During a parent meeting some months ago a mother referred to me as a “parent-teacher.” inferring that as a teacher, we know how to parent our children to achieve success at school. As I move into the consulting space, I have referred back to this comment and thought I would try and write a series of posts on what we can do as parents to assist our children to achieve “success” within the learning environment.

I firmly believe that there are a number of factors that can create success for her children within the home environment, that create successful students within the school environment. These include:
• a definite structure for the child during the week;
• a specific area in which the child completes school tasks;
• providing the child with a variety of opportunities to read;
• being supporters of the learning process (supporting the learning, rather than completing the work for a frustrated child);
• assisting the child in developing a variety of study techniques;
• helping the child plan and organise the schedule, including adequately sleep.

Defining success within the school environment is a complicated issue, based on some studies into future success within the work environment this does not mean that the child has to achieve excellent marks within the school environment. However, the development of a creative, confident and hard-working pupil can often lead to more success in the real world than purely a mark-driven definition of success.

Eric Barker in his book, Barking up the wrong tree, discusses a definition of success and what may lead to success. His main thoughts are the following:
• success is more about breaking rules than following them, about doing what you are passionate about rather than what society dictates;
• creativity is the real engine to success;
• life does not have clear guidelines; it is an unpredictable rollercoaster ride with no clear path;
• creatives can often cope better with aspects of the outside world;
• optimism keeps people going, but real grit is more than positive thinking, it is often the stories that people tell themselves about the meaning of the lives that dictate their level of success;
• confidence is key to success, confidence and success have a distinctly positive association. Confidence increases productivity and causes people to take on more challenging tasks, therefore making them stand out from their peers;
• having a strong work ethic is an essential ingredient to success, productivity is closely linked to the amount of time put into achieving success, and closely related to this is setting expectations that push people beyond their limits.

As parents we want our children to achieve their potential but can often hamper their progress with our approach to their learning. Especially in the primary years, children need to experiment with learning systems and study methods. This may lead to results that we as parents are not satisfied with, however, it is only by facing “failure” that we truly learn. One of the most significant contributions we can make as parents is establishing a routine for our children. A set time for homework and time for revision, which involves revising the work covered during the day or week on a particular subject. If study and revision become a daily and weekly task, then the amount of preparation for assessment is significantly reduced. Research in learning shows that our retention of information is significantly improved if we revise new material within 24 hours of learning the material and this retention continues to improve if the notes are revised within three days and again within seven days of teaching. This is often achieved within the classroom during teaching, but in order to achieve a deeper understanding, this needs to be done by the child outside of the classroom.

When we look back at Eric Barker’s main points this kind of system of learning achieves the majority of his points. The child will have greater confidence to involve themselves in the learning process in the classroom, they learn that hard work is required to achieve a goal, that they need to be creative in their study methods until they find a system that works for them.