The government will today promise every pupil a dedicated tutor to support them through their secondary schooling and act as a personal contact point for parents who are worried about their child’s progress.

Pupils will be assigned one member of the school staff to act as behaviour mentor and to meet their parents, to allow swift action should their grades begin to slide.

Parent-run school councils and a national parent panel to advise ministers on policy will be established under plans that ministers said should redraw the boundaries between home and school for the 21st century.

The children’s secretary, Ed Balls, will put parents at the heart of a 10-year children’s plan to improve children’s education and happiness in response to research which suggests their prospects are hampered more by their home environment than their schooling. (…)

The 170-page report covers every aspect of children’s lives from obesity to how they learn to read. With several main points already released to the press, including the extension of free nursery care to two-year-olds and an overhaul of the national curriculum, schools are bracing themselves for a wave of reforms. (…)

Teachers will be asked to keep regular email contact with parents to inform them of their child’s progress instead of annual parent meetings and report cards. Secure websites could be set up for parents to log into to check whether their child was registered at school each day.

Parents’ councils will give parents an option to advise on the running of their children’s schools, and the plans will include a new system for schools to handle complaints from parents.

Ministers are also keen to expand the “red book” system by which parents are given a progress book for their newborn babies which marks their progress to the age of five and keeps a documentation of their vaccinations, weight and growth. The book would become a file which parents keep through their schooling and would include academic and sporting records. (…)

Source: Guardian Unlimited, UK
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/publicservices/story/0,,2225573,00.html