The Protective School: Mitigating what’s “out there” in times of austerity: Symposium: Austerity & the School Welfare State: Exploring the Lived Realities for Schools Families and Communities.

The paper considers how approaches to parent engagement in an English Co-operative school have been affected by the impact of austerity on local families. Drawing on Warren’s (2009) concept of relational engagement, the paper explores how austerity has changed the interrelationship between families, their communities and school, leading to shifts both in engagement practice and in staff understandings of what it means to do with parents and community members.