4 things SEND teaches us about building proactive parent trust

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) communication often exposes the rawest vulnerabilities in home-school relationships. However, the strategies required to navigate these partnerships successfully offer profound lessons for every school leadership team.

With national SEND consultations continually spotlighting ongoing pressures around funding, capacity and provision, building calm, proactive partnerships between home and school has never been more critical.

In Episode 1 of The School-Parent Partnership Podcast, Fit2Communicate co-founders Karen Dempster and Justin Robbins sat down with Santanu Sengupta, founder of the Neurodiverse Parenting Hub and former classroom teacher, to explore practical solutions.

Here are four key takeaways every school leader can use to move from reactive firefighting to proactive trust.

1. “Both Can Be True” (The Two Versions of a Child)

Have you ever had a meeting where a parent describes a distressed, dysregulated child at home, while your staff see a calm, compliant pupil in the classroom?

It is easy for tired teachers to feel accused, or for anxious parents to feel dismissed. But as Santanu points out, both versions can be true simultaneously.

A neurodivergent child may spend all day “masking” and bottling up sensory overload at school, only to explode in the safety of their home at 4pm. Conversely, a child whose distress manifests as outward behaviour at school may be calm at home.

School takeaway: When a parent brings concerns that don’t match your classroom data, don’t default to “We don’t see that here”. To a parent, that lands as an accusation of lying. Validate their lived experience first before digging into the data.

2. Decode the “2am Email”

This may be familiar: a long, emotional, unpunctuated email dropping into a teacher’s or SENCO’s inbox at 2am.

It is human nature for staff to take these emails personally, review them in the staffroom and label the family as “difficult”.

However, in reality, that late-night email is usually an outpouring of exhaustion, fear for their child’s future and a lack of “system language”. When parents lack the formal terminology that schools operate in, their emotion spills over.

“Escalation usually follows missed opportunities to understand... The parent isn’t trying to accuse the school; it is an outpouring of primordial love and protection, but without the system language to express it.” – Santanu Sengupta

School takeaway: Don’t judge the format; look for the underlying anxiety. Acknowledging a parent’s emotion with a simple, “I hear how stressful this has been for you, let's look at this together”, immediately diffuses tension. 

3. Escalation Follows Missed Opportunities to Understand

Relationship breakdown is rarely a sudden explosion; it is a predictable chain reaction.

It usually starts with tiny, missed opportunities at the school gate – a rushed “We haven’t seen that, we'll get back to you” from a busy teacher holding 32 children. If that follow-up never happens, trust drifts. 

When parents feel unheard, they stop bringing quiet queries and start saving up months of panic for a formal complaint.

School takeaway: If a teacher or TA promises a follow-up, do. Asking a parent, “What would help you support your child better?” or “Can you tell me a bit more about when that happens at home?” instantly shifts the dynamic from confrontation to collaboration.

4. Stop Leaving Parental Engagement to Chance

Intellectually, every school leader knows parental engagement is vital.

Every school operates with a clear, strategic plan for curriculum, safeguarding and behaviour. Yet, relationships with parents are often left to ad-hoc chance or treated as an afterthought – until a crisis hits.

Building parent trust isn’t done in moments of crisis; it’s built in the hundreds of small, consistent interactions that happen beforehand. It requires a deliberate, planned approach across all Four Pillars of Parental Engagement:

• Knowledge: Helping parents understand how to support their child’s learning

• Environment: Ensuring the physical and digital school front door feels welcoming and easy to navigate

• Culture: Making partnership an everyday staff habit, not an administrative burden

• Communication: Moving away from Friday afternoon “bad news” emails towards empathetic, consistent clarity

School takeaway: Schools that succeed in community trust treat parental engagement as a planned, strategic priority built on The Four Pillars: Knowledge, Environment, Culture and Communication. Get in touch to see how we can support you in this.

Listen to the Full Conversation

Listen to the full 28-minute conversation with Santanu Sengupta on The School-Parent Partnership Podcast, available now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts!

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