School-family Communication in the Academic Follow-up of Adolescents

Ana Carolina Tomaz Tavares; Flávia Pierrotti de Castro

DOI: 10.22167/2675-6528-202602638

Article derived from a Course Conclusion Work (TCC), with content based on the student’s original work and adapted to the editorial format of the E&S Magazine with the support of the ResumeAI tool, an artificial intelligence solution developed by Instituto Pecege for textual synthesis and organization.

Summary

Communication between school and family is fundamental for the monitoring and development of adolescents. The study aimed to understand the contribution of communication between school and family to the academic follow-up and socioemotional development of adolescents enrolled in Elementary School (final years) and High School. An applied research was adopted, with a qualitative approach and descriptive objective, predominantly documentary design. Official Brazilian education documents were analyzed, such as the Law of Directives and Bases of National Education, the National Education Plan, and the National Common Curricular Base, in addition to internal institutional documents from a private school. The results indicated that, although the legislations emphasize family participation, there are significant gaps between normative guidelines and institutional practices, with communication often being punctual and reactive. It was concluded that strengthening school-family communication demands systematic planning and continuous actions. An institutional action plan was proposed to improve communicative practices in the context of school management.

Keywords: Adolescence; Socioemotional development; Democratic management; School management; Family participation.

1. Introduction

Adolescence represents a crucial phase of human development, characterized by intense transformations at the physical, cognitive, emotional, and social levels. During this period, the individual dedicates themselves to building their identity, expanding their autonomy, and redefining their family and school relationships. This transition process, which occurs between childhood and adulthood, often manifests in the educational environment through challenges related to behavior, motivation, and academic performance, demanding articulated strategies for monitoring and support from both the school and the family. The integration between school and community is considered fundamental for strengthening educational processes and for the integral development of students (Galina et al., 2024).

Contemporary educational literature highlights that the relationship between school and family, when established based on dialogue, cooperation, and co-responsibility, contributes significantly to monitoring learning and strengthening students’ socio-emotional dimensions. Democratic management, as Pereira and Paula (2022) emphasize, presupposes the active participation of the school community, recognizing the family as an essential agent in the educational process. Clear and frequent communication practices are indicated as factors that prevent conflicts, reduce school dropout rates, and assist in addressing pedagogical and behavioral difficulties, especially in the final years of Elementary School and High School, periods often associated with higher rates of demotivation and school distancing.

From a normative point of view, Brazilian education, through its official documents, reinforces the relevance of family participation in the educational process. The Law of Directives and Bases of National Education (Law nº 9.394/1996), the National Education Plan (Law nº 13.005/2014), and the National Common Curricular Base (Brazil, 2017) emphasize the need for integrated actions between school, family, and community. Such guidelines value democratic management and continuous monitoring of student development, establishing a legal framework for the partnership between these spheres.

Despite the legal guidelines that underscore the importance of family participation, it is observed that, in many educational institutions, communication with families still manifests in a sporadic, reactive, and sometimes excessively bureaucratic manner. This dynamic weakens the monitoring of learning and limits support for the socio-emotional development of adolescents. The fragility of this communication not only compromises academic performance but also affects the emotional well-being of young people, potentially intensifying situations of conflict, indiscipline, and school disengagement.

In this context, school management assumes a strategic role in building more effective, continuous, and collaborative communication channels. It is the responsibility of managers to promote institutional practices that stimulate dialogue, active listening, and family participation in school life, strengthening the bonds of trust between teachers, students, and guardians. Communication between school and family, when well-structured, is an essential element for the consolidation of participatory school management and for the effective monitoring of the educational process (Faustino, 2021). Given this scenario, the need to deepen reflection on communication practices in the school environment becomes evident, considering the importance of articulation between school and family as a structuring element of the educational process. Thus, this study seeks to contribute to the critical analysis of these practices, highlighting the need for institutional strategies that promote active family participation and strengthen the integral development of students, and aims to understand how communication between school and family contributes to school monitoring and the socio-emotional development of adolescents in Elementary School (Final Years) and High School, based on the analysis of theoretical references and educational documents.

2. Material and Methods

The present study was characterized as a research of an applied nature, with a qualitative approach and descriptive objective, and a predominantly documentary design. The applied research sought to generate knowledge aimed at solving specific problems, as guided by Gil (2008). Regarding the objectives, the descriptive research sought to identify and describe characteristics of a given phenomenon or context, aligning with the proposal to analyze school-family communication in educational documents.

