Fostering effective parent-practitioner partnerships in Character Education

This project builds on the Narnian Virtues Character Education project which is aimed at fostering virtues in children in the UK by way of a 12-week literature-based curriculum delivered in school, and character activities undertaken with parents at home.

A key notion underpinning the project is that the students act as a bridge between home and school so that parents can also be involved in the teaching of their child’s character education. Initial findings show positive impacts of the Narnian Virtues curriculum on children’s virtue development and that the home activities component is an effective resource for involving parents in their child’s character education. The findings further suggest that there is scope for strengthening the ‘partnership’ between parents and practitioners and that further strategies are needed to enable this.

This project will identify strategies for forging strong parent-practitioner partnerships with regard to the teaching of character education. This will be achieved by the creation of a national parent-practitioner network, the development of school case studies, and by a systematic literature review. Additionally, future work will be planned in terms of developing interventions aimed at bringing parents and practitioners together to foster character development in students.