"Hard to reach" parents- thoughts please.

[BertrandRussell]

Our school has a catchment which includes two areas of significant social deprivation. We have a very high rate of children on FSM and a high % of children of lower academic ability. The school is currently working hard on getting kids to revise- generally speaking they engage well in class and behaviour is mostly excellent- but homework and revision is a real problem. The school runs revision sessions both after school and in the holidays but the take up is low and usually the kids who need it least. I think that one of the problems is the school's communication- and I am thinking of offering to try rewriting some of the letters we send out to see if it helps (I'm a governor, by the way, not just a random busy body!) Anyway, I attach the last letter I got as a parent- am I right in thinking that it is a) pretty crap generally and b) pretty incomprehensible and intimidation if you were someone who struggled with literacy or with the idea of school in general. I would love to hear your thoughts

My DD left a school with an old-school head mistress and her letters were boring, formal and long winded, but nothing on this scale, I've read it 3 times and I'm still confused. I would be considered to be highly educated working in management so I understand jargon.

If the demographic is as you state then go with the PP idea of a poster, write it in simple points as if you were talking to a Y7 child, state facts, what, why, when, how. Then provide some desired actions and a point of contact.

The idea of contacting parents weekly and trying to engage with the Y10 going to Y11 pupils over the summer sounds great.

Make it short.
Highlight the revision sessions.
Offer biscuits.

Sorry, I meant 'genuine edible biscuits', not MN s

DS's school send texts with important information. Is that something that might work? Most people are in the habit of reading texts, whereas even a simply worded letter involves a bit more effort.

My attempt would be:

Year 9 and 10 exams

Years 9 and 10 will have exams in school on [dates].

These exams will be good practice for the real GCSEs in year 11. The new GCSE exams have much less coursework than before, so the exams are more important.

Please help them to revise.

Teachers will set some revision for homework.

There will also be revision classes outside school hours [dates], where students can come and get help with anything they find difficult. There will be biscuits!

We get texts to remind us to follow the school on Twitter and Facebook .

As well as texts when there is relevant information on the website eg about your child's year group or subject

We hardly ever get letters, isn't it very expensive to write to everyone ?

I'm a home school link worker in a primary school so I contact parents for a variety of reasons.

My school mobile is my friend! For certain messages, it's better than the school texting service because parents can reply. I also never leave a voicemail because with payg and some other contracts it costs to listen to the message.

Have you got someone - like a home school link worker - who could build up relationships with parents you want to reach? Someone who gets to know the children and their parents outside of the classroom and who can phone and make sure messages are getting through. And even more important, someone who can discuss with parents if there are any barriers to communication and work out ways to get round them.

polter, that post-it note idea is simple but brilliant - I'm definitely going to steal that!

Gosh, yes that is convoluted.

I just looked up the letters from my children's school (both sent by email)

The first is:

Dear Parents,

I am writing to advise you of the school’s examination week for students in years 7 to 10, which will be held during the first week back after the half-term (30th May to 3rd June) holiday. The examination week will run from Monday, 6th to Friday, 10th June 2016.

Please find attached your child’s examination timetable, revision guide and code of conduct. Your child will also be given a hard copy of these documents.

We should be very grateful if you would ensure that your child uses the revision guide and his/her books to revise thoroughly for these examinations. It is extremely important that all students take the school internal examinations very seriously, as they inform staff of students’ levels of attainment, and also give the students very useful experience of being in an examination situation, which is excellent preparation for external examinations.

We wish the students the best of luck.

The second is longer and more formal (its a private school)

Dear Parents,

In June Years 7-10 will be sitting School Examinations. There will be no lessons during the week apart from a Games afternoon on the Wednesday.

For the year 7 pupils this will be the first time they have to face a week of exams and the first time that you will be supporting them through the process. I therefore thought it would be useful to outline some details of the week.

There will be examinations in the following subjects, Mathematics, English, Latin, Modern Language, Music, History, geography and R.S. The mathematics examination will be used as a basis for setting in year 8 along with tests taken during the year. Pupils will sit two papers each day with a revision session on some days.

Academic Departments will be undertaking revision with pupils towards the end of the first half of term. Pupils will be briefed fully on the structure of the examination and what they need to revise. Revision materials are produced by Departments. These vary depending on the subject. Revision booklets are produced by some whilst others post revision material on the school portal.

