Memorandum submitted by Parentline Plus
Parentline Plus, part of the Family Lives Group,
is the leading provider of family and parenting support in England.
We work with over 700,000 families a year to improve the lives
of around one million children. One of our services is a free
24 hour helpline. 27% of the calls to that helpline over the last
two years were from families seeking advice on how to manage their
child's behaviour.
We welcome this timely inquiry, at a point where
new policies aimed at improving pupil behaviour are being considered
and announced. We consider good pupil behaviour, including regular
and timely attendance at school, to be a central component of
academic attainment. We believe that a child's family play a vital
role in children's behaviour, and where behaviour is a problem,
supporting a family to change their child's behaviour can be extremely
effective. Conversely, if a family is undermining the discipline
delivered in school then a child can be receiving mixed messages
about the correct way to behave and they will be likely to become
more disruptive, or their attendance may worsen.
Parentline Plus has been working in collaboration
with the Teacher Support Network over the past year to understand
the dynamic between teachers and families, where this relationship
can experience strain and how best to enable schools and families
to work together and achieve the best for children. In 2009 the
two organisations published a report Beyond the School Gate
which looked at surveys of our respective service users, case
studies and existing research evidence and drew a number of conclusions
about barriers that prevent families from engaging with their
child's school.
Our report found that a parent's own experience
of the education system can affect their ability and desire to
work with their child's school. For some parents, a feeling that
the education system did not work for them leads to them placing
less emphasis on the importance of getting a good education. This
may make them less likely to instil their child with the necessary
motivation and incentive to stay in school, behave well and learn.
For many of the parents we have worked with, the school environment
remains for them an alien and intimidating one, leaving them feeling
anxious and panic stricken during dealings with teachers and school
staff. We have heard from parents who have described being unable
to take in what they are being told about their child's behaviour
because of the anxiety they feel in the school environment.
One of the main difficulties in the home which
can affect a child's behaviour in school can be a chaotic or disordered
home environment—for example if a family is going through
a difficult relationship breakdown, perhaps including conflict
and animosity, this may be played out in the child's behaviour.
In some cases, the impact of family breakdown on behaviour may
be short term and in other cases the impact has been shown to
be longer term.
There are other family circumstances which may
be more entrenched difficulties that affect a child's behaviour.
Parents may have mental health difficulties, drug and alcohol
addictions or other factors which may inhibit a family from providing
a stable home with a routine including nourishing food and sufficient
sleep. This is likely to impact on a child's behaviour both inside
and outside of the classroom.
The families described above may have varying
levels of need. Obviously, schools and teachers cannot be expected
to meet those needs, as they may require a number of specialist
interventions. Our experience of working in schools has shown
that having a non-statutory body such as Parentline Plus working
with the family to help improve the child's behaviour and act
as a link with the school, helping the family to identify solutions
with the school that will work for the child.
Communication between a school and a child's
family is key, particularly where behaviour is unacceptable. In
a survey of parents conducted on Parentline Plus' website in October
2009, 62% of parents reported that they had felt patronised, sidelined
or ignored when trying to deal with an issue in their child's
school. Many parents felt that they only heard from their child's
school when something was wrong. Many others felt that there was
a lack of clarity in the communications, for example they would
get a text message with a piece of information but no indication
of what action was needed from the family. In some cases, technology
had caused problems with inaccurate text messages or emails being
generated saying that a child had been in trouble at school when
in fact they had not. This undermined the discipline and made
communications between school and home more difficult.
It is essential that communication between schools
and families is got right. Our survey also showed that in some
cases parents had what teacher's considered to be unrealistic
expectations about frequency of communication and having a named
contact at the school with an email address. In some schools,
this would mean teachers spending so much time communicating with
families that no time would be left to teach the children. There
were, however, many examples of good practice with schools using
the school environment to make parents feel included, for example
having a family room where parents could drop in for coffee and
meet each other, a regular slot where parents could talk informally
to the headteacher, or having a parent support worker as a named
contact that all the families in the school community could work
with.
The Committee would be very welcome to visit
Parentline Plus' project in Hertfordshire which is part of a pilot
bullying project funded by the Department for Education and due
to finish in March 2011. The project uses our method for supporting
families, primarily using a number of skills that help parents
to listen to their child and understand how they are feeling,
combined with emotional support, information and advice, delivered
by a parent support worker. The support worker also delivers training
for all school staff on how to work effectively with families
and acts as a liaison between the school and families where necessary.
The project has been very successful and the
parents are powerful advocates who, having turned their own situation
around are working within the school to help others. For many
of the parents we worked with, the most significant issue preventing
them from tackling their child's behaviour, despite warnings from
a school, was that they simply had no idea what to do, what to
try next and how to help their child to change their behaviour.
One of the parents on the project described
her situation:
"I am 33 years old and have been a nurse*
for 12 years. I am married to Nick, he is an engineer and we have
lived together for ten years. We have two children together, Mark
seven years and Rachel four years. Life has been good for us,
I have always considered us a well grounded family from good backgrounds.
Together we have worked hard to build a nice home and provide
for our two children who we love dearly.
I'll be honest, I used to have quite an arrogant
attitude towards varying conditions in children, such as ADHD,
and would wrongly assume that the condition was down to bad parenting
and lack of discipline and control. How wrong could I have been?
I suppose it has taken me time to acknowledge the fact that Mark
has this condition, or maybe my own personal attitude towards
it, but thank goodness I took the decision to contact Parentline.
Mark was always a demanding child from the moment
he was born, I just accepted this as the `norm' and thought that
all children were like this. As Mark has grown up I have found
his behaviour becoming all the more challenging, especially coming
into year 2 at school.
To be fair to Mark's school, they have been extremely
supportive with varying learning support plans and reward schemes
over the last two years. The school has made comment that Mark
is very bright and does not struggle academically. During the
past six months Mark has become more frustrated in himself and
has been struggling to cope with going to school. I had seen my
beautiful, vibrant little boy just falling to pieces in front
of me and it was breaking my heart.
One of the parents at the school suggested that
I speak to Sara from Parentline. I contacted Sara through the
school and arranged a series of one to one sessions with her.
These were a course of six sessions lasting one hour each. I wouldn't
want to sound clich
, but I can honestly say that I have never looked
back…Every aspect of the way I now interact with Mark has
totally changed. It was never a case of what I was doing wrong,
but to introduce new ways of actually listening and speaking to
him.
We were at the point a few months ago where it
was inevitable that Mark would be excluded from school. After
following advice from Sara I have managed to get Mark back on
the right track. ... I have my beautiful little boy back. He is
not in danger of being excluded and most importantly he is doing
well at school and is happy."
*details have been changed for anonymity
RECOMMENDATIONS
Every school should have adequate access to
a visible parent support worker who is trained to deal with a
spectrum of family and emotional issues and whose role and remit
is fully understood by the whole school community.
Communications from the school to a child's
family should detail how parents can help their child's education
in the home. Teachers must be given adequate time to undertake
this work.
October 2010
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