What are parent-school organisations for? Some views from an inner-London LEA

A telephone survey of the schools of an inner-London LEA was conducted to d iscover what organisations for parents (parent-teacher associations, parent s' associations, friends' organisations) existed in its schools, how often they met, and how effective they were thought to be. The survey found that about half the schools had some kind of parental organisation (PO). POs wer e seen as desirable; their main functions were fund-raising and social even ts; the larger, more formally organised ones seemed more active in involvin g parents. Respondents' additional comments concerned the pros and cons of different kinds of PO, their purposes and functions, and their main problem s. These raised more basic questions: the rationale for POs, teachers' atti tudes towards parents, and the nature of POs' relationship with schools. It is suggested that a formal statutory relationship between schools and POs would increase the number of active POs and facilitate a more educationally productive parent-teacher partnership.