The qualitative approach was adopted because it enables a deep understanding of social phenomena in their contexts, considering meanings, perceptions, and human relationships. According to Minayo (2014), this type of investigation works with the universe of meanings, values, and attitudes, being especially relevant for studies in the educational field. The methodological design was based on documentary analysis, which, according to Marconi and Lakatos (2017), consists of using documents as primary data sources.

The unit of empirical analysis comprised official documents of Brazilian education and internal institutional documents from a private school. The educational institution analyzed belongs to the private basic education network and serves students from Elementary School (final years) and High School. To preserve its identity, the school’s name and location were not presented, and the analysis focused on management processes related to communication with families and the pedagogical and socio-emotional follow-up of adolescents.

The research was primarily based on the analysis of official documents of Brazilian education. The Law of Directives and Bases of National Education (Law nº 9.394/1996), the National Education Plan (Law nº 13.005/2014), and the National Common Curricular Base (Brazil, 2017) were examined. These documents establish fundamental guidelines for family participation, democratic management, and monitoring student development, constituting essential normative references for the educational system.

Additionally, internal institutional documents of the characterized private school were analyzed. These included the Political-Pedagogical Project, the School Regulations, and the management’s action plans. The objective was to identify how normative guidelines are operationalized in the school’s daily life, especially regarding communication practices with families, considering that democratic management presupposes the active participation of the school community, including the family as an essential agent in the educational process (Pereira and Paula, 2022).

The methodological procedure occurred in stages. Initially, a survey and selection of documents were carried out based on criteria of relevance, currency, and authenticity, as guided by Gil (2008). The documents that comprised the corpus of the documentary analysis were selected for their national normative or internal institutional nature, and for their purpose in identifying principles of democratic management, school-family articulation guidelines, and orientations on integral formation.

Next, the material was read in full and pre-analyzed. The analytical categories were defined a priori, based on the research objective and the theoretical and normative references, and refined during the reading of the documents to incorporate recurring aspects of the corpus. The categories used were: Family Participation, Communicative Practices, Pedagogical Support, and Socioemotional Development, each with specific analytical descriptions and observed aspects for documentary analysis.

Subsequently, the normative and institutional data were cross-referenced with the objective of identifying convergences, gaps, and challenges in the effective implementation of school-family communication. The data analysis was conducted using the content analysis technique, as proposed by Teodoro and Oliveira (2024). This technique consists of a set of systematic and objective procedures for describing and interpreting communications, allowing for the construction of valid inferences from the analyzed data.

The interpretation of the data was supported by theoretical frameworks from the educational field that discuss the relationship between school, family, and school management. Faustino (2021) highlights communication between school and family as an essential element for strengthening school management, while Galina et al. (2024) emphasize the importance of integration between school and community for educational development. The use of these theoretical frameworks occurred complementarily, with the objective of supporting the interpretation of documentary data.

It should be noted that the study was not characterized as a literature review, but as an applied documentary analysis with an interventionist purpose. As limitations of the research, it is highlighted that the documentary corpus was restricted to official documents and internal records of a single educational institution. Interviews, questionnaires, or direct observations with managers, teachers, students, and families were not conducted, which implies that the results should not be generalized to other school contexts and depend on the scope and updating of the examined documents.

3. Results and Discussion

The results of the documentary analysis indicate that communication between school and family is widely recognized as an essential pillar for academic follow-up and for the socio-emotional development of adolescents. This perception is consistent in both the official documents of Brazilian education and the internal institutional records of the private school investigated. A notable consonance was observed between national regulatory guidelines and the pedagogical principles of the institution, especially regarding the valorization of family participation and the promotion of democratic management. Such alignment corroborates the perspectives of Pereira and Paula (2022), who emphasize the active participation of the school community as a structuring component of the educational process.

Brazilian educational legislation, through the Law of Directives and Bases of National Education (Law No. 9,394/1996), the National Education Plan (Law No. 13,005/2014), and the National Common Curricular Base (Brazil, 2017), establishes a robust framework for collaboration between school and family. These documents reinforce family co-responsibility in the educational process, emphasizing the importance of continuous dialogue, monitoring the school trajectory, and articulation between the school and the community. The guidelines aim for the integral formation of students, encompassing not only academic performance but also the development of socio-emotional skills. However, the effective implementation of this integration still depends on concrete institutional practices that ensure the active participation of the community in the daily school life, as also pointed out by Galina et al. (2024).

