parent forums - Doubled Up

When I started this marathon job of summarising the governors' statutory responsibilities, I felt a bit guilty that I have been a governor for two years and hadn't actually read the Guide to the Law. Now, six hours plus later, and only three quarters of the way through, I am guessing that most governors haven't read it, but just refer to it when necessary. That said, I have found two or three areas that our GB needs to brush up on (for example a couple of policies that are not on the website, so nothing major), and I have been reminded about parent councils - something that I have blogged on before and think would be valuable to our school.

Anyway, if it can save other governors time, here is part 5, with part 6 (hopefully the final part) to come tomorrow.

18) Equal Opportunities: Governors must ensure that the school acts with fairness and with regard to equality in everything it does. This is with regard to all of the following:

• race
• disability
• sex
• sexual orientation
• religion or belief
• age (in relation to employment)

Schools must have a written policy on race equality. This must be assessed and monitored with regard to its impact on the attainment of different racial groups of pupils. This policy can be combined with other policies, such as an equal opportunities policy.

All racist incidents that take place in the school must be reported to the LA.

Schools must have a disability equality scheme. This must show how the school is aiming to improve access for disabled pupils, staff and parents over time.

19) Parent Councils: In schools where a trust appoints the majority of governors, there must be a parent council made up from parents of children at the school (although it is permissible to have people who are not parents on the council). If possible, this must have members from each year group, each group of pupils who might require special consideration and parent-governors.

Non trust schools can also have parent councils, though this is not statutory. (I’m guessing that it will become so in the not-so-distant future.)

I’ve been a bit slow catching up with this topic, but it is one that is close to my heart and I find myself agreeing with education minister Jim Knight (that in itself is quite a feat).

Last week, Mr Knight gave a talk to academy school leaders and in it he stressed the important role that parents have in their children’s academic success. He spoke of the fact that parents pass on their own “negative attitudes to education" to their children and that these attitudes have, in turn, been passed down by the grandparents. As a result, generations of children are being told that there is no point in trying to succeed at school.

He pointed out that the worst problem for this is in the poorest areas, but that there are cases in which work prevents parents from helping their children succeed. He wants a focus of education to be on the parents and to help raise their aspirations for their own children. "In some of the most challenging areas, negative attitudes to education have been fostered over generations, and passed down to children at school today," he said.

I find this really interesting – I have wanted to set up a parents’ forum in our school in which parents have somewhere where they can discuss their children’s education and where they can express their opinions about the school and make suggestions for improvement. I would then like to develop this into a means of discussing how to help your child succeed socially and academically, and to include parenting discussions. I think that it could be really successful and could help links between parents and the school (which are good already, but there is always room for improvement). For me, the issue is time. I don’t have it at the moment, and I know that with these things it is no good as a governor just having the idea, but that you have to be prepared to put your money (or at least your time) where your mouth is.

I am back on my soap box about parenting following a hideous trip to the supermarket on Sunday.  I try to avoid supermarkets at the best of times and find that the weekend isfar from the best of times. Unfortunately, even I have to admit that growing children (and husbands!) need feeding from time to time and that half a pack of green lentils that went out of date in July 2006 doesn't really do te trick.

Anyway, as I was leaving our out of tow Tesco store I heard a man bellow; "Well, if you did as you were bloody well told, you wouldn't get into trouble." I turned to see a very large man and a very small two (ish) year old. He then stood her between two parked cars and yelled "Now don't move." Of course she did, and she ran around the front of the car, straight into her mother, I presume, he gave her an almighty wallop on the backside. I heard it from my car which was about ten meters away.

Now, I was too scared of this guy to approach and say what I thought - I am, however, still feeling guilty about that - so ~I wonder what was going through the poor child's mind. I also wonder what sort of pupil she will be when she reaches school age and I am again beginning to think about how much quality parenting classes through schools could help young people of the future. 

I appreciate that it may not be easy to introduce - how do you get parents to come? They won't even come to parents' evenings. Who will run it? Who will pay for it? etc etc.

What i wondered was whether any schools already offer something (maybe just to teen parents, or to anyone who wants to come, or do they invite parents of children who are showing challenging behaviour?). What are their experiences?