Dr Trisha Waters describes an intervention which helped to engage Owen’s mother in his learning, turned around her attitude to the school and reduced his exclusion from school.
Eight-year old Owen was frequently excluded from school because of challenging behaviour that included running out of class, violent outbursts and, in particular, physically attacking other children. He was an articulate boy but his literacy was poor with his reading at just level 1. He was described as the most troubled pupil in the school.
He had been taken into care for two years when he was 4 years old but was now back living with his mother. His behaviour and history indicated a child with attachment anxiety. Owen’s mother had a poor relationship with the school and rarely turned up for parent evenings or other scheduled school meetings.
Parental involvement
Research by Desforges and Abouchaar in 2003 showed that the quality of the child-parent relationship affects not just the child’s general wellbeing but their actual educational achievement in school. In fact, right up to the age of 11 years, parents continue to have more influence on their child’s academic achievement than anything the school does, including the curriculum, peer group, environment, and the quality of teaching. This piece of seminal research, commissioned by the Department for Education, resulted in a huge shift towards more focus on parent partnership in schools.
However, parents of pupils at risk of exclusion are often the hardest group to engage in school partnership. This may be due to factors such as defensiveness engendered by having to continually come up to the school to hear about their child’s poor behaviour, by the triggering of uncomfortable memories of their own schooling or to the fact that they are themselves under stress and struggling to cope with day to day matters. All of these factors applied to Owen’s mother.
Our intervention uses a solution-focused approach by inviting parents to come into school to support their child’s reading rather than asking them to come in to discuss behaviour difficulties. Parents of pupils at risk of exclusion may be disengaged and even aggressive towards the school but generally they always want their children to learn to read.
Owen’s mother certainly appeared relieved to hear that she was being asked to support his reading rather than discuss his poor behaviour again. However, she was still rather noncommittal until she was shown a short story Owen had written in a therapeutic storywriting group. His story was about a character who was calling for his Mum but who did not come despite being called seventeen times. Owen’s mother suddenly became engaged and said, “I think this story is about him. I think it’s because I don’t give him any time. I give all my attention to his younger brother.” She then agreed to come to the sessions in order to give some time to her older son.
Owen’s mother was clearly able to read the meaning of the metaphor in the story, even though she had quite poor literacy skills herself. This is a particularly adult facility that only comes with the development of abstract thinking in adolescence. As the sessions progressed, this ability was encouraged and helped her to feel more empowered as the adult in relation to her son.
Owen and his mother attended a ten-week Story Links intervention aimed at fostering positive attachment between pupil and parent through the mutually enjoyable activity of creative storymaking. It involves pupil, parent and a trained educational professional meeting once a week for 30 minutes. In creating the stories, the parent is encouraged to attune to their child’s emotional world through the imagery. When Owen’s mother was asked what he had been like at home one week and she replied fiery, that week’s story started with a dragon who couldn’t control his firebox. Once the story starter has been established the story is then co-created by the parent, child and facilitator. This process is playful and generally enjoyed by both parent and child. It is then typed up by the facilitator and used as the pupil’s reading text both at home with the parent and in school with a Teaching Assistant.
Positive attachment through reading
Owen’s mother admitted she had never listened to him read at home. She was encouraged to hear Owen read the story in a way that promotes positive attachment, encouraging physical proximity, and giving him her undivided attention and in a way that was mutually enjoyable.
Owen’s mother managed to attend eight out of the ten sessions. Her son was not excluded at all during that term, and the headteacher reported that her attitude to the school had improved dramatically—she even offered to help out at the Christmas Fair.
By maintaining a belief that parents, whatever their parenting history, will always want the best for their child, and by engaging them in a way that is non-threatening, it is possible to work with even the most disaffected parents.
Names have been changed for confidentiality