With the modern teaching resources developed for the classroom over the past five years now available for home use, now is the time for teachers to enlist the huge and largely untapped practical resource available from parents at home.

Advances in the teaching programme have been partially negated by changes in family circumstances and social attitudes. The consequences are deeply troubling. We have a situation where the revered position of Head Teacher is no longer recognised as the historic font of knowledge and arbiter of discipline, but has morphed into an operations director. The teaching emphasis interrupted by the need to balance budgets, ever more demanding performance criteria and change management.

Committed to curriculum policies that can also stifle teaching freedom and beset by cultural changes in family life that impact on a portion of pupils, it is no wonder the teaching profession is suffering from increasing levels of stress. Around 130 schools are operating without a head; some vacant for over a year. More alarmingly 34% of Heads at the UK’s schools plan to retire in the next five years, and 80% of deputy Heads, the accredited route to succession have indicated no interest in taking the next stage of promotion. Such obvious concerns at the top inevitably impact on the teaching staff generally, revealed in the significant turnover of teachers and the outstanding 2,300 vacancies.

Not unsurprisingly an average teacher’s working week of 60-70 hours results in a high proportion of unrest influencing many newly qualified teachers to leave the profession within three years. Sickness amongst the 435,000 teachers in the UK runs at an extraordinary level, with 300,700 taking an average of 9 days sick leave per annum.

It would be improbable that issues in staff continuity, external social effects, frequent changes in policy and curriculum have not taken their toll in staff and pupil performance. Can this situation change in the short term? The complexity of the educational system will probably see another generation of children pass through school before any real change can be made. In the meantime global market forces are impacting on all areas of employment that face our children.

Pivotal in any improvement would be a reduction in the stress level at school and renewed focus on teaching rather than social care. This would take time to emerge, but there is a highly practical way a teacher can engage parents to help in the schooling process with an immediate effect. Surveys show teachers are keen for parents to take an active role in reinforcing classroom lessons at home. Technological and educational developments in classroom teaching resources have resulted in learning games that can equally be used at home. Incorporating an essential element of fun they are designed to stimulate, engage and reinforce. This positive encouragement between parent and child is infinitely more productive than the manipulation of conventional homework.

Research shows 75% of learning retention comes from practice, a difficult function in a class of 30 pupils, but ideal on 1:1 basis at home. Guided by the teacher, parents can interact with the lesson content at their child’s individual pace. Building confidence, competence and the speed vital in exams the process has been shown to improve a child’s performance in school by up to 25%.

Education Secretary Alan Johnson is urging the greater involvement of parents in the schooling process. Working with the teacher this pro-active parental involvement is clearly highly beneficial for the child, teacher and school. More importantly it is independent of any national policy or resource changes that would take considerable time to achieve.

Alistair Owens is Managing Director of www.keen2learn.co.uk an Intel award winning website devoted to an extensive range of game based learning resources used in schools available for parents to use at home to practice the classroom lesson with their children. Products are matched to all key Stages of the National Curriculum along with a wealth of support information.

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