When Mary Binns took over as head of Mansel primary in Sheffield, her attempts to turn the school round were not universally welcomed. A petition calling for her removal was passed around the local estate. She was personally threatened. And, one morning, a mob of 40 parents converged on the school and held an impromptu public meeting over a meningitis scare. “Bear-baiting was the local hobby and I was the bear,” she says. That last incident was nearly two years ago.

Mansel primary stands in the middle of a sprawling estate, an educational outpost surrounded by rows of utilitarian semis. Along with the children teeming through the school gates in the morning are women - women who left school at 16 or younger, women who say they were “thick” at school, who work part-time as cleaners or in betting shops or as midday meals supervisors.

They’re dropping off their children, yes. But then they gather in their own classrooms - for courses in first aid, IT, aromatherapy, bookmaking. “I’ve achieved more since my kids have come here, and got more certificates than I did when I was at school myself,” says Andrea Mallender, 38.

Headteacher Mary Binns, 53, believes that involving parents is vital to raising standards across the school. She came to Mansel five years ago; shortly afterwards, in October 1997, the school was placed in special measures after “the worst Ofsted you’ve ever seen”. Demoralising though that was, the most acute problem facing the school was its rock-bottom relationship with the community. “It was a very hostile environment when I arrived,” says Ms Binns. “Parents would barge into classrooms and swear at the teacher; they would approach teachers in corridors and be very adversarial. We have diamond parents here but a small, hostile group seemed to overshadow the rest, and staff were intimidated.” Special measures exacerbated the situation. “We continue to be confronted by our more aggressive parents,” she noted at the time, “who seem to feel that their behaviour is vindicated by our failed status.”

Petite, erect and funny she may be, but Mary Binns can look after herself. Brought up on a similar estate on the other side of the city, she has worked in Canada, in the independent sector, in secondary, and has had two previous primary headships. Shortly after she arrived at Mansel, she looked out of her office window one day during break and wondered what she had taken on. “I thought, ‘I haven’t got the reins. It’s out of control.’ I was seeing 15 or more children every lunchtime, fire-fighting all the time.”

The morning of the meningitis protest proved a turning point. The school established a weekly surgery at which parents could come and talk over issues with a parent governor, without appointments. Half of the mob melted away when presented with this open forum. The other half - genuinely concerned parents - formed themselves into the Friends of Mansel. The head responded by giving them a room in the school.

Steven Green, a redundant steelworker with a child at Mansel, gradually made himself indispensable as a volunteer. The school offered him a job as a learning support assistant - and male role model. He accepted. At the same time, Sheffield University researchers began a literacy project to test the effects of increasing parents’ involvement in their children’s education.

Much has changed at Mansel since those days. Over coffee and flapjacks, a group of parents gather to explain what activities they undertake in school. “We’re very busy. We don’t get any housework done - you can write that down - but our kids are well educated,” says Dawn Holmes, 34, who has a five-year-old and a nine-year-old at the school and who is currently taking part in a course called “Read and write with me”.

“People who don’t get involved daren’t even speak to teachers,” says Dawn Windel, a 29-year-old mother of two. “Now that we’re doing courses it’s totally different. You find out that they’re real people and they don’t think they’re better than us.”

Ann Cowling, 41, has children aged eight and nine in the school; she took part in the family literacy project and as a result is now studying part-time at the local college. “Once you’ve been in school, you do realise a lot,” she says. “They’re all so friendly and they make you feel at ease and make it fun as well, like they do for the children.”

Three posts are pivotal to the improved relationships between school and community. Parent governor Clare Davis has been employed - with pound;10,500 from the Government’s single regeneration budget (SRB) - as a home-school link worker. “She looks like they do, she talks like they do, she’s got common sense and it just works,” says Mary Binns.

School paid for Ms Davis, formerly a cleaner, to take a counselling course to build on her talent for working with people. She now acts as first port of call for parents and children with a range of concerns from head lice to family traumas. “I see it as so necessary, but it’s not permanently funded,” says the head.

Anne Stafford, a Mansel teacher for nearly 20 years, now works three days a week as family learning development worker, also funded by the SRB.

