Interest, involvement or interference?

Good relationships between schools and parents are vital if children are to achieve their full potential. Yet too often, there can be causes of conflict and confusion.

To a parent, for example, there is nothing more irritating than mentioning a problem to the school and feeling no-one’s interested. Equally, from the school side of the educational divide, there can be a feeling that fee-paying parents expect too much: “Don’t they realise we have seven hundred other children to look after?” “Do they expect us to be social workers and baby-sitters too?”

There is indeed a fine line between being parents being supportive and interfering. As a teacher, I sometimes feel parents need to step back occasionally from becoming too involved in their child’s progress. After all, teachers are professionals and will often see a child in a different – and dare one say - more accurate light than parents, who can inevitably be too close to their own child to see weaknesses. An example of this might be the pushy parent who insists on their teenager applying to Oxbridge. Often the school will know that the child in question has no realistic chance of getting in and will simply jeopardise the cause of other, worthier candidates it may be keen to encourage. Yet some parents find it hard to see the bigger picture here: “Why can’t s/he at least have a go?” they wonder.

But the most common cause of parent/teacher conflict is over school team selection. I’ve known parents complain directly to heads about their children not being in a team: in fact, there are few things parents seem to get more steamed up about. “Why isn’t he in the team? He’s much better at cricket/rugby/football than ‘X’!” Again, from the parent’s side of the fence, it seems a reasonable enough argument. But to the teacher/coach selecting the team, who has half-a-dozen other equally competent boys/girls to keep happy, the fact that a child has been left out is rarely, if ever, an example of blatant bias.

Yet when it comes to our own child’s education, almost all of us can be hypocrites. I have to confess that, despite being a teacher myself, I too can be an unreasonable parent. In fact, my wife and I have already complained several times to our children’s Surrey preparatory school about our two children not being in school teams; we have indeed, I am ashamed to admit, also occasionally queried the school’s judgement on disciplinary matters.

So for the sake of good communication between schools and parents, here are some simple, but essential ground rules for both sides to remember. Firstly, parents:

1. Assume the teacher knows best. Your little darling at home may be a positive menace in the maths class.
2. Remember the child is only one of hundreds at the school – and that while every school has a duty to tackle problems promptly, this may take a few days. Delay does not mean the school is not interested.
3. Not every boy is a budding Flintoff or Beckham. Just because he’s good with a plastic ball in the back garden doesn’t mean he should be in the 1st Eleven.
4. Don’t complain about the school doing nothing to encourage your child to read or study if the process is not being tackled at home. Reading begins at home. So too does homework.

And for teachers?

1. Never forget that for most parents the most important thing in the universe is their child. A parent may seem unreasonable, but is usually merely showing concern for their child.
2. Never forget that at fee-paying schools, parents directly pay teachers’ salaries (around 75% of all fee income goes directly on wages). So their concerns deserve attention and respect.
3. Not every child comes from a bookish or academic background. Make some efforts to suggest reading-lists to children and point them towards school libraries to borrow books.
4. Remember that in many families, both parents will be working full-time – often to pay those huge school fees. Don’t assume that parents will have the energy to sit down with their children every evening and help them with their grammar, spelling and homework. That’s what they’re paying you to do …

So perhaps the key lesson in building a good parent/school relationship is trust. After all, both parties, parents and school, have exactly the same goal in mind: the welfare and success of the individual child.

Dr Andrew Cunningham teaches at Charterhouse 
 
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