A first convention gathers African clowns in Cameroon

By Rédaction Africanews
and Philippe Anatole Malong 

Last updated: 20 hours ago

CAMEROON

Cameroon hosted the very first convention of African clowns on Wednesday and Thursday.

It is in the French cultural institute of Douala that young and old alike gathered to watch comedians, clowns, jugglers and other performers. William Nong, is one of the instigators of the convention. After spending 15 years abroad he decided to return in his home country: "The person who first initiated me to clowning was a woman, Yeto Lougou. She’s a school head in the French city of Nantes. In retrospect, when I looked at my continent, I decided to promote the figure of the clown in Africa and more precisely in my home country Cameroon. Today there are two challenges one lies with timing another one with financing issues and there are also mentoring issues. That explains why many don’t know about clowns nowadays. Back in the day people knew about buffoonery and other clownish acts but it has faded away."

In order to revive this art throughout the country, many step up. Chamberlain Feumba also known as Féfé le clown is one of those who try to instil within the youth the love for the performing art he discovered twenty years ago.



"I am Féfé the clown and was taught clown classes by a foreign theatre company when they arrived in Cameroon. It is thanks to this training that I become a clown."

If there are no circus in the country, Féfé the clown works to train the next generation here in Douala. "I mostly work in schools and my primary audience is made up of children. So I achieve my teaching objective here in schools. Every time an opportunity comes my way I agree with the schools on a contract and I give 1-hour classes. At the end of the school year the children perform and they can show their parents all they have learned."

In Cameroon there is only a handful of clowns companies. If circus is popular elsewhere, the art of performing hasn’t won his spurs in Cameroon just yet. Clowns like Féfé do their best to make that happen.

 

Asteroid 'Taller Than Dubai Skyscraper, Wider than The Vatican' to Skim Past Earth

5 hours ago

CC0 / UKT2 / 10 images /

Svetlana Ekimenko

All materialsWrite to the author

NASA had earlier warned that a kilometre-plus wide, potentially hazardous asteroid would be passing near Earth in early March. The agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) considers any asteroid of at least 150 metres in diameter passing within 7.5 million kilometres of Earth to be potentially hazardous.

An asteroid longer than the 830-metre Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai is tall and wider than Vatican City (around 1.05 kilometres) is hurtling towards our planet Earth.

Designated 138971 (2001 CB21), it is to skim past our planet on 4 March, according to tracking data from the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

The space rock, estimated to be between 560 meters to 1.2 kilometres wide and designated as “potentially hazardous,” is of sufficient size to trigger concerns.

Giant 'Potentially Hazardous' Asteroid to Make Its Closest Approach to Earth in Century

16 February, 08:57 GMT

Astronomers classify certain near-Earth asteroids as "Potentially Hazardous Asteroids" or PHAs. These rocky objects revolving around the sun come within about 4.65 million miles (7.48 million kilometres) of Earth's orbit and are larger than 500 feet (140 metres) across, according to NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS). However, this classification does not necessarily imply that the asteroid in question poses a specific threat to Earth.

In the case of 138971 (2001 CB21), according to NASA, the asteroid is set to pass by Earth at a distance of around 4.9 million kilometres – close, but still much farther than the Moon, which orbits our planet at a distance of approximately 384,000 kilometres.

If an asteroid over 140 meters in diameter were to impact Earth, according to research from the Davidson Institute of Science at Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science, the amount of energy released would be at least a thousand times greater than that released by the first atomic bomb.

If the space visitor were even larger – say, 340 metres wide, (1,120 feet) and on track to pass within just 19,000 miles (31,000 km) of our planet like the asteroid Apophis – it could destroy an entire continent.

First discovered on 19 June 2004, Asteroid 99942 Apophis is to fly past Earth on 13 April 2029 at a distance closer than most geostationary satellites.

The asteroid has been on top of the European Space Agency's "impact risk list" of PHAs and NASA's Sentry Risk Table for 17 years.

Asteroid ‘Apophis’ Predicted to Skim Dangerously Close to Earth in 2029

2 January, 10:59 GMT

Back in 2004, visual observations left researchers worrying that there was around a 2.7% chance that the PHA would hit Earth in 2029. However, subsequent radar observations combined with precise orbit analysis have helped astronomers conclude that there is no risk of Apophis impacting our planet for at least a century.

Model of the expected close approach of 99942 Apophis (previously better known by its provisional designation 2004 MN4) to the Earth and Moon on April 13, 2029.

CC0 / /

However, according to Gareth Collins, a professor in the Department of Earth Science & Engineering at Imperial College London, United Kingdom, were Apophis to strike Earth at 45,000 mph (20 kilometres per second),  the energy released would be “equivalent to the explosive yield of the global nuclear arsenal".

"About 100,000 times more than the energy of the Chelyabinsk meteor and a million times more energy than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima," he added.

Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Strains International Space Station Partnership

Life onboard the ISS goes on in the wake of Russia’s attack against Ukraine, even as the space project faces an uncertain future

THERE ARE NO UKRAINIANS ON BOARD

By Joanna Thompson on February 25, 2022

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

International Space Station, photographed by an STS-133 crew member on space shuttle Discovery. Credit: NASA

When Russia launched a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine on Thursday, the whole world was watching. But another, much smaller audience was watching, too: the seven crew members onboard the International Space Station (ISS), orbiting hundreds of kilometers above the chaos below.

Across more than two decades of continuous operations, the ISS has been a steady beacon of hope for peaceful international collaboration. The massive space habitat is the product of a remarkable partnership among five space agencies (including NASA and Russia’s national space agency Roscosmos) representing 15 participating countries. Over the years, scientific study and international friendships have flourished onboard the ISS, prompting some to petition for the project to receive a Nobel Peace Prize.

But some fear Russia’s latest attack could throw that cooperation into jeopardy. In times of geopolitical upheaval on Earth, what happens to the ISS?

According to former ISS astronauts, nationality usually takes a back seat to the more practical matters of living and working in space. “During training, you spend a lot of time together, and so you form these deep friendships,” says Leroy Chiao, who flew on the 10th expedition to the ISS in 2004.

Rick Mastracchio, a retired NASA engineer who flew on the 38th and 39th expeditions to the ISS, echoes that sentiment. “You’re there to do a very specific job, and you’re well trained,” he says. Regardless of one’s homeland or political views, “you need to get along because you’re [part of] a team.”

Chiao says that the time he spent with his cosmonaut colleagues gave him a measure of insight into the Russian perspective on geopolitics. From Russia’s viewpoint, the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO could seems like a serious threat to national security. How would the U.S. have reacted, he wonders, if Mexico and Canada had signed the Warsaw Pact before the fall of the Soviet Union? “That would make us pretty edgy, too. So, I understand where Russia’s coming from,” he says, even though he firmly disagrees with the nation’s invasion of Ukraine.

Tensions between Russia and the U.S. also ran unexpectedly high when Mastracchio was onboard the ISS. In March 2014, not long into his orbital sojourn, Russia annexed Crimea in a political move that the U.S. condemned as a “violation of international law.”

“I won’t say it affected the atmosphere, but there was some discussion,” Mastracchio says. He mentions what he recalls as the distress of one of his Russian crewmates in particular, who was purportedly fearful for his family in a nearby region of Ukraine. For Mastracchio, the memory serves as a reminder that no culture is a political monolith. “You’re representing your country from the terms of the space agencies, but you’re not representing the political aspect of it,” he says. “It’s somewhat uncomfortable when your homeland does something that maybe you’re not proud of.”
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So far, the U.S. and its NATO allies have pursued a policy of retaliatory sanctions targeting Russia’s economy and political leadership. Outlining the policy during a White House address, President Joe Biden noted that the sanctions will “degrade [Russia’s] aerospace industry, including their space program.”

How exactly this may affect life on the ISS remains unclear. The seven crew members currently onboard the habitat are four NASA astronauts, one German astronaut from the European Space Agency (ESA) and two Russian cosmonauts. Whatever their personal feelings, presumably the crew will continue normal operations in a “business as usual” approach. At least, that is the plan according to NASA.

