years, Middlesbrough Schools have demonstrated a real willingness to work with pupils displaying challenging behaviour and their parents on a range of strategies intended to help avoid exclusions. The LA wishes to encourage all schools to continue to work in partnership with parents in a positive and supportive way using all of the mechanisms available.

Most schools involve the LA in meetings with parents at some point whether this is at the Discipline Committee stage when reviewing exclusions or at the preventative stage where it is possible that there is a multi-agency approach to dealing with challenging behaviour of pupils. These meetings are often referred to as Pastoral Support Programme meetings (PSPs) or Care Plan meetings.

Differences between Pastoral Support Programmes (PSPs) and PCs

When a pupil's behaviour is a concern, it is anticipated that PSPs may continue to be the most appropriate mechanism for dealing with many cases but that PCs will provide a valuable additional and supportive mechanism to engage parents in certain situations. PSPs serve as a valuable tool to help manage multi-agency work with children and their families where parenting issues may or may not be part of the focus for improvement. The PC offers an alternative approach which involves greater focus upon the potential of the parent to improve the behaviour of their child in school. It is intended that PCs will be viewed as a supportive process and it is not intended to be a punitive measure against a parent.

A parenting contract is a formal written agreement between a parent and either the LA or the governing body of a school and should contain:

a) a statement by the parent that they agree to comply for a specified period with whatever requirements are specified in the contract; and

b) a statement by the LA or governing body agreeing to provide support to the parent for the purpose of complying with the contract.

If you would like to discuss this matter with the Pupil Support Team, you are welcome to contact David Ball tel. 01642 201828