Abstract:

Introduction:
The success/failure at school is a cause for concern for the school and also for the families. Reaching the school-age brings changes in the child life because of the adaptation to new environments and contexts, the relationship with teachers and colleagues, the habits and the lifestyle of the students. The family, at home and its relationship with the school, has a fundamental role in the school performance of the children through the monitoring and active involvement that the family should have in educational projects.

Objectives:
Evaluating the performance (success/failures) of the students of the sixth year; characterizing the sociodemographic profile of the students and their families; evaluating some lifestyle habits of the students; evaluating the parental involvement with students and the school.

Methods:
An exploratory and descriptive, quantitative and correlational study involving the parents and the students of a public school in Alagoas, Brasil, in 2015. . Sample non-probabilistic was composed by students from the sixth year, a total of 325. A questionnaire to characterize the students was used to collect data and we also used a scale of the parental involvement with the school (QEPE- parent version). Furthermore, we conducted 40 interviews with parents of the sixth year students.

Results:
The majority are male (56.6%) with an average age of 11.96 years (between 10 and 16 years old). They are divided into 8 classes (30-47 students) Most of them live in rural areas (61.5%), they live with their parents (59.1%) and around 40% report having single or divorced parents. The parents, 50.2% of them attended to elementary school and 37.2% have no education. They take an average of 15 min traveling to school. The children do not have smoking or alcoholic habits and they do activities to help their families (74.5%). 41.2% of the students report being sleepy during the classes and 43.1% wake up before 6 am. 33.5% of the students like a little or does not like the school. Talking about school performance, 24.3% evaluating themselves as below the average and 44% have already failed. The lack of study (31.5%) and absences (35.7%) are the most frequently mentioned reasons for the failures. Talking about the reason why they do not study, 23.6% report having to do activities to help their families. The great majority affirm having a good or really good relationship with their parents, however around 25% report that the parents rarely help with children’s problems and encouraging reading. Regular visits from parents to school are represented by 36.3%.

Conclusions:
There is more school failure in male, in students who parents do not help with their homework and do not encourage reading and in the students who reported being sleepy during the classes. The students who like the school and feel motivated are those who have lower school failures rate. We verified a lack of involvement of the parents with the school life of their children. The parents do not help with the homework and encouraging the study and they also do not maintain regular contact with the teacher and with the school.

Keywords:

Family, students, school, success, failure.