Upon examining the internal institutional documents of the private school, such as the Political-Pedagogical Project (PPP) and the School Regulations, several formal communication strategies with families were identified. These include holding periodic meetings, maintaining pedagogical follow-up records, and using digital channels for interaction. However, it was found that, despite being planned, these practices do not always present themselves in a systematized manner or are accompanied by mechanisms for evaluating their effectiveness. This limitation restricts the potential of these tools as integral support for the educational process, corroborating Faustino’s (2021) observation that school-family communication, when devoid of continuous and strategic structure, loses its effectiveness in pedagogical follow-up.

The intersection of data obtained from normative and institutional documents revealed the existence of significant gaps between established guidelines and their application in daily school life. It was observed that the predominant communication tends to be informative and reactive, often being triggered only in response to students’ academic or behavioral difficulties. This approach contrasts with a preventive, continuous, and formative perspective, which would be more effective for integral development. This scenario points to a disconnect between proposed educational policies and institutional practice, highlighting structural challenges that contemporary school management needs to address to promote a more effective partnership.

The predominance of reactive and punctual communication limits the school’s potential to offer more comprehensive pedagogical support and socio-emotional support to adolescents. When interaction with families is restricted to moments of crisis or bureaucratic information, the opportunity to build a bond of trust and co-responsibility, which is crucial for student development, is lost. The absence of strategic and continuous planning for communication prevents the school and family from acting proactively in identifying and addressing challenges, negatively impacting the emotional well-being and academic performance of young people.

On the other hand, the findings suggest that when school-family communication is structured as a continuous and planned institutional practice, its potential for pedagogical monitoring and support for the socio-emotional development of adolescents is significantly expanded. The implementation of proactive and diversified communicative practices can strengthen the bonds between school and families, creating a more collaborative and engaged environment. In this context, the incorporation of educational technologies can broaden the reach and frequency of this communication, making it more agile and accessible, as indicated by Lanes et al. (2023), and contributing to greater family participation.

School-Family Communication Protocol for Academic Follow-up

Based on the gaps identified in the documentary analysis, a school-family communication protocol was proposed, aiming to guide more effective, continuous, and participatory institutional practices within school management. This protocol is based on the need to overcome punctual and reactive communication models, establishing organized guidelines that favor pedagogical monitoring and the integral socio-emotional development of students. The proposal aims to transform communication into a strategic process, contributing to the improvement of school management and the strengthening of relationships among all involved in the educational process, structured into four main dimensions.

Institutional communication planning

The first dimension of the protocol emphasizes the need for institutional communication planning. The school must systematically define a calendar of interactions with families, which includes regular pedagogical meetings, training sessions, and moments of individualized follow-up. The objective is to prevent communication from being triggered only in crisis or emergency situations, promoting a continuous flow of information and dialogue. This planning allows families to organize themselves to participate and the school to prepare relevant content, ensuring that communication is proactive and preventive, rather than merely reactive.

Diversification of communicative channels

The second dimension proposes the diversification of communication channels. The use of multiple channels, such as institutional applications, digital platforms, in-person meetings, and email communication, significantly expands the reach and frequency of interactions. This strategy favors greater family participation, as it offers flexible options that adapt to the different realities and availabilities of guardians. The diversification of channels also allows the school to transmit information of different natures, from administrative notices to pedagogical and socio-emotional content, more efficiently and accessibly.

Student continuous monitoring

The third dimension of the protocol focuses on continuous student monitoring. Communication should encompass not only academic performance but also behavioral and socio-emotional aspects, promoting a holistic view of the student’s development. This means that the school should share with families information about learning progress, but also about engagement in activities, relationships with peers and teachers, and the development of socio-emotional skills. This holistic approach allows the family to understand the student in their entirety and offer adequate support in all spheres of their school and personal life.

Monitoring and evaluation of actions

The fourth dimension establishes the importance of monitoring and evaluating communication actions. It is fundamental that the school defines monitoring indicators, such as the frequency of family participation in meetings and events, and the record of interactions carried out. The evaluation of the effectiveness of communicative practices allows for the identification of strengths and weaknesses, enabling continuous adjustments and improvements. This feedback process is essential to ensure that the implemented strategies are indeed contributing to the strengthening of dialogue and partnership between school and family, and to the achievement of pedagogical and socio-emotional monitoring objectives.

