Researchers, school actors and policy makers all believe that parental involvement really matters. Parental involvement is seen as an important condition for children’s academic development. Research shows different positive relations between parental involvement on the one hand, and factors such as well-being of students, school success, attitudes towards learning, learning outcomes, participation in higher education, etc. on the other hand (e.g. Baker, Denessen, Dennissen & Oolbekkink-Marchand, 2013; Menheere & Hooge , 2010). Learning is considered to be more and more an interaction between school, home and environment. In other words, school and parents are both important partners in supporting the learning process of the child (VLOR, 2011). Although parental involvement is often described as important and positive in the development of children, it still remains difficult to implement in practice. This paper presents the outcomes of an action research project that investigated the implementation of a coaching tool – considered as an interactive website - that has been developed for school actors to support and stimulate parental involvement in (secondary) school practice. The coaching tool is developed based on the principles of ‘educational design research’ (McKenney & Reeves, 2012; Van Den Akker, Gravemeijer, McKenney & Nieveen, 2006). The main purpose of this research is to unravel how parental involvement in secondary schools can be improved through the introduction of a coaching tool. More specific, to support parental involvement in secondary schools in Brussels (Belgium).

The research literature shows that parental involvement has to be considered as a broad concept with multiple dimensions and aspects (Godderis, 2007; Boeraeve & Van Rijn, 2010; Epstein, 1995, 2001; Verhoeven, Devos, Stassen & Warmoes, 2003). The literature includes several models and typologies of parental involvement which attempt to describe and/or explain the processes of cooperation, and the involvement between parents and schools. An analysis of these models and typologies shows that parental involvement is not static and unidirectional. Parent involvement is a complex, interactive and dynamic concept in which the relationship ‘parents – school’ is not seen as neutral. This relationship is characterized by normative hierarchal relationships. The present study – and the coaching tool – is grounded in the research of Morreel, Van Avermaet en Vanderlinde (2012). This research takes this broad and multidimensional nature of parental involvement into account. The study aimed to identify how different actors (students, teachers, principals and parents) think of parental involvement, how these different actors interpret their role on parental involvement, and what the different actors expect from each another. From the analyses of this study a conceptual model was developed that guides secondary schools in establishing closer cooperations with parents. This conceptual model was pivotal in the coaching tool. The coaching tool makes it possible to start and implement changes in schools, and offers insights, tools and examples which support parental involvement. This tool is structured around six modules: awareness, knowledge, understanding, action, integration and interaction. Different exercises and methods are used in these modules to address parental involvement with the school team or a group of school actors. The coaching tool is tested and adjusted to optimize the tool based on an action research. The final coaching tool helps schools to improve their policy regarding to parental involvement in order to stimulate the (academic) development of children and to ensure that parental involvement is not longer seen as a difficulty in practice. The way in which parental involvement is defined and implemented in schools is determined by the policy that is set by the schools regarding parental involvement (Feuerstein, 2000). This means that the policy making capacity of schools (Van Petegem et al., 2006) plays an import role in setting up a school policy regarding parental involvement. 

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