Form Tutors will be undertaking some sessions on “How to Revise” and planning of revision. They will also be providing guidance on what is needed during the week.

It will be important that pupils have time over the half-term holiday to revise.

The results of the examinations will provide information on how well each pupil is progressing. The emphasis here is how well they have performed in relation to their ability on entering the School. A full written report will be sent home at the end of term which will include comments on examination performance.

If you have any questions about the above please do not hesitate to contact me at School.

I have 2 degrees and a book habit that drains my bank balance an clutters my home. I couldn't motivate myself to read the whole letter (lazy). I agree with previous posters-fewer words, less jargon and YY to the free biscuits. I totally disagree with 'user' who has entirely written the demographic off. It doesn't mean people shouldn't try and engage them.

The fundemental question is why are the parents hard to reach. It could be a range of things:

• poor language/literacy skills, and a resulting embarrassment;
• transport problems. The kids come in by school bus but they can't;
• long working hours, or a culture where women would not be comfortable to attend on their own.
• parents frustration with their own problems controlling their teenagers, so no desire to come into school for a further "telling off".
• low aspirations. They did poorly at school and cannot see their children doing any better;

and so on.

I am no expert but have had some peripheral contact with some inner London schools. Language, literacy and a parental fear of authority can be an issue. Parents often want their children to do well at school, but attending something like a parents evening, is a big step, despite offers of translaters. However I was told that a far bigger problem is three generational unemployment. The parents may be English speakers but often saw school as something to be endured and thus saw little reason to support their children.

I saw a secondary school literacy scheme for pupils and their parents work well. Somehow the dynamic of mainly newly arrived migrant parents supporting their children worked, and the kids made bettter progress when they saw their parents working to address the same issue, but it was probably culturally specific. And a sucessful Social Services-led scheme had schools, housing officers and even local shops identify a core group of about 50 kids who were then discretely targeted for a range of early intervention, and which appeared to prevent at least some from going down the wrong track.

Years ago, I mentored a lovely bright girl, whose parents spoke no English and who had never worked in their 20 years in the UK. They were also severely overcrowded. The school, which was failing, did its best, but there was no way the parents would ever come in, or at least not for a daughter (the son was a different matter ....), indeed they would not even come in to collect her crucial end of Yr 11 school report and mock results, something the school required all parents to do. As I recall the school, which had 93% FSM, had only 27 parents attend a whole school parents evening. The mentoring scheme allowed good pupils acess to wider experience and I suspect my biggest contribution was to pursuade her to start with 4 A levels including maths, rather than three softer subjects including business studies. She soon discovered A level business studies was boring, and that she enjoyed the more challenging maths. I ended up speaking to the Head of Year, when I discovered the girl was working seven days a week in a restaurant to shore up family finances (telling her parents she was "in the library"), to discover that this was known and that the school had been undertaking home visits, I assume to address this and to encourage the family to be more supportive of their daughter's education. Other mentors, supporting similarly able and engaged pupils, encountered a whole range of other issues (mental health issue or drug abuse at home, frequent changes of foster home, etc) nothing a simple letter to parents could solve.

I would identify what your problem is, then look around to see how other schools with a similar intake manage. Link with other agencies to see if they have, perhaps family based, solutions. Then accept the limitations, and see how the school or others can plug gaps.

We had parent meeting recently, 1/3 of parents turned up were foreigners.
1/4 of English parents, I took them along with me. People don't read school letters. They are too busy.
Of 90 parents all together in year group, less than 10 turned up.

Personally I'd go with a big bold heading at the top followed by explanation, with the most important parts of the explanation first, i.e. the parts parents need to know about (revision).

Dear parent/guardian,

PRACTICE EXAMS

Year 9 and Year 10 will be sitting practice exams at the end of this year.

Teachers will be setting revision homework for students, before the practice exams. This will help students learn revision techniques. Please make sure your son or daughter completes this.

The new-style GCSEs have more exams and less coursework than the old GCSEs, so students need to be comfortable with the exam environment. This will help them achieve the best grades they can at GCSE.

Please make sure your child has everything they need for these exams.

Thank you,

Ms. Blah Blah