The partnership between school and home affects pupils' behaviour, development, and learning. It also has a crucial impact on pupils' well-being and whether they experience the school day as safe and good. Despite existing research in the area, there is a need for more knowledge, especially related to ensuring interaction and quality in the partnership between school and home. When we use the term the “adults”, we refer to parents, guardians, school staff, and the responsibility for partnership between them.

The study is grounded in Epstein’s theory (1987) of overlapping spheres of influence, which emphasize a holistic approach, where school and home, as well as community work closely together and locate the child in the center. This theory is inspired by Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological model, where two microsystems – school and home in which child is developing, work together on the mesosystem, bridging to the context, creating coherence in child’s developmental environment and building on each other resources (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Norheim & Moser, 2020).

Professional – parent partnership could be understood as an extension of parental involvement. The concept of partnership includes involvement, engagement, participation, and collaboration (Epstein, 2018). Meanwhile, Samuelsen and Ingebrigtsen (2022) highlight that such professional partnership should be characterized by dialogue and highlight participation and partnership as key elements in achieving good collaboration.

Bø (2020) emphasises that a good partnership with the home should be characterized by meaning, influence, and support. Meaning means that parents should feel that they are participating in meaningful activities. Furthermore, they should be able to influence and have a say in matters that are important to them and that they receive emotional and practical support and help in relation to their own child.  

Moreover, three important factors – relationship, communication, and context have been indicated in the school - home partnership (cf. Westergård, 2013, 2015). The relationship between professionals in school and parents is one of the most critical factors in a pupils’ development (Ekornes & Bele, 2021). Meanwhile, communication is key to this relationship (Glaser, 2023; Westergård, 2015). Overall, families need to feel comfortable sharing information about their children's development, while professionals must trust that families will support the educational goals they set for their children. Context is the space, where professionals and families collaborate. 

In the Norwegian Education Act (1998) §1, it is stated that the school has a great responsibility when it comes to creating and safeguarding good partnerships with the home. It is also stated that parents have the main responsibility for the child's upbringing and development (...), however, despite the mutual responsibility in school - home partnership, the school is obliged to take the initiative and facilitate partnership as well as to develop good routines beyond this (Regulations for the Education Act, 2006, §20). The partnership is a mutual responsibility, but the school must take the initiative to make it possible (Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, 2017). Overall, a good partnership between school - home is aimed to create coherence and integrity in the pupils' lives. 

In the Core curriculum – values and principles for primary and secondary education (2019) are provided principles for the school's practice in terms of school – home partnership. Professionals in school must ensure that parents receive the necessary information and that they are given the opportunity to have an influence on their children's everyday school life. Overall, several studies (cf. Bergnehr, 2015) researched the impact of the school – home partnerships, however, little is known how these strong school – home partnerships should be developed.

Therefore, the current study aims to investigate what school staff and pupils’ guardians say about "best practice" in the development of strong school – home partnership.

Procedures In terms of the methodology used, the research questions were addressed through individual, semi-structured interviews. To explore the research questions, the interviews focused on discussing the “best practice” of the school – home partnership. Given that the research and thus knowledge about the issue at hand is lacking, the interviews aimed at finding out more about the current experiences and implications for the further development of the partnership among professionals and parents (Kvale et al. 2015). In our interviews we aimed to provide a conversational structure. The semi-structured interviews allowed us as interviewers to make better use of the knowledge-producing potentials of dialogue, by allowing more leeway to follow up on whatever angles seemed important to the interviewee (Brinkmann, 2018). The study was carried out using a semi-structural interview for teachers and parents in January 2025 in three schools from one municipality in Western Norway. Participants Two teachers from each school (in total, six teachers from three primary schools) and six parents from each school (in total 18 parents) participated in interviews. The longest interview lasted 65 min, while the shortest – 42 min. Measures Two interview guides – one for teachers and one for parents of 12 open questions divided into six main themes have been used as qualitative data collection instruments. The main themes were as follows: Class parent meetings, parent – teacher conferences about pupils’ challenges, ongoing collaboration about the pupil’s school day, responsibility and authoritative role, a strengthened partnership – implications for the future. Research ethic The researcher aligned the study with the statutory codes of ethics and carried out the professional ethical judgments and procedures of the study in accordance with the regulations of the Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research (Sikt). Permission to conduct the study was obtained and the researcher’s obligations to the Sikt were strictly adhered to throughout the research process. Data analysis The qualitative data were analyzed using the thematic analysis to examine which areas emerge in the analysis and whether there are differences between what is emphasized as "best practice" in the research and among the informants' descriptions.

The preliminary results of the study were identified in the scope, limited by three spheres, where professionals and parents meet, namely to the class parent meetings, the parent – teacher conferences about pupils’ challenges, and ongoing communication. When it comes to class parent meetings, should go beyond providing information to parents’ engagement, meanwhile, the trustful and respectful relationship is a crucial factor for the parent – teacher conferences about pupils’ challenges and ongoing communication. We see that the quality of the interviewees’ acquired knowledge could be influenced by several factors. Such is the structure and the content of the school – home partnership. Internationally, limited research has been done about the development of strong school – home partnerships. The results of this research project thus underline the needed to identify the best practice of the school – home partnerships and possible obstacles when it comes to achieving the objectives. Based on the preliminary analysis of the collected data, we think that we have identified a typical pattern of the school – home partnerships in Norway. In addition, we also identified interesting gaps which can be basis for further practical development within the participating schools. More details findings will be presented as a part of our contribution on the conference.

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