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Policy with a parental perspective
As the new Executive Director of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council, Eileen Prior understands the importance of giving parents an input into their child's education - and why the Curriculum for Excellence is causing them concern.
Eileen Prior, newly appointed Executive Director of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council (SPTC), is clearly exasperated. She's been wrestling with the minutiae of the new Protection of Vulnerable Groups legislation which, according to her, is exactly the kind of badly worded and counter-productive measure that increasingly interferes with the ability of parents to contribute to their children's schools.
She said the legislative walls keep getting higher for voluntary groups, and small organisations such as PTAs and Parent Councils have"a huge mountain to climb in terms of addressing all the different regulations".
That's one of the reasons Eileen is keen that the SPTC takes a high profile in areas of policy development, as well as developing new ways of getting its members more involved.
"I want to get more of a sense of what people think about the big issues so we can identify what the key concerns are and use that information in our communication."
She said that while the SPTC could not claim to be a representative voice for all Scottish parents, it can comment on legislation or strategy documents from a parental perspective.
And that is something that she said will become more and more important as education funding faces severe constraints and the Curriculum for Excellence is rolled out across Scotland's schools.
The council is currently surveying its members to see how much they raise, what is happening to the funds and who decides how the money is spent.
"We're getting the message from members that they are no longer providing the 'extras', the special trips, the additional equipment - they are actually buying books and helping pay for basic equipment in the school. That means the funds raised by parents are becoming critical to the operation of schools."
These findings will be used to make representations to MSPs as they consider education funding. She said the Curriculum for Excellence remained a cause for a lot of uncertainty. "The feeling among a lot of parents is that we're really up against it: the wire is just there, and we know very little. So a lack of information and lack of clarity is a big issue.
"One of the problems is that although it has been under development for a number of years, the curriculum still feels relatively unshaped, while the new examination structure is a huge worry. Teachers have not felt confident in talking to parents about Curriculum for Excellence, so only when that changes will we see parents getting good quality information.
"The truth is that most primary schools are already doing a lot of what would be defined as Curriculum for Excellence. The problem really comes in high school, with its exam structure and strict demarcations between subjects. Trying to break that down will be a real challenge."
Eileen said there was no doubt that involving parents more in their children's school life was beneficial.
"But it is very challenging for many parents to really engage with their kids' education, perhaps because their own experience of school was negative, so there has to be serious focus given to how we get more families involved.
"One of my major concerns about the current economic climate is that these sorts of issues are soft targets, because we are still very caught up with attainment and we don't really value achievement. It is easy to start chipping away at the type of activity that is not delivering a measurable result.
"Unfortunately, the media continues to cling on to rankings, producing their own league tables even though local authorities don't produce them any more. The result is that people continue to judge schools on that basis alone and not on the wider achievement and perspective of how their kids are gaining and contributing as part of that school community."
A vested interest in education
Eileen Prior has spent her professional life in communications and PR, and said she became involved in educational matters about ten years ago when she helped organise opposition to education funding cuts in her local authority.
She remained involved in education issues, and was a board member and chair of Equity and Education. She is also a ministerial appointee on GTC Scotland.
She has three children, the eldest of whom has just graduated from university while the youngest is in S1.
"One of my children has a learning difficulty, in that she is dyslexic, and the youngest has a learning disability. As most parents will tell you, when you have a youngster who has a specific problem, then you get very involved in schooling."