“NASA continues working with all our international partners, including the State Space Corporation Roscosmos, for the ongoing safe operations of the International Space Station,” the agency wrote in an e-mailed statement. “The new export control measures will continue to allow U.S.-Russia civil space cooperation.”

Roscosmos did not respond to a request for comment. But in a series of tweets on Thursday afternoon, Roscosmos’s director general Dmitry Rogozin mocked the sanctions as foolhardy, adding that “if [the U.S.] blocks cooperation with us, who will save the ISS from an uncontrolled descent out of orbit and a fall on the United States or Europe?” Despite its threatening implications, Rogozin’s statement is, in some respects, reflective of simple facts: Russia’s Progress resupply spacecraft are currently responsible for periodically boosting the space station’s altitude, which decreases over time because of atmospheric drag. (A U.S.-built Cygnus cargo spacecraft presently docked at the station is scheduled to perform a test boost in April to demonstrate an independent capability to maintain the ISS’s altitude.)

Such comments are not terribly out of character for Rogozin, a Putin appointee. “He’s a bit of, you know, a personality,” says Asif Siddiqi, a historian at Fordham University, who specializes in Russian space activities.

When the U.S. enacted earlier rounds of sanctions after the Crimean annexation, Rogozin notoriously responded by suggesting that American astronauts could find their way to the ISS “with a trampoline.” (At the time, the U.S. was wholly dependent on sending crews to the ISS via launches of the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Now SpaceX rockets and modules serve as U.S. crew transports, and Boeing is set to soon provide an additional domestic launch option.) Rogozin again raised hackles last year with statements implying that in 2018 NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor drilled a tiny hole in a Soyuz vessel for purposes of sabotage. In an article by the Russian state-owned news agency TASS last year, a Russian space official again raised hackles with accusations that NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor drilled a tiny hole in a Soyuz vessel so that she could return to Earth early. NASA has said it does not consider these allegations credible and that it stands by Auñón-Chancellor.

Although these periods of tension have strained administrative relations between Roscosmos and NASA in the past, they have never truly disrupted life on the ISS. During the height of the Crimean conflict, for example, a leaked internal memo instructed NASA employees to cease communications with their Russian colleagues. “However, there’s a little clause in that thing that says actual ISS operations will continue just as before,” Siddiqi says. He suspects a similar memo may be making the rounds now.

Even if a major ISS partner does decide to withdraw from the project, the transition may take months or even years to fully disentangle. “It’s not a simple off switch,” Siddiqi says. But unless the current political situation changes course, he does not see a future for U.S. and Russian collaboration in space beyond the ISS’s decommissioning, currently planned for 2031. NASA is already looking ahead to its ambitious Artemis program, which will partner with ESA, Japan’s space agency and the Canadian Space Agency to build an orbiting lunar outpost to support astronauts’ long-term return to the moon’s surface. Meanwhile Roscosmos has pledged to join forces with China in order to build a moon base of their own. The international schism in spaceflight seems set to grow—with the cooperation epitomized by the ISS only diminishing.

“It’s clear that this is a relationship that will not continue past a certain point,” Siddiqi says. “I can’t see it recovering from this.”

Russian invasion of Ukraine and resulting US sanctions threaten the future of the International Space Station

The International Space Station is run collectively by the U.S., Russia, the European Space Agency, Japan and Canada. 

NASA Marshall Spaceflight Center/Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA


Published: February 25, 2022 8.46am EST

New U.S. sanctions on Russia will encompass Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, according to a speech U.S. President Joe Biden gave on Feb. 24, 2022.

In response to these sanctions, the head of Roscosmos on the same day posted a tweet saying, among other things, “If you block cooperation with us, who will save the ISS from an uncontrolled deorbit and fall into the United States or Europe?”

The International Space Station has often stayed above the fray of geopolitics. That position is under threat.

Built and run by the U.S., Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada, the ISS has shown how countries can cooperate on major projects in space. The station has been continuously occupied for over 20 years and has hosted more than 250 people from 19 countries.

As a space policy expert, the ISS represents, to me, a high point of cooperation in space exploration. But for the current crew of two Russians, four Americans and one German, things may be getting worrisome as tensions rise between the U.S. and Russia.

