Only 19 per cent of parents think they have a full picture of what their child gets up to at school, research suggests.

A poll found that children were reticent about describing the school day when they got home, although no more so than their parents had been when they were at school.

“Let me tell you about what I learned at school today” appeared near the top of a list of 20 phrases which parents said they wished they could hear their children say just once.

Researchers interviewed 1,013 parents with children at primary schools to work out how expressive children were about school life.

Parents ‘want more updates from teachers’

Some 88 per cent of parents surveyed said it was hard to get information from their child and 27 per cent likened it to “getting blood out of a stone”.

And 95 per cent of parents wanted to hear more from teachers about what happened in school, with 25 per cent wanting daily updates.

The survey showed that children were more likely to talk to their mother than their father about school, with girls being more open than boys, though 72 per cent of parents admitted they had rarely discussed school with their own parents when they were pupils.

The poll was commissioned by communications app ClassDojo.

ClassDojo founder Sam Chaudhary said: “Families say goodbye in the morning, and often don’t see each other again until dinner time. Half of our children’s life is out of the picture.”