Gaining access

Working parents may feel they are excluded from the life of their child's school, says Gayle Goshorn

Family-friendly is a term mostly associated with employers, but how family-friendly are schools, which come into contact with more than one member of a family?

 As companies begin to recognise that employees are parents, are schools recognising that parents are employees?

And as the Government sings the praises of getting all parents out to work, how does this chime with its other mantra about education?

Working parents may feel as excluded from involvement in their children's schooling as the unemployed parents in deprived areas at whom most of today's outreach programmes seem to be aimed. The frantic mother who shoves child, lunchbox and homework towards the school door with one eye on the clock and the other on her train timetable may envy the parents who can stand around the gates socialising with each other and chatting with their child's teacher, while she mutters excuses about why she can't help with library duties this week, bake cakes or make up the ratios for the class outing. Those fortunate enough to have full-time jobs may be the first to be stereotyped as 'pushy parents', while actually they are painfully aware of not pulling their weight.

What working parents really want is more than out-of-school childcare. Anne Longfield, director of the Kids' Clubs Network, thinks the statutory home-school agreement would be a good place to start - after all, it is supposed to be a two-way contract.