Appendix Five - Parent Interviews

Interview with Parent 1 (parent of Student 3) – 16.06.16

Interviewer: Can you describe your daughter?

Parent 1: Oh gosh! Complex. Intelligent. Lazy. Funny. Lovely. Caring. Sometimes naughty. Focused I’d say, most of the time. She’s lazy at home with the bedroom and doesn’t lift a finger in the house but you expect that of teenage girls. She’s my teenage girl number three so I’ve been through this before but I was really surprised at how hard she worked at revising. She really did get her head down and study so it’s a bit of a contradiction. She does take her studies seriously but I’d imagined that she can be quite lazy in class. She’s a chatterbox.

But for revision she sat at the desk with her head in the books and actually didn’t have the computer on. I think often you revise sat in front of the computer but it’s so distracting. She sat a lot of the time, even though we have a study, at the kitchen table. Whether she did that intentionally so that she wasn’t distracted I don’t know. So yeah she was there for hours and hours. I‘d come in from work and she’d have been there all day and be asking, “can you buy some more card please mum?”

Interviewer: Can you describe your parenting style?

Parent 1: I suppose I’m quite soft. Probably too soft. That said I had a really strict upbringing. My parents at the time were in the Pentecostal church. I wasn’t allowed to watch Top of the Pops or go to youth clubs. You know, it was very regimented and strict. I love them nonetheless; it hasn’t affected our relationship. However, I feel like I made life choices (such as getting married at 20) probably because of my strict upbringing. I think it’s impacted on how I’ve parented my girls. I had my first child at 22, my second at 24 and [Student 3] at 26. I wanted to be a midwife after school but I was a musician so my parents pushed me into music, saying that midwifery was a thankless job. Now I am one, I can see what they were saying. I just decided that I would give my children a bit of rope, gradually let them off the lead as it were and let them make their own mistakes within reason. I don’t let them do what they want when they want so there are boundaries but I try to let them make their own decisions as well. It’s a bit of a balance I suppose. So far, touch wood, they aren’t perfect but I think it seems to have worked well.

My partner isn’t the father of my three girls and he doesn’t have a role in parenting them. [Student 3] has a volatile relationship with him. She was the biggest daddy’s girl of the three. When I met my partner, he was 28 and he took on the three children which was a big thing. The two older girls bonded with him but [Student 3] was always a daddy’s girl so they never really bonded. So they’ll say hello but that’s about it. It’s a shame and sometimes it upsets me. We do sit down together every night for dinner as a family and siblings banter. Sometimes it gets a bit over the top and isn’t appropriate for dinner and he might say, “that’s enough,” but that’s about as far as it goes. If she’s going out he might say, “be careful,” but that’s the limit of his parenting. It’s me that parents her.

Interviewer:  Reflecting on the feedback you have received about your son/daughter throughout their academic career (in report cards, parents’ evenings etc.), what do you see in terms of patterns and trends?

Parent 1: They’ve always said she’s a good girl. [Student 3] was one of these girls as a young child to avoid missing days off so that she could get her 100% attendance certificate. It was always really positive: she was a good student who worked hard. I’ve always been really proud of her. If there were negatives it was that she was easily distracted and talked too much.

Interviewer: What are the key skills you would like your daughter to have developed throughout her time as a sixth form student at Sidmouth College?

Parent 1: I think she is very sociable anyway. [Student 3] has quite high aspirations about what she wants to do and where she wants to go so I just want her to be equipped with the experiences she needs. For example, she’s applied to be head girl and I don’t know what the chances of that happening are but I just think it would be amazing for her confidence.

I do have worries about her health and the impact of this on her confidence.

It’s important for her to develop independence as well. It would be nice if she were prepared for university as that’s what she wants to do.

I want her to have a good academic education and an ability to apply for what she wants to do without boundaries. She has high aspirations. I don’t know how it would impact on her if she were to get to the end, apply to university, receive a conditional offer and then not get the grades. She’d be devastated. But really it’s down to her. I can provide her with the tools and the environment to study in, the encouragement and a kick up the bum but really it’s down to her.

Interviewer: How successful do you think she has been at developing those skills since she’s been in the sixth form?

Parent 1: Really good. She’s taking on responsibility. In her GCSE she did revise but she didn’t have anywhere near the commitment she had to her AS level exams. She’s grown in confidence. I think she’s really happy in the sixth form and that seems to have had a massive impact on her focus. We’re all the same; if we’re happy in our jobs then we’re focused, but if we’re miserable then perhaps we find work more difficult.


