What is the Golden Triangle in education, and how can it aid school / parent communication? Dave Waddell explains.

If you’ve never heard of what many an educational establishment’s marketing material calls ‘the golden triangle’, then you will certainly know what it is. Each corner is theorised as representing one of a given school’s three stakeholders: child, parent and teacher. Linked up, they constitute that triangle, the lines of which are imagined as channels of communication. It is ‘golden’ because it is seen as being both ideal and benchmark, which when in fine working order makes for a happy, purposeful and child centred learning community.

Careers Education, Impartial Advice and Guidance, Work Related Learning and Enterprise are all subjects when done well require input from employers. Previously there has been a plethora of organisations who were placed to be that link between education and employers, EBP’s who could put on a Careers Fair, Dragons' Den or Work Experience programme to meet the needs of the school. Sadly, in many cases they have gone, and so too has the budget to buy in such services.

Schools are left with a choice: to continue to deliver an enriched programme of learning or to bring it down to the statutory basics and offer a very limited CE/IAG curriculum. In some schools it is the fear of the planning and employer engagement that leads this decision.