Talking to Your Child’s Secondary School 

Having a good relationship with your child’s secondary school can help your child get the right support. As a parent, you have a lot to offer. You know your child best and can help everyone understand your child better. School staff can share how your child responds to rules and expectations in school, as well as informing you about their academic progress.

You and your child’s schools can be a powerful team. However, in secondary schools and further education settings, there may be fewer opportunities you to have conversations with school staff.

Some of the barriers to building a relationship with your child’s school could be:

• Secondary schools tend to be larger than primary schools, which makes it harder for each teacher to get to know each pupil, at least for the first few weeks of a new term.

• Not only do pupils have different teachers for each subject and sometimes more than one teacher for the same subject, they also have a form tutor responsible for pastoral support.

• As your child grows, they may walk to school, so it’s less likely that you are dropping them off and picking them up from the gates.

• Your child may be less keen for you to come into school and get to know their teachers.

Building up a good relationship with school is likely to be harder in secondary schools than in primary schools, but the need to build positive relationships remains just as important.

Here are a few tips to help keep conversations positive and supportive with your child’s school.

 Start talking to school early

Communicate with your child’s teacher early on and throughout the school year. Ask them about the best ways to communicate. This could be as simple as leaving a voice message for the teacher to call you back, emailing them directly, or other methods that work for both of you.

The best kind of communication is open, clear, and constructive. Talk about any problems or worries you have and focus on the solutions the school can help with. Find out more about ways to support your child if they are being bullied at school.