Being a parent of a child in Secondary school presents different joys and challenges to those you may have encountered when they were in Primary. One of the frustrations I frequently hear from parents is that their child doesn’t tell them anything about school and consequently, it’s difficult to know how things are really going with their learning and their wellbeing. I recently read an article by Jennifer Oaten that provided a number of useful tips to help families overcome this particular challenge. Jennifer accurately pointed out that, although we all want to have meaningful conversations with our children about school, it can be hard to know the right questions to ask our teenagers, especially when the standard “How was your day?” often results in a mumbled reply of “good.” 

Showing interest in and curiosity about what your child is learning can make a real difference in how your children feel about the importance of school. Using open-ended questions to stimulate a bit more conversation can sometimes be a helpful way to get things moving. Perhaps you might consider trying some of the following:

• What was the most interesting thing you learned today?
• Was there anything in class that didn’t quite make sense? How can I help?
• If you had to teach someone what you learned today, how would you explain it?
• Who is a teacher you really respect or enjoy learning from? What makes them great?
• If you could change one thing about your day today, what would it be?
• What’s one challenge you faced at school this week, and how did you handle it?
• Is there a subject or topic you are struggling with? How can we work through it together?
• What’s something you are proud of accomplishing at school recently?
• What’s one goal you want to achieve by the end of this term? How can I support you?
• What is something you want to improve at, and what is your plan to get better?
• How are you feeling about your workload at the moment
• On a scale of 1-10, how stressed are you about school right now? What is contributing to that?
• If something at school is bothering you, who do you feel comfortable talking to about it?
• If you could design your dream class, what would it be about?

Students should have received their Assessment Information Booklets last week. These booklets are a great source of information about the work they will be engaging with during the year. The Assessment Schedule for their year group is an especially helpful page that you might like to stick on your fridge at home to prompt timely conversations about what assessment tasks they have due over the course of each term.

If you have any questions about what you read in the Assessment Booklets, please don’t hesitate to reach out via our school office.

God bless

Angela Myles | Executive Principal