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Opinion

How much should parents get involved in kids’ education? I’m

expert, and a dad, and even I’m confused
Lee Elliot Major

New research suggests extra activities and help

with homework have little effect but the
question is more complicated than it at first
appears
Lee Elliott Major is the UK’s first professor of
social mobility
Fri 14 Apr 2023 00.25 AEST
N
othing prepares you for the educational rollercoaster ride of parenthood. I’ve digested thousands of
studies and advised teachers across the world. Yet after two decades of being a dad I’m still unsure o
best for our children.

Like most parents, we’ve been through it all: stressful Sundays filling in the blanks of our childre
records; evenings spent urging them to complete their homework; paying subs for a junior footb
over several seasons never managed to win a single game.

Lee Elliot
Major

Parents seem to be spending more time and money on education activities, endlessly ferrying their children t
and sports training; frog-marching them to visits of museums and galleries; taking holidays to enrich them in
cultures and enhance their personal CVs. Yet despite mounting pressures, there is little advice to guide parent
important when it comes to education.

The latest research only adds to our confusion. A new study suggests that helping children with their maths o
them outside school has hardly any impact at all. More categorically, it finds that playing music or sports with
does nothing for their performance at school. As with many such studies, it is answering the wrong exam que

A parent’s own circumstances have a profound impact on children’s prospects. Children with non-graduate pa
less likely to grow up in two-parent homes and family-owned homes than children with graduate parents. Chi
richest households, meanwhile, are twice as likely to benefit from private tutoring than children from the poo
households.

In my research, I have found that simple habits in the home can make life-defining differences. Sitting down w
a child each day just for 20 minutes, for example, can transform their learning. Regular routines (meal, bath, b
as well as making children school-ready (ensuring they get enough food and sleep to learn). If you want to hel
with their revision, then quiz them: it’s the most effective technique for remembering things.

Arts and sports also have huge educational value in themselves. They help to improve confidence, self-esteem
as well as social and leadership skills. It’s paramount that parents promote them, given an increasingly emacia
curriculum is squeezing out music, art and sport. In my view, children should devote as much time to art and
academic study.

The problem is the widening divide between parents who are able to support their children’s e
outside school, and those who are not. This chasm has long existed, but the Covid pandemic has exacerbated
century parenting gap. In the wake of school closures, surveys found that some parents were increasingly eng
children’s learning; while others were not. In an increasingly polarised world outside schools, the work of Am
sociologist Annette Lareau seems ever more relevant. Lareau characterised the sharp-elbowed activities of mi
parents as “concerted cultivation”, involving their children in structured cultural activities and discussions ov
table. In contrast, working-class parents practised “natural growth parenting” – a hands-off approach to schoo

As any teacher will tell you these are generalisations: parental styles vary among parents of all social classes. B
be wary of slipping into a deficit mindset, blaming parents for not keeping up with the Joneses on all these ex
efforts. When parents are juggling several precarious jobs to pay the bills, or have limited knowledge of how th
system works, they may not have the time or resources to support their children in the most beneficial ways.
post – pandemic era, even the basic rights for children – adequate food, heating, clothing, the ability to travel t
the space for study – have been eroded.

What is critical to understand if we are to tackle education disparities is that Lareau’s “cultivated” children are
succeed in school environments, and encouraged to seek feedback from their teacher if they don’t understand
Other children lose out.

In my work with school leaders we explore ways of forming non-hierarchical, mutually respective relationshi
parents. All schools should publish parent partnership plans, made available to the whole school community,
demonstrate what schools are doing to empower all parents to help develop habits in the home learning envir
“parent promise” would be a win-win strategy for teachers, as children would be more likely to attend school
prepared to learn in classrooms. Teachers should also be given guidance on how to work with parents.

Until we bridge this divide, I’m afraid that for many parents one of our most important jobs will remain a hit a
Education is much more than academic grades.

Lee Elliott Major is the UK’s first professor of social mobility, based at Exeter University

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