Educational authorities worldwide implore parents to maintain an interactive role in the schooling process, yet the majority tend to let go as their child goes to school. The involvement of the parent has a measurable benefit on performance and can be extremely rewarding for the parent, child and teacher. This parental hands-on support is commonplace in the Far East where exam results now overshadow the achievement in the West. Perhaps the misplaced reluctance can be shown in the following ten point converse list:-

1. Undervalue your ability to help teach them when they go to school. The skill you developed when they were infants; teaching them to walk, talk, ride a bike, learn about colours, numbers etc. should be ignored. Leave everything to the teachers now on.
2. Regard school time as the only time children can learn. Lessons are meant to be hard work and not there to be enjoyed.
3. Treat homework as a chore. It has to done, nobody likes doing it and you don’t want to interfere and you’re very busy.
4. Avoid giving your child help in case its spotted or criticised, better to regard your knowledge of school lessons as dated and not applicable to modern teaching techniques.
5. Consider kids free time out of school as sacrosanct. Quality time with children cannot possibly be linked with school work.
6. Believe that TV is the sole means of providing educational input relevant to you child’s lessons.
7. Minimise all contact with the teacher. You’ll find our how your child is doing in end of term reports or parents night. Don’t worry if you wasted a term’s opportunity to help before you found out.
8. Don’t believe hearsay that says the biggest drop in your kid’s performance generally happens when they go to secondary or high school. Fingers crossed they’ll keep up.
9. Always buy presents that other kids have got, obviously a fad and hold their interest for about a week.
10. Ignore the range of fun interactive Educational Games & Toys at www.keen2learn.co.uk. They’re great fun for kids aged 3-15, matched to the curriculum and will definitely help you take a more positive role in their learning.

School needs to be inviting interesting and stimulating. Not always possible as there standards, procedures and curriculum to acknowledge.  Many kids away from school could be enticed into a fact finding experience. Those being taken out of school to go on holiday could be set a fun based educational challenge or project where the parents can interact. It would do the children and the parents some good, overcome certain truancy implications and lead to a more interactive role back in school for parents.

Keen 2 Learn

The untippable chair is the practical result of applied physics and maths. The new design solves a well known problem and is a great idea especially if children had been involved. Inevitably we will now lose the services of a good teacher to the commercial world. Perhaps we need some more interactive projects or physics games that could fire the imagination of other students in a similar fashion.

Keen 2 learn

Throwing an inflatable ball over a 6-foot-6-inch overpass has taken on a new meaning for EHOVE students.

For the second year in a row, students enrolled in USA EHOVE’s College Tech Prep Engineering program entered the “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology Overdrive” robotics competition.

The nationwide contest requires the teams to build a robot that grabs and throws a 40-inch inflatable ball over a specific height while circling a track.

The College Engineering Tech Prep class, a partnership between EHOVE Career Center and BGSU Firelands, has been working with local engineers and Plum Brook Operational Support Group to apply their knowledge of mechanical design, robotics and physics to the project.

The timeline to build the fastest, most efficient ball launching robot?

Six short weeks.

"Students have had nothing else on the brain but this robot," instructor Jim McIntyre said. "They come into school with ideas about how to fix a problem we've encountered, and they are relentless in their pursuit of improvement. It's exciting to see their enthusiasm, and it's contagious. This contest has a lot of appeal in making engineering cool."

The competition is the ideal platform to encourage and focus the mind towards an objective. A further hidden key is the fun involved. It is amazing what can be achieved individually or team based with a degree of lateral thought applied in problem solving. The real challenge is at what age should the process start? Modern classroom resources in ICT are becoming fun based through a range of educational games. These include robot design and programming for ages 5 – 15 years. such as the Constructa-Bot

Perhaps the challenge in future years will be taken over by the current generation of kids benefiting from these educational games. Maybe we will see a sea change in the challenge inspired by these new teaching resources for schools and parents.

Alistair Owens Keen 2 learn.

Dr James Wetz, former headteacher of two large secondary schools and visiting fellow at Bristol University’s graduate school of education, argued that large secondary schools are ill-equipped to support pupils and may even stifle their potential in a Channel 4 Dispatches programme.

A huge number of star pupils from primary education fail to thrive in secondary school. Wetz’s research, published in 2006, showed that 40% of the young people who left secondary school without a single qualification at GCSE actually achieved average or above-average performance in English, maths or science in key stage two tests at the end of their primary schooling.The dramatic change in schooling procedures, building size and the number of teachers involved overwhelms many children. The drop off being most significant in the age group 11-13.

Dr Wetz suggests the pastoral approach in primary education where one teacher predominately takes all lessons for a class should be adopted at secondary level. The abrupt change to an environment where children will meet 11- 15 different teachers a week causes a disconnect that can be irreparable. The class tutor, gaining only a fleeting view of their charges can be unaware of issues which could be otherwise easily addressed.

Curriculum changes seek to achieve greater lesson integration, something that is difficult without significant liaison, and probably impractical.

The quest to introduce continuity can receive huge support with the parent taking an interactive role to mentor their child. With school class sizes over 30 the 1:1 ratio at home can provide vital encouragement and the active opportunity to go over lessons. With modern classroom resources being in the form of educational games this can also be great fun!

The unfortunate consequence of assessing performance nationally is the need to set standards by which it can be measured. The ultimate aim is to provide children with the best options in adulthood, yet in a class size of 30 with an average range of abilities and interests, the ideal arbiters to maximise performance are surely the teachers and parents.

Regrettably this hand-on knowledge tends to be overruled by bureaucracy. Distant authorities set the standards, curriculum and assessments. It is pity that teachers are not given a greater option to influence the local content. It would provide them with the stimulation, relevance and recognition tailored to the local community. It should also involve a contractual agreement with parents stating their active involvement in the process.

Throughout the English speaking world educational authorities reiterate concerns over falling standards and the motivation of teaching staff. They also promote the significant influence parents can play in the practical teaching process. The modern educational games, educational toys and classroom resources now available to parents make this a real option. Perhaps the solution to some of the problems in education lies closer to home than we think.

Keen2learn