As schools welcome their new and existing students and families for 2025, and plan opportunities to bring their community together, it is an opportune time to revisit the evidence about ‘what works’ to support student wellbeing and learning outcomes, and the impact of different types of engagement.

Reflecting on the ARACY Implementation Guide

In 2020, ARACY published the Parent and Family Engagement Implementation Guide for School Communities to help school leaders and educators better engage with the families in their school communities. This guide emphasises the importance of family engagement, underscoring the evidence that when parents and families are supported to engage in their child’s learning, student achievement and wellbeing improve. With over 50 years of research supporting this, we know that fostering positive relationships between schools and families leads to better outcomes for children and young people.

ARACY was delighted to see AITSL’s Parent Engagement Spotlight published in 2024, heavily referencing our Implementation Guide, showcasing its ongoing impact in enhancing family-school partnerships.

While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to family engagement, there are a range of evidence-based strategies that schools and early childhood services can use to create these positive partnerships.

AERO Family Engagement Resources

In recent years, the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) has also launched practice guides and resources designed to assist school leaders and classroom teachers in planning and monitoring progress in their family engagement efforts.

As a leading expert in parent and family engagement, ARACY was invited by AERO to develop these practical resources, drawing from our extensive research into family engagement in learning over the past decade.

AERO’s family engagement practice guides for early childhood, primary, and secondary school levels draw on the best available research and make recommendations about how educators can engage families to improve student learning outcomes. The practice guides focus on ‘promising’ and ‘not promising’ approaches, and these laid the foundation for the practical resources developed by ARACY to support primary and secondary schools in their family engagement efforts.

The resources include both an audit tool and an implementation checklist, designed to be used together or separately. The Promising Approaches Audit Tool for primary and secondary settings helps school leaders and educators reflect on their current approaches and plan the implementation of best practices within their specific context. The Family Engagement Implementation Checklist can be used alongside the audit tool to plan and implement strategies for engaging families at both the whole-school and classroom levels.

These resources offer a structured approach to supporting change in schools and improving family engagement to boost children’s learning outcomes.

ARACY is proud to have partnered with AERO in developing these important resources for educators.

For more information and to access the resources and practice guides, visit: