Parents are a child’s first and continuing teacher and the family environment represents the major influence on children’s development, however, a child’s school also has a significant role to play. In order to optimise children’s development, it is vital that parents and schools work together to promote children’s learning and wellbeing. Schools provide the ideal environment to not only engage parents in children’s learning and development, but also to facilitate learning opportunities for parents. The aim of this symposium is to explore the shared role that parents and schools play in children’s development and discuss practical strategies to help build parent engagement. The first presentation explores findings from the Parent Engagement in Schools (PES) project. Both quantitative (teacher and parent surveys) and qualitative (interviews and focus groups with teachers, parents and students) methods were used to explore what and how strategies were employed to engage parents in schools. Examples of rich contemporary good practice, highlighting effective parent engagement strategies that contribute to enhanced student learning and wellbeing, are presented. The second presentation will focus on the relationship between a child’s teacher and their school and discusses research that has been conducted to enhance teachers’ skills for interacting with parents. The newly developed Alliance of Parents and Teachers (APT) workshop that aims to address a professional development need identified by teachers and provide them with strategies to build positive relationships with parents and manage negative impacts associated with parent interactions will be explored. The third presentation will explore whether delivering a parenting intervention, Stepping Stones Triple P, in a special education setting, positively influenced parent and child outcomes and whether the context of program delivery provided additional benefits for the partnership between home and school. This presentation will investigate the potential of school-based parenting interventions to simultaneously ameliorate the challenges experienced by 24 families of children with disabilities and to improve the home-school partnership in special education. The symposium will conclude with a discussion and implications for future research and practice.