Several agreements and systems are in place to make sure that the space station can function smoothly while being run by five different space agencies. As of Feb. 24, there were no announcements of unusual actions aboard the station despite the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. But the Russian government has brought the ISS into geopolitics before and is doing so again.
Managing the ISS

What came to be known as the International Space Station was first conceived on NASA drawing boards in the early 1980s. As costs rose past initial estimates, NASA officials invited international partners from the European Space Agency, Canada and Japan to join the project.

When the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, the Russian space program found itself in dire straits, suffering from lack of funding and an exodus of engineers and program officials. To take advantage of Russian expertise in space stations and foster post-Cold War cooperation, the NASA administrator at the time, Dan Goldin, convinced the Clinton administration to bring Russia into the program that was rechristened the International Space Station.

By 1998, just prior to the launch of the first modules, Russia, the U.S. and the other international partners of the ISS entered into memorandums of understanding that spelled out how major decisions would be made and what kind of control each nation would have over various parts of the station.

The body that governs the operation of the space station is the Multilateral Coordination Board. This board has representatives from each of the space agencies involved in the ISS and is chaired by the U.S. The board operates by consensus in making decisions on things like a code of conduct for ISS crews.

Even among international partners who want to work together, consensus is not always possible. If this happens, either the chair of the board can make decisions on how to move forward or the issue can be elevated to the NASA administrator and the head of the Russian space agency, Roscosmos.

The International Space Station is built of many individual modules that are fully under the control of the countries or agencies that built them. 

NASA / Colds7ream, Fritzbox, Johndrinkwater, Ras67, Chepry via Wikimedia Commons

Territories in space

While the overall operations of the station are run by the Multilateral Coordination Board, things are more complicated when it comes to the modules themselves.

The International Space Station is made of 16 different segments constructed by different countries, including the U.S., Russia, Japan, Italy and the European Space Agency. Under the ISS agreements, each country maintains control over how its modules are used. This includes the Russian Zarya, which provides electricity and propulsion to the station, and Zvezda, which provides all of the station’s life support systems like oxygen production and water recycling.

The result is that ISS modules are treated legally as if they are territorial extensions of their countries of origin. While all crew onboard can theoretically be in and use any of the modules, how they are used must be approved by each country.

For nearly 10 years, the Russian Soyuz rocket was the only way for astronauts to get to the ISS. 

NASA/Bill Ingalls via WikimediaCommons

International tensions and the ISS

While the ISS has functioned under this structure remarkably well since its launch more than 20 years ago, there have been some disputes.

When Russian forces annexed the Ukrainian territory of Crimea in 2014, the U.S. imposed economic sanctions on Russia. As a result, Russian officials announced that they would no longer launch U.S. astronauts to and from the space station beginning in 2020. Since NASA had retired the space shuttle in 2011, the U.S. was entirely dependent on Russian rockets to get astronauts to and from the ISS, and this threat could have meant the end of the American presence aboard the space station entirely.

While Russia did not follow through on its threat and continued to transport U.S. astronauts, the threat needed to be taken seriously. The situation today is quite different. The U.S. has been relying on private SpaceX rockets to transport astronauts to and from the ISS. This makes potential Russian threats to launch access less meaningful.

But the invasion of Ukraine does seem to have upped the intensity of geopolitical maneuvering involving the ISS.

The new U.S. sanctions are designed to “degrade their aerospace industry, including their space program.” The tweet in response from Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, “explained” that Russian modules are key to moving the station when it needs to dodge space junk or adjust its orbit. He went on to say that Russia could either refuse to move the station when needed or even crash it into the U.S., Europe, India or China.

Though dramatic, this is likely an idle threat due to both political consequences and the practical difficulty of getting Russian cosmonauts off the ISS safely. But I am concerned about how the invasion will affect the remaining years of the space station.

In December 2021, the U.S. announced its intention to extend operation of ISS operations from its planned end date of 2024 to 2030. Most ISS partners expressed support for the plan, but Russia will also need to agree to keep the ISS operating beyond 2024. Without Russia’s support, the station – and all of its scientific and cooperative achievements – may face an early end.

