I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the Focus Groups that will inform  the National Parents Survey being conducted by the Australian government later in the year.  There is no question that parents are passionately concerned about their children’s education, and that they have great respect for the work that teachers do. Every Focus Group has been quick to insist that teachers’ jobs are challenging, and that the variety of demands and levels of expectation placed upon them are considerable.  There is a general sense that schools are increasingly required to take on more and more responsibility for all aspects of young people’s developmental, social and emotional needs – and that this is serious and demanding work.

I have been struck by the consistency of the priority that parents put on teachers’ capacity to relate to, deal fairly with, and communicate with their child as an individual. Parents continually highlight a set of attributes that they regard as the essential characteristics of a good teacher – someone who is passionate about their work, who loves young people, who attends to students’ individual needs and abilities, who communicates effectively, and who is fair. All parents want their children to emerge from school as people who are tolerant, who communicate well, are resilient, and will flourish in whatever their chosen path might be.

Parents take for granted that a good teacher knows their subject area well, and are perplexed when they hear that teachers are assigned to teach in subjects that are not their specialty. A fairly common theme is a concern that teachers’ attention is often disproprotionately consumed by  a  small handful of disruptive or disengaged students, thereby depriving the bulk of the class of what they need. Parents have great sympathy for teachers having to struggle to manage class room behaviour instead of focusing on the teaching and learning that’s required. There have been frequent references to the need for more school counsellors and teaching assistants to enable teachers to carry out their prime educational function.

Parents seem also very attuned to the issue of under-resourcing in schools. The broad message is : education matters very much, so give our schools the  funds, the personnel and the teaching support that they need to ensure all students emerge well prepared for their entry to adulthood.