Page 81: Engaging with parents

Page 81: Engaging with parents

Now, in my second year of teaching, I have reflected on my practice from last year and embedded some new approaches into my practice this year when working alongside and supporting parents. After conducting the first parents evening of this year and began this years parent workshop cycles, I feel I am in a good positive to reflect and share on interacting with parents.

Parental engagement and involvement is very important. Parents play a critical and important role in their child's education and educational development. As teachers, we should be providing parents with the tools and support they need to help their children at home. Parents have many differing opinions and experiences of education, and often, you make note that exploring a parents relationship and experience with their education as a child, correlates to their support and involvement as a parent. Parents are busy people! They have an endless list of things to go to keep their families and life ball rolling. As teachers, we should be empowering and supporting them in developing their child's education - a team effort. 

Today I am going to share three vital tips when engaging and building relationships with parents to lead into next weeks blog where I will be sharing specific support and guidance regarding conducting parent workshops and parents evening. 

My top three parent tips:

1. Share one thing daily that a their child has done to impress you! 

The logistics can be tricky at the very busy home time, however when possible, I ensure to share one piece of good news with every parent everyday! This builds up good recall and a positive relationship. Plus it is great to get to tell and share all the amazing things the children have done in the classroom that day.

2. Phone home! 

This may feel an 'obvious' or 'silly point' however it can be very easy to ask the office or another member of staff to ring home, check something with a parent from permission for a trip, attendance or a head bump. When possible, as the class teacher, I think it is vital to make these phone calls and have these conversations yourself - the parents really appreciate this too.

3. Physically celebrating successes!

One of your children have done a fantastic piece of writing in english, photocopy this and send it home for a parent to celebrate with their child. It is easy to make sure everything is in books and talk to parents about excellent learning and progress - share this, show this and celebrate this more frequently than just at parents evening. Start making change today, choose 1 piece of 'wow' work from english each week to share with home etc, get into a good cycle. Parents will love this.

I hope some of these postive tips and have been helpful in preparing for upcoming parent conversations and given some food for through about how to establish strong parent relationships. Through these approaches I have been able to form strong home - school links in supporting all parents in their role in their child's education journey.

- Miss Yeoman