Teacher's grown-up helpers

FOR many of today's parents, school was a world divorced from home. The only contact their parents had with the inner sanctum was at formal ''open'' days when they would catch a glimpse of the system educating their child.

Now all that is changing as parents become involved in schools, not just through Parent-Teacher Associations, institutionalised contact points between parents and teachers, but directly in the classroom.

Bernadette Dickson whose daughter is now in Primary Four at the German Swiss International School (GSIS) says: ''I started helping with reading when my daughter was in Primary Two and I'm working my way through the system. I can watch the progress of mychild and understand what is going on at each stage.

''If I go back to work next year, it will either be part-time so that I can continue to come in, or I will try to come in early before I go to work. It has been wonderful to get to know the teachers and my daughter's friends.'' Fay and Roger Pyatt help at Kennedy School, the ESF primary in Pokfulam, once a week. Roger teaches evening classes at Hong Kong University which leaves his mornings free. He is guiding eight-year-olds with computer work. ''I enjoy making computers fun for the children. Education has changed. It's not chalk and talk any more but much more three-dimensional. That makes it fun.'' Different schools have different policies on whether parents should help out in their own child's class. Kellet School, an independent English primary in Pokfulam, bans it; GSIS parents help in their child's class but not in the same group; at Kennedy, a parent may even help in the same group.

Often it is the children who go home and nag their parents into helping out. Many are disappointed when parents stop coming - usually as the child gets older.

By the time children reach about nine, mothers who may have stayed at home while their children were young tend to go back into full-time work. The children are able to cope by themselves and teaching becomes more specialised. By Primary Six, parent participation drops dramatically.