 

 

Interview with Parent 2 (parent of Student 6) – 23.06.16

Interviewer: Can you describe your daughter?

Parent 2: Feisty is my usual first word. She’s the youngest of three and we always used to say she’s a seven year old going on teenager. She’s now an interesting character; quite argumentative and very opinionated. She’s quite arty and creative rather anything on the scientific side. She’s full of life and very determined.

I think at school some of that can be a positive – the creative side has helped now that she’s been able to choose her subjects. When she’s inspired by something she is very efficient but also throws herself into it and tries to do a good job. However, when she isn’t inspired or feels that she has been in any way wronged I know she can be quite feisty and I know she’s had a little run in or two with teachers.

Interviewer: Can you describe your parenting style?

Parent 2: Funnily enough I was having this conversation with another teacher this morning and saying that through being a teacher your parenting style gets worse because when they were young (and I wasn’t teaching) I loved every minute of it. I think it’s partly because the children have changed but also because when you’re teaching you’ve been dealing with it all day and when you go home you don’t want to be kind and gentle and ease them through everything; you just want to relax yourself! So I would say my parenting style is to encourage them to get on with their work. That’s quite important to us as a family: to have ambitions. But I would also say that I am the classic ‘dad’s taxi’ – trying to support them in doing whatever they want to do as well. So they get a lot of support from me but I also have high expectations.

Pushing [Student 6] to work doesn’t work very well. It worked better with the other two children. I would say that we’ve probably become more hands-off with her on that one because it doesn’t work due to her feisty nature. It just backfires. Because she’s doing creative subjects I can’t really help her as much as her sisters who all did maths and scientific things.

I do encourage her to work; asking her what she has to do, encouraging her to get it done and not leave it to the last minute. I’m interested in her grades and reports when they come out but I’m certainly less hands-on than I was with the others.

She hated her secondary school. She only moved to Sidmouth College this year. We made her go to her last school even though she didn’t want to because I didn’t think she was ready to make the decision for herself aged eleven. Whereas when she got to choosing A Levels we had a decent discussion with her and I was happy for her to move here as her previous school didn’t offer what she wanted to do. I think she has spent a few years hating school, has come here and does prefer to it. But she’s used to stating her opinion about school and teachers and lessons and anything else.
When I do encourage her to work, I get the classic, “in a minute.” I think sometimes it works as a jolt to remind her that she has something to do, but I would say I don’t push her anymore because it only has a negative effect.

Interviewer:  Reflecting on the feedback you have received about your son/daughter throughout their academic career (in report cards, parents’ evenings etc.), what do you see in terms of patterns and trends?

Parent 2: I don’t think that there were particularly negative comments. I think that it was more that I was aware of how she felt about school and was aware that she wasn’t that committed to working. I don’t remember reports being negative. There were the odd comments but nothing that stands out.

She was clever enough to get by but when she got to GCSEs and things, her impressions of her ability were lower than target grades. If her target grade was an A, she felt that if she got a C that would reflect where she should be. It was difficult to get her to aim high.

She was always very positive about PE; she was always willing to throw herself into it.

Interviewer: What are the key skills you would like your daughter to have developed throughout her time as a sixth form student at Sidmouth College?

Parent 2: Actually, apart from obviously getting decent grades and continuing enthusiasm for media and photography, what do I want her to walk out with? I want her to walk out with an attitude that is going to allow her to get and do well in a job. So from that point of view, because of the things she is interested in, I’d like her to develop some entrepreneurial skills because I think that’s important if she’s going into an arty world.

She’s perfectly able to switch on being nice to people. She’s already done some selling of photographs where she goes to events and sells her photos. And she works really well with people in the equestrian setting where she’s most happy, so she can switch it on. But I hope she realises the importance of actually not falling out with people and not getting fed up with people who don’t do exactly what she wants. Those things are important in terms of going on to do what she wants to do afterwards.

In terms of skills, I’d like her to develop (against the trend of the modern world) the ability to focus and concentrate a bit more without her mobile phone.

Interviewer: How successful do you think she has been at developing those skills since she’s been in the sixth form?

The latter one, not at all!

I’m not sure she has developed those skills. I think what she developed is going from a position where she hated school, to one where she enjoys at least two of her subjects and, when she gets her head down, can demonstrate some good technical skills and produce good work. I like the fact that as a result of her targets that aren’t right at the top, probably because of GCSEs that weren’t as positive as they could have been, they are achievable and she can beat them if she puts her mind to it. From that point of view, what she has gained is a little positivity. Although she does still have the ability to drop into a splurge of negativity at times, she’s more positive about herself and her subjects.