82% OF PARENTS LEFT ‘IN THE DARK’ WHEN IT COMES TO THEIR CHILD’S SCHOOLING

The majority of parents admit they don’t know as much about their child’s day at school as they would like, according to a new Oh, Nothing Much report commissioned by Becta, the government agency for technology in learning, to support its Next Generation Learning campaign.

The survey of 1,000 children aged between seven and 14 years and 1,000 parents, reveals that 43% of parents admit they find it either difficult or very difficult to extract information from their child about their day at school.

Other key findings of the report include:
• A third of parents feel excluded by their children
• Only 16% of children proactively talk about school day
• Children admit they want to keep ‘hassling’ parents away from school life
• 82% of parents want schools to keep them better informed

Parents are not alone in facing this communication challenge: almost half of children (44%) don’t like sharing information with their parents they like to keep their school day private, and over a third (37%) of children say they find it quite or very difficult to speak to their parents about their education.

Tanya Byron, child psychologist, has been commissioned by Becta to explore the issue further and offer simple, practical solutions to help improve and enhance communications between parents, children and schools using technology in addition to more traditional methods.
According to Professor Byron, this inability or unwillingness for parent and child to communicate might have implications which will hamper a child’s progress, creating stress between the parent-child relationship and creating tension between parent and school as the packed school itinerary gets ‘lost in translation’.

For over ten years, Becta has been leading the national drive to ensure the effective and innovative use of technology throughout learning. The benefits of technology in schools are two-fold: making lessons and learning more enjoyable and successful, whilst also keeping parents better informed and involved with their child’s learning.

Becta’s Next Generation Learning campaign is urging parents to talk to their child’s school to find out how technology is already being used, and also discuss ways it can help improve day-to-day communications between them and the school in the future.

Click this link for more information on Next Generation Learning, or contact Laurence Borel at Shiny Red:

laurence.borel@shinyred.co.uk/ 0207 520 9537