CONCERN has been raised after only a fifth of Fife parents responded to a survey asking them their views on their child’s education.
A total of 21 per cent of parents and carers responded to the Parentwise questionnaire issued by Fife Council – four per cent less than the uptake for the same document two years ago.
Members of the council’s education scrutiny committee considered the results of the Pupilwise, Parentwise and Staffwise surveys at their meeting on Wednesday.
A report to councillors said the snapshot of views from young people showed positive experiences with safety and wellbeing and relationships.
A total of 94 per cent of pupils reported that they have friends they can go to if worried while 89 per cent feeling safe in school and 87 per cent feeling welcome in school.
Only 76 per cent of pupils said they enjoy learning – a drop of ten per cent compared to the same question two years ago.
In the parents’ consultation, only 46 per cent of respondents thought their school/nursery took action following reports of bullying concerns – this was a marked drop on the 82 per cent previous figure.
However, 11 per cent more parents compared to the last survey – a total of 55 per cent – said that the school listened to concerns on bullying.
There were 91 per cent of parents who reported confidence in discussing online safety with their child and 87 per cent knew who to contact if worried about something affecting their child.
Parents continued to report that their child felt safe in school or nursery (78 per cent).
For staff, workload and working conditions remain the key challenge areas, with only 63 per cent reporting demands are manageable (down from 68 per cent) and 74 per cent feeling their physical environment supported their work (down from 78%).
There was significant improvement in support around violence and aggression, increasing from 64 per cent to 74 per cent, which the report said suggests positive progress in how incidents are managed and staff are supported.
Councillor John Caffrey said he found it “almost incredible” that almost 80 per cent of parents failed to respond.
“Do we need to look at how we reach these parents we are not reaching at the moment?” he said.
“We are not reaching 79 per cent of these parents. That is a very, very big percentage and I would question the reliability of the data of the report.
“That is a shocking statistic to think about that we have 80 per cent of parents who have not responded or have been unable to respond.”
Quality Improvement Officer Pam Colburn acknowledged the poor response rate.
“It is a challenge in terms of how we engage,” she said. “We have tried to reach as many as we possibly could.
“We explored that and still see 21 per cent. We need to explore it and consider how we are going to engage and think about some of the mechanisms and the way in which we do that.”
Education chief Donald Macleod said it was “wrong” to say the stats were unreliable.
“They are reliable based on the sample that was returned to us,” he said.
“I think to give the report its due significance, it is a disappointing return but in terms of figures, we have drawn from it, they are entirely reliable.”
Mr Macleod told committee members that the surveys highlighted some areas needing to be looked at such confidence among parents around actions taken following bullying incidents.
“That is something we need to work on as a service but schools also need to work in the localities,” he said.
“Where there has been action taken, they need to be clear about what action has been taken on the back of that.
“There is a tremendous amount of work going across our establishments particularly in relation to the cost of the school day which clearly parents are not aware of sufficiently. Much of this is awareness raising in parent groups.”
Mr Macleod expressed concern the figure stating that only 76 per cent of pupils said they enjoyed learning.
“The one about engaging learning is an important one,” he added. “We want young people to enjoy their experience. How do we build more enjoyment into young people’s experiences? How do we make staff contributions to school life more enjoyable?”
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