Interesting! About what makes a 'good' school and vice versa

[faraday]

from the Guardian

What do you think?!

It has always occurred to me that the idea that if you take a popular, highly over-subscribed school and add say 50% to its intake that school may well soon cease to be so popular, assuming a school IS its student body, teachers and governors, not just a collection of buildings.

I help out at DS primary school. Majority of parents are comfortably off. There are a few children from less well off families and sadly these children are the ones whose parents don't appear to listen to them read. In one case the mother may not read/speak English. In other cases the parents just don't seem to bother - father too busy playing computer games or whatever. I don't know what one could do to persuade these parents to take more interest in their childrens education.

Yes, lala- but remember many of us had what we'd considered good school experiences, over all yet OUR parents were barely allowed over the thresholds of our schools! My parents visited my final primary twice: Once to enrol me and once to discuss my taking the 11+ a year early! I don't think my parents felt at all alienated. They expected the school to get on with the job of educating me whilst their job was to send us to school on time, properly attired, clean, fed and rested, and to model 'respect' for the educational experience such as respecting our teachers. At secondary, there were obviously parents evenings which my parents attended religiously (though only to see what they considered to be my 'core' subject teachers!) but my parents ensured I'd done my homework etc. THAT'S the way in which my parents provided that vital 3rd pillar.

I think schools' remit have expanded a lot since then though faraday. I was at primary school in the 70s, taught by nuns - whom, I suspect, weren't that brilliantly educated themselves - and who would think nothing of smacking and shaking children that they thought deserved it - parents didn't complain, didn't feel it was their business/right to although many may have felt it was wrong. (Incidentally, one of the children that most irritated the teachers was a boy who now lives in a residential facility because he is so profoundly autistic...) Parents such as yours would still ensure that their children had a good school experience even now just because they would bring their children up to value education and follow the rules but, in order to provide a really great school then staff have to encourage parents to get involved by offering their skills/time to have add-ons: cookery lessons/craft stuff/one to one reading practice/being one of the responsible adults on school trips and so on (when we went on school trips there were two teachers for a class of up to 44 kids). You don't have to be a qualified teacher to do these things, you just have to be prepared to commit a bit of time and a lot of parents will if they are made to feel appreciated.

its very interesting about parental involvement. in dds class some book bags arnt opened from one week to the next. that means no one has read their reading book with them or their library book.half of these children have mothers not born in this country so i suppose english as a second language also affects parental involvement.