Secondary schools have been accused of being “very insular”, after a new survey highlighted the yawning gap between how well primaries and secondaries engage with their students’ parents.

More than one in 10 secondary parents (11 per cent) report they have not attended a one-to-one meeting with a teacher in the past year, the figures show, compared with just 3 per cent of parents with a child at primary.

Just 25 per cent of secondary parents had attended open sessions or afternoons in their child’s school, as compared with 61 per cent of primary parents. And when it came to events like concerts, plays and sports days, 96 per cent of primary parents reported they had attended - against only 73 per cent of secondary parents.

Failure to capitalise

Joanna Murphy, chair of the National Parent Forum of Scotland (NPFS), which carried out the research, said it showed how “insular” secondaries had become, and that they were “failing to capitalise” on parents.

However, one secondary headteacher who goes to great lengths to engage parents - even running a “bring your parent to school day” - argued that as pupils progress beyond S1 they become increasingly reluctant to see their parents in school (see “Back to school” box, below).

The survey asked parents about eight different ways in which they were engaging in school life, with primary coming out on top in six categories (see graphic, below).

The research was conducted by Ipsos Mori on behalf of the NPFS, which is reviewing the impact of parental involvement in schools on behalf of the government.

‘Something has to shift’

Commenting on the findings, Ms Murphy acknowledged that engaging with parents is more challenging at secondary. Pupils have a number of teachers and are more mature, resulting in less direct contact with parents who are no longer dropping their children off at the school gate.

But she continued: “I don’t think secondaries knock themselves out to engage parents or buy into it as much [as primaries]. For us to get parental involvement working at a higher level, something has to shift and it has to come from schools - parents can’t invite themselves in. It’s much easier now because of social media.”

‘We have to make sure young people are capable of self-support’

Ms Murphy added: “You are almost encouraged as a parent, once your child reaches S1, not to be involved any more - albeit indirectly. Secondary schools are very insular. They do not capitalise enough on the interest that parents have.”

Jim Thewliss, the head of secondary headteachers’ organisation School Leaders Scotland, said: “The key word here is proportionate. We have to make sure that young people are able to develop their resilience and are also capable of self-support. When pupils get to S4, S5, S6, it’s only a short period of time before they are going to be off out there in the world and surviving to a great degree on their own resources. Proportionality might mean the level of [parental] engagement, in the natural way of things, drops off but parents should always be confident that they can contact the school and get an appropriate response.”

@Emma_Seith