The National Parent Survey exists to give parents a voice. Every year, Parentkind commission this largescale poll to understand the challenges parents face.

This year, YouGov surveyed 6,053 parents of school-age children from across the UK, weighting the results to be nationally representative of what parents are thinking. This is a definitive account of parents and their views in 2026.

The data should spark debate and make parents a bigger part of the conversations we have about education. We make the full dataset available for free to help others make the strongest case for parents in education.

Why parents matter

The evidence is clear: better parental engagement leads to better educational outcomes for children.

The Education Endowment Foundation estimates that getting parental engagement right can deliver around four months of additional learning per year. That makes it one of the most important changes we can make to improve outcomes for children.

Our 2026 findings show that parents want to do more. Almost half( 48 %) would like to spend more time supporting learning at home, and 85 % would like to be more involved in their child’ s school.

Too many parents also feel that nobody is listening. Only 14 % say the Government listens to parents when making decisions about education.

Only 14 % say the Government listens to parents when making decisions about education.

The picture is better at school level, where 53 % say their school listens to parents. But there is a striking divide: 61 % of primary school parents say their school listens to them, compared with just 47 % of secondary school parents.

We still have a long way to go before parents feel listened to, especially at a national level, when changes are made.

There has been a drop of a fifth in parents who feel involved in their child ' s education compared to 2023.

Three years on: a warning on parental engagement

This year, we returned to the parental engagement questions we asked in 2023. That gives us a three-year view of whether parents feel more involved.

The headline finding should worry anyone who cares about children’ s education.

In 2023, 80 % of parents said they felt involved in their child’ s education. In 2026, that figure is 59 % – a fall of a fifth in just three years.

The proportion saying their school communicates well with parents has fallen from 71 % to 65 %. Only 40 % say their school acts on parent feedback, down from 47 %.

Cover imagery: iStock. com / EllenMoran, Daisy-Daisy, kali9, Hispanolistic, SolStock, Friends of Coltishall Primary School, Calderstones PTA, Paul Meyler Photography, Friends of More House, Benjamin Youd Photography Ltd

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