Based on three main considerations: firstly, Council of Europe’s Recommendations: Rec.1501(2001) about parents’ and teachers’ responsibilities in children’s education, Rec.(2006)19 about policy to support positive parenting and Rec.No.(94)14 about coherent and integrated family policies. Secondly, nowadays one of the greatest educational challenges is to build family-school partnerships (Salido, 2007). And thirdly, studies as Prats & Raventos (2005) which states that in Spain, more than half of teachers believe that families are unconcerned about their children's learning.

The objective of this work is to improve the partnership between families and school through a process of collaborative action research. 

To achieve the main goal, the following specific objectives are raised: a) To understand and analyze perceptions that families have about their relationship with the school; b) To encourage reflection on the school about the meaning and importance of partnership with families; c) To promote improvement processes around the coalition of family-school from their barriers (areas for improvement) and strengths d) To facilitate processes of improvement across action protocols.

Educational purposes should be shared and should result on conscious reflections, because children’s development and learning at this early stage depends largely on the specific experiences living in their day to day (Epstein, 2009).  So, the family is seen as co-managers of family-school relationship, and therefore it is essential to listen and to consider their own voices (Simón & Echeita, 2010).

Throughout the action research process, several actions were carried out including the design of an instrument to collect the perceptions of families about their relationship with the school. It was based on previous works of Ainscow, Booth y Kingston (2006) and Epstein (2009).  The questionnaire compiles the following dimensions: Everyone feels welcome; To value and respect diversity; To help families to feel competent and confidence with themselves; To encourage communication; Quality of information; To recognize and accept personal characteristics of families; To motivate participation and sense of belonging; To support families to build links with peers; and to take advantage of personal resources. This questionnaire is divided into two complementary parts, the first one has 56 items answered on a Likert-type scale according to their agreement or disagreement.  And the second part has open questions in order that families have the chance to expand their answers, present interests, provide feedback and suggestions for improvement.

After analyzing their opinions, it was presented the report and the results (barriers and facilitators). Subsequently, through processes of reflection and discussion, the educative community made decisions and proposals for the design of an action plan based on the school’s strengths, in order to promote better partnerships between school and family.

This study allows us to know the reality of the school, identify areas for improvement, analyze, reflect on the importance of a positive partnership, collect evidences, analyze barriers and facilitators and make decisions in a multidisciplinary team, about the ways to improve and to get the goals. This process has been a step to promote actions to strengthen the school's autonomy (Hargreaves, Lieberman, Fullan, and Hopkins, 1998). 

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