Parental views of schools

A representative sample of parents with children in English schools were consulted on their views of their child's education in January 2008 for this DCSF report.

Key points:
- Most parents were satisfied with the their child's school, with 73% being very or extremely satisfied:

- Parents who said they were dissatisfied were asked why they had said this. The main issues highlighted by these parents were poor quality teaching (mentioned by 37% of dissatisfied parents), problems with discipline, bullying or other forms of antisocial behaviour (34%), and poor academic standards or exam results (28%). Poor quality special needs provision was also an issue for a substantial minority of dissatisfied parents (21%).
- Parents were also asked how good they thought their child’s school was at dealing with parents’ concerns effectively. About three fifths (58%) of parents described the school as very good at this, with a further 29% saying it was fairly good.
- When asked for the most important factors when choosing a new school the majority of parents (59%) stated the location of the school or ease of getting to the school had been among the most important factors in choosing a school. A quarter of parents mentioned academic success or success in exams (25%) and a similar proportion mentioned the overall reputation of the school or whether the school had been recommended to them (23%).
- Seven out of ten parents (71%) said they felt they had had a choice of good state-funded schools within their own local authority area; a quarter said this had not been the case, with 10% of parents saying there was only one good state-funded school within their local authority area.
- The majority of parents supported a range of school types in their local area:

- The vast majority of parents seemed to endorse the idea of state schools forming partnerships with Further Education colleges (89% said this was a good thing), parent groups (88%) and universities and Higher Education colleges (87%), with only one or two per cent of parents indicating that they thought such partnerships would be a bad thing. Approval of the idea of partnership with other state schools and community groups was also strong, with 82% and 80% of parents respectively saying these were a good thing and again small proportions indicating disapproval. Three quarters (76%) of parents said they thought partnership with charities was a good thing and two thirds (65%) said the same about partnership with businesses. Parents as a whole were less sure about partnerships with independent schools.
- 37% of parents were mainly favourable or very favourable towards academies.