Teachers' leader hits out at parents

Published on Monday 22 March 2010 18:02

GUILTY middle-class parents are "buying off" their children with computers and TVs, and producing a generation that does not know how to behave, according to a teaching union leader.

Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said some children were not taught how to "give and take", respect authority or take into consideration the needs of others.

She suggested parents had a "duty to bring their child up so that they understand how they should behave in school, respecting authority and the right of other pupils in the class to learn". But she said some parents "do not support the right of the teacher to teach and to let other people in the class learn".

Dr Bousted said those parents failed to create the conditions at home that give children the chance to learn to the best of their abilities in school.

Part of the problem was that some children are living increasingly isolated lives. "They are not learning about give and take within the family," she said.

Children needed to learn how to get on with others and to accept the authority of the teacher.

Dr Bousted suggested it was not always poorer parents that were guilty of failing to teach their child these skills. "Often it's the well-off middle classes that buy off their children through the computer and the TV; that then isolates them within the home, and then they're surprised when their child isn't coming to school ready to learn."

Last year, Dr Bousted raised concerns that families were leading separate lives under one roof, not sitting down to dinner together, with youngsters spending hours watching TV alone in their rooms.

Yesterday, she said: "Many teachers feel they are working their socks off under an extremely rigid accountability framework to get children to learn but are not being supported by home."