What are parent-school organisations for? Some views from an inner-London LEA

A telephone survey of the schools of an inner-London LEA was conducted to discover what organisations for parents (parent-teacher associations, parents' associations, friends' organisations) existed in its schools, how often they met, and how effective they were thought to be. The survey found that about half the schools had some kind of parental organisation (PO). POs were seen as desirable; their main functions were fund-raising and social events; the larger, more formally organised ones seemed more active in involving parents. Respondents' additional comments concerned the pros and cons of different kinds of PO, their purposes and functions, and their main problems. These raised more basic questions: the rationale for POs, teachers' attitudes towards parents, and the nature of POs' relationship with schools. It is suggested that a formal statutory relationship between schools and POs would increase the number of active POs and facilitate a more educationally productive parent-teacher partnership.