A LEADING headteacher is appealing to parents to turn off their televisions if they want their children to feel rewarded and to succeed in school.
Mike Evans, who is set to retire after more than 21 years at Trinity CE High School, Hulme, believes children suffer if they are parked in front of the television as soon as they arrive home from school. And he wants parents to spend more time talking to their children.
"Today's young people are crying out to be listened to," said Mr Evans. "My final message to parents is to turn the television off."
Too often, says Mr Evans, families don't spend enough time together and children are left to watch television or DVDs - often alone in their own rooms.
Confidence
Mr Evans says time can be a greater reward than any material gift, which can build confidence in youngsters and show them someone is interested in what they have been doing.
"In many situations, young people get material goods in lieu of time, as everybody who is in employment seems to be working so hard," said Mr Evans.
"How many youngsters sit down for a meal with their parents - compared with those who snack in front of the television?
"If you have conversations, parents are expressing their interest and abiding concerns. It shows someone loves them so much they are prepared to give them time."
For Mr Evans, the role of parents in the education of their children is crucial and has changed massively since Trinity opened in Hulme in the 1980s, when parents wouldn't venture past the school gates.
"Now seven year olds behave as their parents might have behaved when they were 14, so parenting becomes more and more difficult," said Mr Evans.
"Schools can help by setting up networks of parents to share their experiences. Twenty-one years ago, parents were kept at the gate of secondary schools - it's very different now."
Mr Evans, 59, says there is no greater privilege than being the headteacher, even though he admits it can be exhausting. During his time at the school he counts the school's comprehensive intake as one of his greatest successes.
"I think we have here the most comprehensive intake in the country," said Mr Evans, who will be working on a project for the local education authority from September.
"You can't get this mix of ethnicity, faith and race without being in an inner city, but we also get a social and economic balance. You have to be a successful school that draws people in. We get children from 90 different primary schools each year."
David Ainsworth, who heads Heysham High Sports College in Morecambe, will take over as headteacher Trinity CE High School.
Is he right? Have your say or cast a vote below.
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Mr Evans is absolutely right. When i was a child (and i'm only 31 now) my parents insisted that meals were eaten together as a family where we could talk. Eating in front of the telly was very much the exception, and more than that i didn't have a TV in my room until I was a teenager. These days my brother i still pop home to see my parents for Sunday dinner and a chat,and when i lived in London it was the one thing i missed the most.
Yes, Mr Evans is correct in encouraging parents to spend more time with their children and less time in front of the tv. This should be especially important during the year as well as school holidays.
I agree as well. My wife once memorably heard the box described as "Satan's sewage-pipe into your sittingroom."
I make a point of NOT watching the thing and leave the room whenever the other members of the family put T H E I R telly on. I wasted too much of my childhood watching other people's messages, now I prefer to get a life and give my own.
For people who say that it is educational, I challenge them to say that they don't waste time they could be actively learning in by watching "choss". To learn you need to be active thinking and asking; not turning yourself in to a jug to be filled with someone else's answers to the questions that they tell you are important.
TV is bad for kids, not a necessity and mostly mindless junk. That's why it is so odd that the government should effectively run its own TV broadcaster, the BBC, and ensure that it is lavishly funded. What next, government cigarettes and alcohol in return for a licence fee? Government should be issuing health warnings about TV, not protecting the priveleged positon of the BBC.