The ISS has served as a prime example for how nations can cooperate with one another in an endeavor that has been relatively free from politics. Increasing tensions, threats and more aggressive Russian actions – including its recent test of anti-satellite weapons – are straining the realities of international cooperation in space going forward.

Author

Wendy Whitman Cobb
Professor of Strategy and Security Studies, Air University
Disclosure statement
Wendy Whitman Cobb is affiliated with the US Air Force School of Advanced Air and Space Studies. Her views are her own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Defense or any of its components.

NASA shrugs off Roscosmos leader's rant over U.S. sanctions and space station

 Director General of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin attends a meeting of the State Commission

 on the eve of a mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in Baikonur, Kazakhstan 

December 7, 2021. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov

Author of the article:

Reuters

Steve Gorman

Publishing date:

Feb 25, 2022  • 

Article content

NASA on Friday shrugged off public comments from the head of its Russian counterpart suggesting U.S. sanctions imposed against Moscow over the Ukraine crisis could “destroy” U.S.-Russian teamwork on the International Space Station (ISS).

Dmitry Rogozin, director-general of Russian space agency Roscosmos, took to Twitter on Thursday denouncing new constraints on high-tech exports to Russia that U.S. President Joe Biden said were designed to “degrade their aerospace industry, including their space program.”

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“Do you want to destroy our cooperation on the ISS?” Rogozin asked in a series of tweets, according to a Reuters translation of his remarks. He also noted that orbital control of the space station, through periodic rocket thrusts to maintain a safe altitude, is exercised using engines of a Russian cargo craft docked to the ISS.

“If you block cooperation with us, then who is going to save the ISS from an uncontrolled descent from orbit and then falling onto the territory of the United States or Europe?” he wrote. “There is also a scenario where the 500-ton structure falls on India or China. Do you want to threaten them with this prospect? The ISS doesn’t fly over Russia, so all the risks are yours.”

Rogozin concluded his Twitter rant by urging the U.S. government to “disavow” what he called “Alzheimer’s sanctions.”

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Asked for NASA’s response to Rogozin’s outburst, the U.S. space agency said in a statement it was continuing to work with all of its international partners, including Roscosmos, “for the ongoing safe operations of the International Space Station.”

“The new export control measures will continue to allow U.S.-Russia civil space operations,” NASA added. “No changes are planned to the agency’s support for ongoing in-orbit and ground-station operations.”

Apart from Rogozin’s Twitter rhetoric, longstanding U.S.-Russian collaboration aboard the orbiting research platform appeared to otherwise remain on solid footing, even as tensions between the two countries escalated over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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NASA and Roscosmos issued statements this week saying that both agencies were still working toward a “crew exchange” deal under which the former Cold War space rivals would routinely share flights to ISS on each other’s spacecrafts free of cost.

The laboratory outpost, orbiting some 250 miles (400 km) above Earth, is currently home to a crew of four Americans, two Russians and a German astronaut.

NASA said members of Expedition 66, which the current seven-member crew is designated, spent Friday studying how microgravity affects skin cells and plant genetics, as well as how to exercise more effectively in weightlessness. (Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Sam Holmes)

International Space Station to crash over India? NASA responds to Russian space agency chief’s Twitter tirade

NASA, however, shrugged off Rogozin’s comments that US sanctions on Moscow over Ukraine could “destroy” the two countries’ teamwork on the ISS.

Written by FE Online

February 26, 2022 

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Rogozin launched a scathing attack on Thursday, denouncing US President Joe Biden’s decision to restrict high-tech exports to Russia. (Reuters)

Amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the chief of Moscow’s space programme has warned that sanctions imposed on the country could lead to the International Space Station (ISS) losing orbit and crashing. Roscosmos Director-General Dmitry Rogozin warned that the ongoing sanctions against Russia would lead to the ISS’s premature death. In a tirade on Twitter, Rogozin said the ISS would lose orbit without Russian assistance and eventually fall into the US, Europe, or even India.

