§ Mr. George HowarthTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will make a statement on the role parents of school age children can play in helping improve children's academic performance at home. [62858]
§ Mr. Stephen TwiggParents have an important role to play in supporting their children's learning at home to improve their academic performance. At a general level, for example, parents can discuss the school day with their child so they can praise and encourage them for good results and help them through any academic or other problems they might have. Parents can provide support with homework set by the school where it is appropriate; indeed our national homework guidelines for schools, published in 1998, emphasise, among other things, that schools should ensure they work closely with parents and ensure that they are given guidance about how best to help their children. A survey my Department published this April found that 76 per cent. of parents believe helping their children with homework is extremely important.
A great deal of work has been carried out by my Department to help parents become more involved, based on the strategy for involving parents which was first described in the 1997 White Paper "Excellence in Schools". This strategy comprised three strands: providing information to parents, giving parents a more effective voice, and encouraging families to learn together. Resources which have been produced for parents as part of this strategy include the Parents' Centre website, the Learning Journey parents' guides to the curriculum, and the "Parents + Schools" magazine, as well as several hints and tips booklets produced as part of publicity campaigns including the National Year of Reading, Maths Year 2000, and the Dads and Sons campaign.
Of course there are also many specific activities that parents can carry out: for younger children, reading with them and to them, playing number games or helping them with spellings; for older children, giving advice on how to organise their time, giving them support with using the internet, and encouraging children to engage in activities of general educational benefit, such as reading, and visiting museums and galleries. Underlying all these and many other activities is the idea that parents have a responsibility to show children that they believe in the value of education and learning, both for their own sake and as a means to achieving greater success in later life.