For those who read this article who currently have or previously had children in secondary education, they will know fine well the pressures and strains of testing and assessments. Especially the GCSE examinations in Year 11. The GCSE’s can be the most important period of a young person’s life. For that reason, educators like myself must ensure students who leave our care, leave with a set of results that allows them to flourish in later life. An interesting observation… “Research has shown that pupils who attend secondary schools in England will spend on average 714 hours at school each year (in Indonesia it’s just short of 1300 hours per year). Interestingly, in the average year there are 8760 hours. This means that a pupil will spend 8.2% of their time each year in the education system, but what of the remaining 91.8% of the year spent away from school?” I have been teaching for a decade, firstly in the South of England and now currently here in Newton Aycliffe at Woodham Academy. If I am to be honest I love teaching, but the biggest frustration is actually the lack of parental integration within the education system as a whole. If I am lucky I will meet parents 5 or 6 times in 5 years, and conversations are limited to 5 minute slots. So what opportunities do we afford parents to be involved in their children’s education? Five years ago I created a revision workshop programme entitled ‘The Pupil-Parent Programme’ (PPP). The programme looks to support, encourage and empower parents to help drive forward the academic success of their children. Parents aren’t expected to know everything about Geography, Maths, Physics or English for exampled so don’t worry. The PPP equips parents with the right skills and guidance to make a real difference come results day for their children. The revision workshop runs as a one-off session where parents and their child attend school for one evening. It involves exam practice, discussion and the revision ideas workshop. I offer support, from guidance regarding specific issues to providing revision timetables for individual students. Over the last two weeks I have met with 20 sets of parents, over four evenings whilst running the revision programme. I am encouraged and humbled by the thanks and appreciation shown by parents who attend, I do not make light of the fact that it is a privilege to teach the young people of today. In 2018, 33% of Year 11 Geography students and their parents attended the ‘PPP’, on average these students exceeded their target by 0.8 of a grade. Interestingly, the same group of students exceeded their target grade by 0.4 in every subject they studied on average. The data doesn’t lie… students who revise well at home outperform students who don’t. Therefore, parents are a vast untapped resource in many cases. They know their children better than anyone else on the planet, so using their expertise along with my own makes perfect sense if we want to help their young people succeed. Article written by Mr. J. Zielinski, Head of Geography at Woodham Academy