Grandparents directly linked to grandkids’ school results

If you were the kind of student who messed around in class and ignored your teachers, chances are your grandkids are living with the repercussions.

A new study has found that grandparents’ education levels is directly linked to their grandkids’ school results, and those who didn’t perform well at school have grandkids with poorer NAPLAN results than more studious Baby Boomers.

The research was led by the Telethon Kids Institute and published in the Australian Journal of School Issues.

“Most of this relationship could be explained by the fact that parents would also have higher levels of education, as we would expect, however we found grandparents still had a small effect over and above the influence of parents,” the institute’s Kirsten Hancock said.

The researchers found that if a grandparent had high educational attainment, the parent was more likely to have a university degree – but they were also more likely to partner with someone who had the same.

“Because of the way people meet, partner and have families, educational resources tend to get concentrated in a smaller number of families,” Hancock said.

“This turns out to be very good for the grandchildren in these families – the more people in their family with higher qualifications, the better they do on NAPLAN tests.

“By Year 3, children with four or more highly educated family members — that is, both parents and grandparents — were about one year ahead of children with two or three highly educated family members, parents only, and two years ahead of children without any highly-qualified family members.”

While socio-economic and cultural background are often considered the most influential factors in a child’s ability to succeed at school, Hancock said the research demonstrates that children’s family history — particularly in relation to their grandparents — is of upmost importance.

“Our results make it clear that schools have a really hard task ahead of them when it comes to reducing the gaps between low and high achieving children,” she said.

“Schools do their best to help children overcome disadvantaged circumstances, but given these gaps emerge long before children enter school, there’s a lot of ground to make up.

“It’s a hard job and one that will take sustained investment over a long period, but it’s really important because what happens at school can have lasting impacts over generations.”

While the findings make a clear link between grandparents and education, it does not assess the positive impact grandparents can have just by being in their grandchildren’s lives.

Previous studies have shown that children who have close relationships with their grandparents are more likely to be kinder and more sympathetic to the elderly.

What grade did you get to in school? Do you think it matters how well you did at school when it comes to your grandkids?