Parental Engagement in Humanities

by Katherine Parr,
Lead Teacher of Humanities

As part of our drive to encourage independent learning outside of school, we have started to try strategies which include parents in helping students remember key knowledge based facts. At the Year 11 parents evening, each teacher gave the parents a set of questions in which they can ask at home to their son/daughter whilst they have some spare time. These were NOT long marked essay questions, these were quick fire questions that the parents could easily understand, which also had the answers clearly written on.

The first opinion of the parents was positive- they felt this was something to which they could definitely contribute and equally the students looked quite happy with the task ahead of them. See some examples below of the types of questions asked:

In terms of timings we suggested that this was something that could be done once a week, at a time when the parents and students had some time together (even over tea!) and eventually we have challenged the students to turn the questions around and to ask their parents- again another method of memory retention.