The detailed documentary analysis revealed that the Law of Directives and Bases of National Education (LDB) establishes family participation and democratic management as fundamental normative guidelines. However, the institutional practices identified in the private school demonstrate limited family participation, often restricted to occasional meetings. This main gap lies in the low continuous family participation, which implies the need to institutionalize more consistent and comprehensive communicative practices for school management. The LDB, by foreseeing co-responsibility, suggests an engagement that goes beyond occasional attendance, demanding a structure that fosters active and systematic collaboration.

The National Education Plan (PNE) emphasizes school-family integration and school monitoring as central axes. However, the observed institutional actions are poorly systematized, resulting in the absence of strategic planning for communication. This gap creates the need to implement structured internal policies for interaction with families, ensuring that monitoring is continuous and well-articulated. The PNE envisions a school that operates in a network with the community, and the lack of systematization in communication prevents the full realization of this ideal, leaving to isolated initiatives what should be an institutional policy.

The National Common Curricular Base (BNCC) guides the integral development and socio-emotional competencies of students. Despite this, institutional communication tends to be predominantly focused on academic performance, with a low approach to socio-emotional development aspects. The main gap identified is the undervaluation of socio-emotional development in communication, which implies the need to expand communication to include these emotional and behavioral aspects. The BNCC, by promoting a holistic view of the student, requires that communication with the family reflect this scope, offering support for all dimensions of the adolescent’s growth.

The institution’s Political-Pedagogical Project (PPP) values dialogue with the school community, but communicative practices are limited to institutional announcements and meetings. The main gap is the lack of evaluation of the effectiveness of these actions, which prevents continuous improvement. This implies the need for monitoring and evaluating communicative practices to ensure their effectiveness. The PPP, as a guiding document, establishes the intention of participatory management, but the absence of communication verification mechanisms can lead to a disconnect between what is planned and what is effectively practiced in daily school life.

Finally, the School Regulations standardize the school-family relationship, but communication is formal and bureaucratic, with a predominance of a reactive nature. This gap points to the need to restructure communication towards a more preventive and participatory model. Excessive formality and reactivity limit the spontaneity and depth of dialogue, transforming communication into a mere fulfillment of rules, rather than a channel for partnership and mutual support. The restructuring of communication, as suggested, aims to create an environment where the family feels more welcomed and engaged in the educational process.

Based on the gaps identified in the documentary analysis, an institutional strategic action plan was developed to strengthen communication between school and family. One of the central objectives is to strengthen dialogue, which will be achieved through periodic meetings with a pedagogical and socio-emotional focus, with a structured agenda. Those responsible for this action include school management and pedagogical coordination, using physical spaces or digital platforms. Monitoring indicators include the participation rate and the number of semi-annual meetings, with evaluation through attendance lists, feedback, and records, expecting a greater approximation between school and family.

Another objective of the plan is to expand communication channels, implementing the systematic use of institutional digital applications and channels. School management will be responsible for this implementation, with the support of applications, internet, and technical support. The number of school-family interactions will be a continuous indicator, monitored through accesses and messages, with the expected result of more agile, accessible, and frequent communication. This strategy aims to modernize and optimize how the school communicates, ensuring that information reaches families efficiently and in real-time, facilitating follow-up.

To encourage family participation, the plan proposes the promotion of training meetings on learning and adolescence. The pedagogical coordination, with teaching materials and speakers, will be responsible for this initiative. The number of events and annual participation will serve as indicators, and the evaluation will be carried out through assessment questionnaires, expecting greater engagement of families in the educational process. These meetings aim to empower parents and guardians, offering them tools and knowledge to support their children, as well as strengthening the sense of school community.

The promotion of active listening is a fundamental objective, which will be achieved by providing individualized attention to families and students. Educational guidance, with a dedicated service room, will be responsible for this. The number of services, according to demand, will be the indicator, and the service records will allow for evaluating a better understanding of students’ needs. This action aims to create a safe and welcoming space for families and adolescents to express their concerns and seek support, ensuring that their voices are heard and their needs are met in a personalized way.

The integration of socio-emotional development into pedagogical planning is another crucial objective, which will be achieved by inserting socio-emotional actions into the planning. The pedagogical team, with teaching materials, will be responsible for this integration. The activities carried out and continuous monitoring will serve as indicators, and the evaluation will be done through pedagogical reports, with the expected result of promoting the integral development of students. This measure ensures that emotional well-being and social skills are as valued as academic performance, reflecting the BNCC’s comprehensive vision.

