All school pupils to get a behaviour mentor

The Guardian | Dec. 11, 2007

By Polly Curtis

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.

He will order new guidance to advise on mergers between schools, libraries, sports centres, police stations and health centres to try to rebuild communities.

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.

Headteacher and teacher representatives, government advisers and school organisations were briefed on the plans last week.

The government is under pressure to come up with a strong vision for its children's policy after negative stories about its handling of the lost child databases, as well as the Northern Rock crisis and the political funding scandal.

To try to ease the transition from primary to secondary school, the government will promise that every parent will receive a phone call from a member of staff at their child's secondary school before their first day, and they will be invited to information sessions.

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.

Amid evidence that children from the poorest backgrounds are struggling to catch up academically with their wealthier classmates, and that their parents are the least engaged in their education, ministers want schools to help piece together a community of support for families.

In the next 10 years, ministers want mental health facilities, parenting support classes and housing and benefit advice centres to be located nearby, with the school at the centre.

All new school-building projects should consider bringing in other services for families on to the same site ranging from police stations to clinics and sports halls.

Partnerships 4 Schools, the body responsible for implementing the government's massive school-building programme, will be issued new guidance on collocating other children's services with schools. Last night Tim Byles, its chief executive, said some new schools were already doing so.

Byles said: "This is about joined-up government on the ground. Reflecting the way that people live their lives, new ... schools are becoming hubs for the local communities they serve."

However, headteachers warned that they cannot be held responsible for solving other social ills.

John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "Schools and colleges accept - and indeed welcome - their responsibility for the wider development of the child, but they must be allowed to focus on their key purpose of providing quality education.

"There has been a tendency when policy has been drawn up to use the levers most easily available, and too often this has been schools and colleges. The must not be allowed to happen with the implementation of the children's plan."