Parents to boost children’s performance at school by 25 %
It seems appalling that teachers in our primary schools have to deal with disruptive and abusive children. The expulsion of under-five year old children has tripled in the last year, taking the total to 43,720 children suspended from our primary schools.
The figures get worse; the total for all schools is a massive 389,560 temporary exclusions in 2005. Judging from comments at recent Headteacher conferences the figure continues to grow.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The highly disruptive effect in school takes its toll on the teacher and the remaining 29 children in the class. It is the most common reason for teachers to leave the profession.
The resultant huge loss in core teaching time coupled to changes in teaching staff, it’s no wonder that academic standards are falling.
There is no easy solution. We have to deal with the consequences of an evolving society, and a recent major programme from the DfES is taking a significant step to encourage greater engagement of parents in the teaching process. The “Every Parent Matters” scheme recognises the huge benefit to the school from active involvement of parents. The comprehensive plans include resurrecting the natural parental teaching skills evident when the child was a toddler. Re-harnessing this latent ability at home can improve a child’s school performance by 25 %. Interestingly the involvement of the father in the process has a very marked benefit. Children who have has experienced two years good early education from age 2 get a boost of up to six months in their development.
More than 75% of parents questioned in the DfES survey believe that their child’s education should be shared between parents and schools. Teachers questioned in another survey indicated overwhelming support of the involvement of parents in the schooling process.
How this can be achieved follows developments in the modern educational resources now available. Incorporating a significant element of fun, resources used in school covering the whole curriculum are now available for home use to support a critical learning process.
Studies in the USA show that 75% of learning retention comes from practice. As children spend 15% of their time in school there is a huge opportunity to improve performance through enjoyable practice of the lesson content at home. Building the confidence, competence and importantly the speed of child has a huge knock-on benefit in school.
The days of the handwritten Banda spirit printed page has been replaced by DVD’s with stunning graphics and interactive content. Parents can relate to the programme content far more readily than conventional text book homework exercise. Many parents revisit past interests and personally learn with the process, and find the dynamic involvement far more constructive than any end of term report – when it could be too late.
To offset the downsides prevailing in our schools perhaps we need to reflect on King Canute. The unruly influence, staff turnover, curriculum changes are probably here to stay for a while, but now there is a real positive way parents can support an alternative outcome.
