This questionnaire is part of a set of questionnaires used to assess the needs at the beginning of the project. Besides the Parents’ questionnaires there were 2 more a) for the school headmaster and b) the so called child learning profile.

 

The parents’ questionnaire was filled in by 17 parents of students from “Vassil Aprilov” School in Rouse (North-Eastern Bulgaria).  The questions and a summary of the answers follow below:

100% from the respondents answered that they learn about it from their child; 76% answered “from the head teacher”; 47% - “from other parents” and hardly 11% - from other teachers at school.

 

- 64% because they were invited to a parents’ meeting;

- 41% go to school whenever there is any problem with their child (e.g. health or behavior problems, etc.);

- 17% are attracted by the organization of school events;

- 17% want to keep an eye on their child’s progress at school or to learn something new about the education in general.

 

 “How often do you discuss with your child’s teacher?”

41%answer “every month” or “every school term” and barely17%answer “every week”.

 

“Are you satisfied with the provision of education your child receive from the school?”

82%of the interviewees claim to be happy with their child’s education at that stage and the rest answer that there is still to be changed in the curricula and the busyness of the children at school.

 

 “Please describe what types of support you  expect from the school/teacher to help your child learn”

The parents answered that they expected every kind of support – moral or psychological. 17% from the answers are related to the way of teaching and 29% expect their children to be stimulated to develop at a certain area.

 

 “How many hours does your child spend doing homework?”

 58% said “3 to 4 hours”, 23% - “4 hours” and hardly17% - less then “2 hours”.

 

“How often do you help your child with his/her homework”

41% of the parents very rarely; 29% help their childveryoften and the rest answerednever, sometimes or always.

55% of the parents - by giving them some further explanations about the things they couldn’t understand; 29% are looking for extra information; some of the parents only check their child’s homework and the rest learn together with their children.

 

47%of theinterviewees meet some difficulties and “do not feel comfortable to help with” English language at school, very few respondents point out other subjects.

 

The major part of the parents hadn’t given any precise answer to the question “What kind of support do they need in order to better support their child learning?”. There were some who replied that they didn’t need any kind of support in order to better support their child learning.

41%of the interviewees define parents associations as “useful somehow”, 35% - define them as “useful”, 11% said that the associations “were not useful at all”, 11% said that these were “very useful” organizations.

 

“On a scale from 1 to 5 (where 1 is very little and 5 is very much) appreciate how much would you like to participate in “workshops for parents and teachers to learn how to support child learning; creating short films or stories to celebrate European family life; the writing of Self-help Guides to enable parents to help their children to achieve at school and to develop their potential in life; the development of a web page of the newly created Parents Association; training for parents to develop the newly parents association strategy”

The major part of the parents expressed interest in the activities have attracted. 52% of the parents declare their readiness to take part in workshops for parents and teachers, 23% think that they could participate actively in making of short movies celebrating family life, 47% of the parents could participate in the formation of parents association, 35% might take part in the development of web page and 28% of the parents would participate in different in-service trainings. Of course, there were some who thought that these activities would not contribute to the improvement of their child’s education. They were really skeptical.

 

The survey results reveal that parents visit their child’s school resulting from an invitation of the teacher and not because of any personal interest. The school as an institution is not in a position to involve parents as partners in its activities.

 

A great number of the respondents claim to be satisfied with their child education but still while talking individually with them, most of theparents are concerned about the intense curricula and the complicated material at school.

Unfortunately Bulgarian parents have no free time to help their children. At this particular stage parents are still able to help their children with the homework butwhile children go up the grades this tendency decreases and it becomes impossible about 7-8 grade. Then the child must take care on his/her own.

 

Bulgarian parents in general are interested about the involvement of NGOs assisting the parent-school partnership. It is worth mentioning that half of the respondents are ready to work within the project and to take part in some activities and the preparation of prospective project products (e.g.little self-help guides, movies, stories celebrating family life, etc.).

 

 

The survey was implemented and summarized by Daniela Staneva, a member of the Bulgarian project team and class teacher of the students whose parents were interviewed.