Finally, the plan provides for the monitoring of the implemented actions through the creation of periodic reports on school-family communication. School management, using spreadsheets and institutional records, will be responsible for this task. The existence and frequency of quarterly reports will be the indicators, and the evaluation will be done through the analysis of results and adjustments, aiming at the continuous improvement of communicative practices. This systematic monitoring ensures that the plan is dynamic and adaptable, allowing the school to respond effectively to emerging needs and optimize its communication strategies over time.

In summary, the research findings reveal that, although the importance of school-family communication is widely recognized and standardized, there is a significant gap between guidelines and institutional practices, which tend to be sporadic and reactive. The proposition of an institutional action plan, with its dimensions of planning, diversification of channels, continuous follow-up, and monitoring, emerges as a fundamental strategy to systematize and improve communicative practices. This structured approach is essential to promote more effective school monitoring and more robust socio-emotional development for adolescents, aligning school practice with the principles of democratic management and educational co-responsibility.

4. Conclusion

This study sought to understand the contribution of communication between school and family to the academic follow-up and socio-emotional development of adolescents enrolled in Elementary School (final years) and High School, based on the analysis of theoretical frameworks and educational documents. It was verified that the importance of this communication is widely recognized both in Brazilian educational legislation and in the internal institutional documents of a private school. However, a significant gap was observed between normative guidelines and institutional practices, with communication often being punctual, reactive, and predominantly informative, mainly triggered by academic or behavioral difficulties. This dynamic limited the potential of communication as a pedagogical tool and compromised the continuous monitoring of the adolescents’ integral development, highlighting the need to overcome fragmented communication practices.

Given this scenario, the study’s main contribution lies in proposing an institutional action plan, which aims to systematize and improve communication practices within school management, promoting a more effective, continuous, and participatory process. This plan seeks to strengthen dialogue, diversify communication channels, ensure continuous student monitoring, and track implemented actions. As limitations of the research, it should be noted that the documentary corpus was restricted to official documents and internal records from a single educational institution, without conducting interviews or direct observations with the subjects involved. For this reason, the results should not be generalized to other school contexts. It is suggested that future studies expand the investigation through the participation of managers, teachers, students, and families, in addition to conducting comparisons between institutions from different educational networks.

Bibliographic References

BRASIL. Ministério da Educação. Base Nacional Comum Curricular. Brasília, DF: MEC, 2017.

FAUSTINO, Manuel David. Relação escola-família na gestão escolar: estudo de caso no 1.° ciclo do ensino secundário no município de Benguela. 2021. Dissertação (Mestrado em Administração Escolar) – Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Lisboa, 2021. Disponível em: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/24749. Acesso em: 28 ago. 2026.

GALINA, Leonardo et al. A importância da relação entre a comunidade e gestão escolar. Revista de Gestão e Secretariado, v. 15, n. 11, e4294, 2024. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7769/gesec.v15i11.4294.

GIL, Antonio Carlos. Métodos e técnicas de pesquisa social. 6. ed. São Paulo: Atlas, 2008.

LANES, Taís Carpes et al. Uso de tecnologias educativas no programa de saúde na escola: relato de experiência. Revista Recien – Revista Científica de Enfermagem, v. 13, n. 41, p. 668-680, 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24276/rrecien2023.13.41.668-680.

MARCONI, Marina de Andrade; LAKATOS, Eva Maria. Fundamentos de metodologia científica. 8. ed. São Paulo: Atlas, 2017.

MINAYO, Maria Cecília de Souza. O desafio do conhecimento: pesquisa qualitativa em saúde. 14. ed. São Paulo: Hucitec, 2014.

PEREIRA, Ricardo Lucas; PAULA, Veronica Angelica Freitas de. Gestão democrática da escola pública: uma análise bibliométrica. In: ENCONTRO DE ADMINISTRAÇÃO PÚBLICA DA ANPAD, 9., 2022, online. Anais […]. [S. I.]: ANPAD, 2022. Disponível em: https://anpad.com.br/en/event/details/119/1859. Acesso em: 28 ago. 2026.

TEODORO, Nayara Rodrigues; OLIVEIRA, Guilherme Saramago de. Análise de conteúdo: um método de qualitativo. Humanidades & Tecnologia (FINOM), v. 46, n. 1, p. 55-62, 2024. Disponível em: https://revistas.icesp.br/index.php/FINOM_Humanidade_Tecnologia/article/view/4876. Acesso em: 28 ago. 2026.

Article originating from the Course Conclusion Work of the Specialization in School Management of the MBA USP/Esalq

To learn more about the course, click here and access the MBX Academy platform