Effective leaders in schools in difficult contexts are acutely aware of the need to engage their community.
This is achieved, in part, by communicating regularly with parents and engendering trust by showing
genuine care for young people. They understand the forces within the community that impede learning, they
are aware of the negative forces of sub-cultures and they listen to parents’ views and opinions regularly.
Effective leaders recognise that family, school and community relationships directly affected student
outcome’ hence the need to connect with the community is of paramount importance to them.