GETTING schoolchildren interested in their lessons is hard enough. Encouraging their parents to take an active role is sometimes even more challenging.

Since 1994, Barbara Robinson has worked as a community project manager at Blakeston School in Stockton. She brings parents from around the poverty-stricken area surrounding the school - many with bad memories and poor experiences of schooldays - back into the classroom, helping them to gain qualifications and boosting their self-esteem.

The immediate area around the school is a challenging and deprived environment; poverty and poor housing are common features of people's lives and there is widespread second and third generation unemployment. But Mrs Robinson's skill in overcoming barriers and engaging mums and dads has led to many parents enrolling on her course to become a teaching assistant. The age range of parents taking part varies from late twenties to middle-fifties.

"A number of the parents have very low self-esteem and feel they have failed because they left school without any formal qualifications," she says. "They often don't want to come back to school even for parents evenings because they feel embarrassed. Running the course is not just about gaining academic qualifications; it gives the parents confidence and they can take that learning back into the community. It is like a chain."

One of Mrs Robinson's success stories was a woman who liked drama but was unsure if she could do the teaching assistant course because she was dyslexic. She succeeded and has gone on to work with drama groups and youngsters who feel disenchanted with school.

Mrs Robinson, who is also head of lower sixth and teaches English and drama at the school, says: "Stories like that show what can be achieved with a bit of determination and it is rewarding to see. Most of the people I work with have not been given any opportunity and if I can do that in some small way that is how I get my buzz. You do not have to be the most academically-minded person to make the most of what you have been given."

Mrs Robinson also works to develop links between Blakeston and the primary feeder schools. Each year Mrs Robinson organises a four-day year six camp involving primary and secondary teachers, parents, teaching assistants and the local business community.

As a result, she has been invited to take a lead role in the local education Action Zone's primary to secondary school transition programme. "Emotionally, it is a huge leap going from primary to secondary school and I am more than happy to make sure the transition goes smoothly," she says.

Last week, Mrs Robinson, 50, won the national Lloyds TSB award for working with parents and the community in a secondary school. Judges commented that not only had she enriched the lives of so many children and their parents, she had given them the gift of going on to enrich the lives of others too. "I was surprised but delighted by the award. It was truly a community award, getting parents on board and bringing them back into the classroom," she says.

And Mrs Robinson's definition of the word "communication" seems to stretch far and wide, and crosses many boundaries. She regularly raises funds for a variety of causes including eating disorders, land mine clearance and clean needles projects. She also sends aid to Sierra Leone and supports a local women's refuge, collecting clothes and basic foodstuffs; last year she baked 42 Christmas cakes to raise much-needed funds.

"To be honest, it is all about being organised and organising your time properly," she says. "People often ask me how I find time for myself. The simple answer is organisation." Her latest venture is to liaise with Trauma International, an organisation which provides psychological help for children in war-stricken areas of the world.

Married, with a 23-year-old daughter and son aged 20, Mrs Robinson readily admits she would not have been able to do so much if it had not been for the support she has received from her family. "I couldn't have asked for more," she says. "There have been many times when I have informed them they were going to have to get up early to help me at a car boot sale, and they have. They have all been stars."