Download the report
What more than 80,000 parents across England told us about engagement, communication and what they want from their child’s school.
The Parent Experience Report 2026 is available to download now, bringing together feedback from more than 80,000 parents and carers across England during the 2025/26 academic year.
This year’s report also looks at what parents ask schools for, drawing on more than 28,000 written responses, so you can see where the basics could work harder.
Key findings:
- Satisfaction with how schools engage parents rose to 63%, and 73% of parents feel respected by their school, both up two points on last year.
- 77% of parents are confident teachers can keep their child safe.
- More than a third of parents want more of something their school already does, while around one in ten are asking for something completely new.
- Communication has held at 59% for three years.
- Primary parents are more positive than secondary parents on almost every measure, with gaps of up to 22 points.
What’s inside
Key parent measures
Engagement, communication, respect and confidence in safety, with three-year trends.
Primary vs secondary
Where parents’ views differ by phase, and by how long their child has been at the school.
What parents ask for
Themes from more than 28,000 written responses on what schools could do more of.
Use it to
- Check your parental engagement against the national picture
- Prioritise the changes parents ask for most, many of which build on what you already do
- Share clear evidence with leadership teams, governors and trustees
- Tailor your approach for primary and secondary settings
The strongest message in this report is that parents are not asking schools to reinvent the wheel. They want the basics of a good relationship with their child’s school to work well because they know this helps their children.
Frank Young
Chief Executive of Parentkind
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