How do fathers support their children’s learning – and what are schools doing to help?

Our new Fathers and Children’s Learning survey aims to build a better understanding of how fathers get involved in supporting their children’s learning, and how schools, nurseries and other family services can help.

The survey is aimed at all fathers (biological or otherwise) with children aged under 12, and asks them about:

• What they do to support their children’s education
• How confident they feel doing this
• The support they receive from their children’s schools
• Whether there are areas they’d like more help with, and what they’d find most useful.

Later this year (in spring/summer 2022) we will be holding online sessions with parents and professionals, to think more deeply about ways to support fathers’ involvement. We will also produce toolkits to help schools and nurseries – and families themselves – maximise fathers’ involvement. The Fathers and Children’s Learning survey will feed into all of this, so it’s an important first step on a bigger journey.

If you’re a dad

Please take the survey, which should only take 5 minutes to complete – and share it with any other fathers you know. Here’s the link to share: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WZKBVDZ.

If you’re a mum

Please ask your child’s dad to take the survey – no matter his level of involvement, we want to hear what he has to say! Here’s the link to share: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WZKBVDZ.

If you work with families

Please promote the survey to parents, and others who can spread the word. You can download resources to help you do this, below. Promoting the survey could be a great way for your organisation to open a deeper conversation with parents – and taking part in one of our online discussions later this year could help with this too.

Stay in touch

To make sure you stay in touch with our project, and receive an invite to our online sessions, join the Fatherhood Institute’s Time with Dad network here, or email Dr Jeremy Davies via j.davies@fatherhoodinstitute.org.

Downloads to help you promote the survey

We’ve created a printable poster and flyer, for you to hand out and post on noticeboards in schools, nurseries, workplaces and community spaces. There are also templates for letters/emails (a version to send to Dad, a version to send to Mum and a version addressed ‘Dear Parents’), and some suggested SMS/Whatsapp messages and social media posts. You can download these below.