Parents told to get more involved

A campaign aimed at getting mothers and fathers more involved in their children's schooling has been launched by Scotland's education minister.

Peter Peacock is asking parents to make sure that their children get enough sleep and turn up to school on time.

He also wants them to ensure homework is done and that there is no bad behaviour in class.

But Eleanor Coner, of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council, accused the minister of "patronising" parents.

Most parents were doing those things already and that it was the teacher's job to teach, she said.

"The Executive still has a problem with realising exactly what parental involvement is," she went on.

"They're being rather patronising by saying 'go to the supermarket and talk to your child about how much change you've got'.

"Parents are already doing that. What parents see as parental involvement is access to the school and access to teachers.

"Where parental involvement works is where schools have an open door policy, where parents feel they can come and see teaching and the head teacher and be spoken to as an equal and not as a lower life form, which quite frankly a lot of head teachers see parents as."

Link to the BBC article.