ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how schools have changed, are changing and may further change in their relationships with the people beyond those gates. A very high proportion of schools, well over three quarters, organised parent help of some kind, most commonly accompanying pupils on outings, mending books and equipment, helping children dress after swimming, assisting with cooking, music, crafts and so on. Most teachers are working very hard to maintain the interest which they know is so important to the school but are making slow headway with the hard core of problems. The Department of Education and Science, twenty years after Plowden, has no branch dealing with home-school relationships or with parents and their problems. Many contrast cheerful schools with the walled fortresses of their childhood, relishing being able to walk in, being greeted with a smile, asked to help, encouraged to join other parents in sociable and useful activity centred on the school.
