Social distancing measures have put enormous pressure on teachers, parents and students to adapt to a new online learning environment, with greater dependency on parents to facilitate classes at home. While this format may not be sustainable for most families in the long run, it does shine a light on how we can better engage parents to improve student learning outcomes.

Research over more than five decades has consistently shown that children have better academic, social, and emotional outcomes when their parents are engaged in their children's learning, especially in the home. Currently, parent engagement is often only perceived as necessary when something goes wrong - whether that's COVID-19, when a child is in trouble at school or fails a test.

However, if we can continue to proactively engage parents in the learning process, both early and often, we can improve our parent-teacher relationships and more importantly, improve our children's learning, development and overall wellbeing. Subsequently, this also brings significant benefits to teachers and schools through improved family and community satisfaction and better learning outcomes for students.