Rogozin launched a scathing attack on Thursday, denouncing US President Joe Biden’s decision to restrict high-tech exports to Russia that, he said, were designed to degrade Moscow’s aerospace industry, including the space programme.

Reuters translated Rogozin’s comments, originally posted in Russian.

In a series of questions aimed at the US administration, Rogozin asked if Washington wanted to destroy the cooperation on the ISS. He also pointed out that the space station’s orbital control uses the engines of a Russian cargo craft docked at the space station through periodic rocket thrusts to maintain altitude.

Also Read | Cheetah Action Plan: Indian delegation visits Namibia, big cats to roar in India by mid-2022

In another question aimed at the US, Rogozin asked who would save the ISS from an uncontrolled descent and falling onto US or European territory if it blocked cooperation with Moscow.

He said there was a scenario where the 500-tonne structure would fall on China or India, asking if the US wanted to threaten these countries with that prospect. Rogozin also said the ISS didn’t fly over Russia, so all the risk was for the others to bare.

Rogozin concluded his tirade by urging the US to “disavow” what he described as “Alzheimer’s sanctions”.

NASA, however, shrugged off Rogozin’s comments that US sanctions on Moscow over Ukraine could “destroy” the two countries’ teamwork on the ISS, Reuters reported.

The US space agency said it was continuing to work with all international partners, including Roscosmos, for the safe operations of the ISS.

NASA also added that the export control measures would continue to allow US-Russia civil space operations and there were no changes planned to the agency’s support for in-orbit and ground-station operations.

Despite Rogozin’s Twitter tirade, the longstanding collaboration between the two countries aboard the in-orbit research platform remained on firm footing.

Both NASA and Roscosmos issued statements earlier this week and said the agencies were working toward a ‘crew exchange’ deal under which the former Space Race rivals would share flights to the ISS on each other’s spacecraft for free.

The ISS, orbiting 400 km above Earth, is currently housing two Russians, four Americans, and a German astronaut.

Improving literacy means a book – or an iPad – at bedtime, say researchers

If ministers want to boost reading and maths scores in schools, they must involve parents, according to social mobility experts

A child at Parklands primary school in Leeds, where the headteacher, Chris Dyson, works hard to bring parents into school 

Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Anna Fazackerley
Sat 26 Feb 2022

Bev Wong, a single parent from Brixton, south London, would never have taken her teenage daughters to visit a university like Oxford. It wasn’t just that she and other mums in her community didn’t believe elite universities wanted black state school kids. They also couldn’t afford the public transport to get there.

But after being approached in her local church, Wong became part of Parent Power, a programme run by the prestigious King’s College London and the community organising charity Citizens UK. The aim of the project was to listen to what was deterring under-represented parents from encouraging their kids to go to selective universities, and then train groups of parents up to talk to others and campaign for a level playing field in education for their children.

The first thing Wong’s group did was write to Oxford University. “People like me don’t have the networks or the money, but don’t think we don’t want the same things,” she says. “All the parents I speak to have big aspirations for their kids. They just don’t know who to go to to ask the questions.”

After hearing from Wong’s parent group, Oxford University sent a coach to collect them for an open day. And so many local parents and teenagers signed up that some had to be turned away.

After that the group contacted Cambridge, but this time they didn’t just ask for a coach, they said they also wanted to meet black students their teens could identify with, and to have some interactive activities.

Bev Wong, member of a Parent Power group in south London, arranged for a coach to Oxford University. So many local people signed up, some had to be turned away. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

Wong says: “When we heard back from Oxford we were like, ‘Wow, just a letter from us did this!’ The second time we had a plan about what we needed.”

For years, efforts to widen access to the top universities have focused solely on reaching out to disadvantaged kids at school. But the Brilliant Club, a charity working on social mobility, has decided real change won’t happen unless universities reach out to parents, too. The charity has set up Parent Power groups in Cardiff, Fenland and Knowsley and is planning more.

Anne-Marie Canning, the charity’s new CEO, remembers her mother being the go-to person in the Asda supermarket where she worked for any colleagues who had questions about their kids going to university. Canning’s vision is to have a network of grass-roots working-class ambassadors like her mum across the country.

