Every Parent Matters

By Alistair Owens keen2learn

The best people to manage a situation are those on the ground, at the sharp end of operations. Teachers are therefore eminently more able to use their operational skill and judgement to maximise school performance than a remote theorist.

The National Curriculum has been played around with for all of its 22 years existence. Results published in April 2009 show we are failing badly in the educational standards at primary level in maths and English; the essential bedrock that influences attainment in secondary education. Although the rate of improvement in numeracy and literacy shows a marginal improvement over last year the rate of improvement is slowing. The numbers being left behind are massive. Can we continue to fail 160,000 11 year olds – a quarter of the total are still missing the target?

Teachers are locked into targets that see some of the brighter students abandoned in favour of addressing the needs of the struggling children. Hardly an altruistic move when the motivation is primarily the need to move the overall numbers up.

We are in the midst of a national financial crisis that bears similar markers. Although the jury is still out, the economic collapse was heavily influenced by government policy to get banks to invest in social markets and areas of risk to improve performance. The judgment of the banks became clouded by people in high places who knew little about the operations at the sharp end. Stressed bankers took risks in order to meet targets. Incentivised by greed the odds were too high and beyond the expertise of many individuals. The resultant spectacle of the banks and the system as we know imploding did little to instil confidence in the hierarchy.

Are we seeing the corollary in our education policy? The fun has gone out of schooling, SAT’s and GCSE milestones, the measure of educational standard, have burdened the “Best years of their life” designed to nourish a lifelong quest for learning. Yet some success stories are around.  A top performing school in Bradford broke free and introduced “brain breaks.” A combination of fun and exercise to encourage learning has been a great success. The teaching resources are there they just need to be released. Let the profession responsible for the results use their skill and judgement to achieve success.

Children who see education as a fun activity thrive. Putting fun learning back into the schooling process is not taking some easy route. Managing the process needs skill and energy, but the results can be extremely rewarding. There is another hidden asset. Engaging parents in the process at home is vastly easier with educational games than conventional exercises.

Homework in this form can also be seen as enjoyable and as children spend 85% of their waking time outside school could capture a huge and predominately untapped resource. The homework process seeks to get children to practise the lesson content. This improves learning retention and gives children the experience of working without the teacher around, an essential feature when considering SAT’s and GCSE exams.

The choice between a tedious text book exercise for homework or an educational game played with family or friends… humm let me think.