The Parent & Pupil Guarantees

Hi fellow Exchangers,

I've been looking at the Parent Guarantee (the Appendix in the document 21st Century Schools: A world-class education for every child.) I'm wondering what other people think about this document. It seems a very 'aspirational' document to me - and it seems very general. I'm wondering if it should articulate more clearly and more specifically, a guarantee that parents who need intensive, focused support from parent advisers (for example) or from outreach services, receive it?

Also, this is a little worrying. I don’t see the words ‘sustainable’ or ‘affordable’ (in relation to extended services) anywhere in the parent guarantee – so where does that leave parents on low incomes, or those whose children have school dinners, or parents who are unemployed. Will the disadvantage subsidy be enough to ensure that these parents and their children have access to the full range of extended services they need, that their children have access to opportunities that will really enrich their lives or to the services they need at the crucial points where intervention will make a difference?

Also, what about there needing to be a specific mention in the document that lone parents, parents not in employment or parents on very low incomes, who are the ones who find it most difficult to ‘co-pay’ for extra activities for their children, should be guaranteed access to programmes and activities free of charge. The disadvantage subsidy is meant to help with this, but are the schools that have high numbers of parents in this category perhaps finding that their parents can’t help pay for activities?  Are parents who take up the working tax credit using it to pay for such activities? Is there any evidence that they are?  In areas like Westminster and Tower Hamlets, for example, the take-up of the working tax credit is low – and there are big pockets of deprivation in those boroughs – so, when the chips are down, how can schools ask parents who are under severe financial duress to use that tax credit to help pay for activities, when it might be that the parents are directing it towards more urgent needs?

Similarly – what are people’s thoughts about the pupil guarantee? Perhaps schools should rewrite the guarantee documents - and make them more inclusive? What do other people think?