The third member of the community work team is Barbara Stacey, learning mentor, whose post is funded by Excellence in Cities. She tackles barriers to children’s learning - starting a breakfast club to counteract not just children coming to school hungry but the pervasive problem of lateness. Up to 80 children plus a dozen parents arrive each morning for juice and toast. She works with children to address behaviour or other issues, and sees four or five parents each week in a former first aid room, where the kettle is permanently on the boil. She ran a parenting skills course and play sessions reminding parents of the delights of skipping and sack races.

“Children need someone who’s not a teacher, who’s here for them, and mums like the light-hearted side of things. I love every minute of it,” says Ms Stacey.

The courses offered at the school have their genesis in Sheffield University’s research project; having involved parents in their children’s learning, staff were keen to keep up the momentum. Mansel offers - among other things - literacy, numeracy, ICT and a weekly session to keep Year 1 and 2 parents up to speed with what their children are studying. Literacy and numeracy are taught by Mansel staff, with supply cover paid for by the Basic Skills Agency.

Anne Stafford is on the corridors and in “the yard” daily, supporting and enrolling. “You have to make yourself available, you have to listen,” she says. “You put a lot of yourself into the role. You put a lot of you into the job. There’s been a huge change in attitude with parents involved and wanting to help the children.” Parents returned the compliment and recently presented Ms Stafford with a certificate “for all the help and support you have given us this year”.

Some 100 parents have taken courses, although fathers are rare and some parents remain out of reach altogether. “It isn’t easy to get the parents in,” says Ms Stafford. “But I don’t think this is just our school. You have to keep chipping away, even if it’s just one or two or three or four people.”

Mansel primary came out of special measures within a record 12 months, to the delight of the then education secretary David Blunkett, a regular recipient of letters from Mary Binns and presenter of certificates to eight mothers here for Level 2 story-sack work. Nevertheless, Ofsted commented, after one monitoring visit, on the lingering “culture gap” between school and home. It underlined the point in February last year. “This is a good school in which a significant minority of parents’ and pupils’ attitudes often negate the positive effects of good teaching and strong leadership,” said inspectors. It is this gap - recognisable in many school communities - that Mansel’s work with parents and the community is attempting to bridge.

Much of the tension results from parents’ past experiences of school. Wendy Broad, an involved parent at the school, with children aged seven and 10, has taken maths and family literacy courses. It took courage to come back to the classroom. “I hated school,” she says. “I didn’t really learn a lot. We did the literacy, and your confidence comes out. I used to not like talking to teachers because you feel they’re above you. Then we did the course and we’ve been stuck here ever since.”

“I’m educating parents because I’ve chosen to,” says Mary Binns. “Nobody’s funding it. But my view is that we can’t not take on the parents. Otherwise they will negate what we do. It’s not easy, it’s not romantic; it’s a practical thing that has got to be done in order to raise standards. We’re squeezing the children as hard as we can to get the SATs results, and you can’t disregard the context.”

Despite great improvements, problems remain. One parent is currently on bail, accused of assaulting a pregnant teacher earlier in the year. Another, implacably pissed off, comes to see the head with a complaint about procedures followed with regard to her son’s truancy. The head sees the woman in a middle office, with the school secretary present and exit routes open, as is her practice with difficult parents. The “gut-churning fear” of the early days has been replaced by “mere butterflies” as she contemplates difficult meetings, she says. But, she acknowledges, “we do have difficult days here. Very difficult days.”

Along with the lingering unease over potential assaults and insults, chronic vandalism, child protection cases and community feuds finding their way into school, are the financial headaches. Mary Binns had been with Prince Charles at Highgrove the day before this visit, competing with major charities for Business in the Community funding; she spends significant time looking for money for the work with the community.

She has a “totally and utterly tolerant” husband, and grown-up children. “It’s taking all my time and energy to do it,” she says. “I don’t have any hobbies, any friends. This is my life. But there’s a finite amount of time, even for someone who hasn’t got hobbies.”

The SRB money, which has made possible the renaissance at Mansel, comes to an end this summer, threatening the “magical triangle” of people working to enable parents to support their children, and bridge the gulf of class and culture that otherwise yawns between schools and the communities they strive so hard to serve.

Wendy Wallace is education feature writer of the year