Parents using schools to dump children, say headteachers

Too many parents are neglecting their children by "dumping" them at schools or child care centres for up to 10 hours a day, the leader of Britain's biggest headteachers' organisation said yesterday.

Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, criticised the "back to work culture" in the UK – encouraged by ministers – that was leading to parents "abdicating their responsibilities".

His comments brought him a strong rebuke from Children's Minister Beverley Hughes who called them "unhelpful" and said parents needed child care support to help them go back to work. It was one of a series of clashes between Ms Hughes and headteachers. Earlier, they had cried "rubbish" as she sought to defend the Government's testing regime and publication of exam league tables.

Mr Brookes told his association's annual conference in Liverpool that headteachers "echoed the shock expressed from ... East European parents that rather than promoting the importance of quality childcare at home our country advocates a back-to-work culture that may well prove to be counter-productive.

"There are some parents – a minority – who do abdicate responsibility," he said. "They dump the children early at school and they're late picking them up at the end of the day."

Headteachers believe those numbers will grow by the end of the decade – when the Government is insisting all schools should operate extended hours from 8am until 6pm. Currently, Ms Hughes said, 10,000 are offering this provision to parents. She added: "I don't think for a minute parents are abdicating their responsibilities to schools or nurseries or anybody else."

Her clash with Mr Brookes followed earlier exchanges on the conference floor when her insistence that national curriculum tests were here to stay because parents wanted them to show how their children were doing at school was greeted with cries of "rubbish". She said: "I do think it's right, from the point of view of parents who want to know how their children are doing. Teacher assessment is an important part of that, but it is not the only part. The testing just isn't going to go away."

Later, her claim that being a headteacher was "a fantastic job" was greeted with a shouted response of "you try it then".

Chris Howard, the association's vice-president was applauded when he said he wished the Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, had come to the conference.

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