The Parent-Teacher Accord

'When I was younger, if a pupil was in trouble with their teacher, they were in trouble with their parents too. It is not always the case today, but it should be.'

Tony Blair, 2004

'I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.'

Alexander of Macedon

For schools to do their job, there needs to exist between teachers and parents an accord based on trust, confidence and the pursuit of a common purpose, usually that of providing the very best education possible for their children. This is not always easy to achieve in these days of health and safety, blame and litigation, and yet it is more important than ever that parents and teachers support each other both in and out of the classroom. It is only through such inter-dependence that children receive what they most need - clear and unambiguous expectations, a consistency of message and firm guidelines to live and learn by.

Teachers and parents, naturally, will not agree all of the time, but by singing from the same song-sheet, children will come to recognise a unity of purpose and ambition. Occasionally, children will get into trouble by making wrong choices, perhaps even without meaning to, but they need to learn that everyone can make a mistake and that by learning to accept the consequences of their own actions and those of others, they develop character and acquire wisdom. In such situations, it is important for parents and teachers to stand side by side and not waver as children navigate some of the more difficult moments of growing up.

This union of adult minds is especially crucial when parents have to deal with the machinations of early adolescence when children quote the liberal social contracts their friends allegedly negotiated with their parents in order to stretch their own freedoms. Needless to say, under cross-examination (and assuming the response is firm but fair), spurious claims dissolve and children who were once hell-bent on testing the waters become happy to accept the status quo. No parent thanks another parent who has decided it is easier to appease their own child's unreasonable demands by giving in, thereby blurring the message they are giving both to their own child and to his or her peers. Just as schools and parents need to work together, so do parents need to work with other parents, for there are few things that determine the well-being and development of any child more than the collective standards and attitudes of his or her year group and the values of the community in which they are brought up.

Peter Tait, Headmaster

December 2011