Social mobility experts say this approach shouldn’t stop with universities and if ministers are serious about closing the attainment gap they need to get parents onboard at home. They argue parents are the missing link in the government’s impending schools white paper. This is expected to set a new goal of ensuring that 90% of children leave primary school have reached expected standards in reading, writing and maths by 2030. In 2019, the figure was 65%.

Susie Whigham, the Brilliant Club’s acting CEO, says the government should be encouraging parents from poorer backgrounds to engage more. “There are things parents can do like reading to their child, which can have a significant impact if it becomes a daily routine. But it needs to be communicated in a way that recognises the pressures parents face.”

Lee Elliot Major, professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter, says: “I think the government has a real opportunity to grasp the nettle by encouraging schools to develop parental engagement plans. Otherwise I fear we will not see much change in the literacy and numeracy levels.”

Elliot Major is leading a research project assessing the backgrounds of children born at the start of the millennium who ended up with less than a 4 (an old grade C) at English and maths GCSE. The researchers have found that three-quarters of children who were struggling in language tests at age three didn’t go on to achieve a pass (grade 4) in maths and English at 16. He says this means they will struggle to read a train timetable or understand a pay slip.

He is calling for a public campaign about the importance of parents spending 20 minutes a day reading with their children. “Schools are not a sufficient force in addressing the country’s scandalously high illiteracy and innumeracy rates,” he says, adding that as a minimum it is “absolutely key” for parents to read to their children in the early years.

Becky Francis: ‘Parents have often had a negative experience of school themselves.’ Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

Prof Becky Francis, the chief executive of the Education Endowment Foundation, a charity focusing on removing social inequality, says its research has shown getting parents involved can lead to four months’ progress over the course of a year for pupils. But the catch is there is no clear consensus on what actually works in pulling in parents. “We’ve tested several approaches but the constant message is it’s just really difficult,” she admits.

On one engagement programme it piloted, attendance quickly tailed off among parents from lower-socio economic groups, while middle-class parents continued to turn up. She admits this is a problem: reaching out to parents risks giving the sharp-elbowed middle-classes further advantage and widening the attainment gap even further.

She says: “These parents have often had a negative experience of school themselves and they find them intimidating places.”

The head of an inner-city primary school, who asked not to be named, says: “Parents who live in poverty often didn’t have that support when they were children.”

Her school is offering disadvantaged families an iPad loan after half-term so they can access online books purchased by the school. She says: “We will book in workshops again for parents, but the turnout for these is usually low. We’ve never cracked this.” She says some of her school’s parents can’t read English and may not be literate in their first language either, which makes encouraging them to read stories to their children much more challenging.

Research by the National Literacy Trust has found that many children live in houses with no books, and one in 11 children in poorer households do not own even one book of their own.

Liberty Venn, the founder of charity the Children’s Book Project, says poverty is increasingly a factor: “If you’ve got to choose between feeding your kids, buying new school shoes or paying for heating, of course you will swerve the book aisle in Tesco.”

Venn’s charity aims to give out 250,000 nearly new books this year to children in the most deprived primary schools in the country.

Chris Dyson, headteacher at Parklands primary school, Leeds, uses novel approaches for enticing parents to participate. 

Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Chris Dyson, the head of Parklands school, one of the most deprived primary schools in Leeds, says persistence is key. A lot of his parents have “really bad” memories of their own time at school. When he took over he says he invited all the parents in to hear his plans and bought 80 doughnuts from Marks & Spencer as an enticement. Only a handful turned up. But he kept inviting them, and buying doughnuts, and before the pandemic he had up to 150 parents turning up for his weekly “all singing, all dancing” assembly.

“It’s about perseverance,” he says. “And if you do things well, word gets around.”

He has other ways to bring families in. The school runs a cooking club where kids and parents can cook together. It is so popular, he now opens the school for the club in the holidays. “They are taking home a chicken chasseur that will feed their family of five for a fiver and they think that’s brilliant,” he says.

As a result, parents now sign up for workshops on how to help their child with reading or maths, and for training to improve their own lives, such as interview skills.