Communication strategies to engage parents:
Do's and Don'ts for Successful Parent-Teacher Conferences:
Parent-Teacher Conferences, handled correctly, are an opportunity to form a cooperative team for the coming school year. You will need each student's parents on your side in order to have the maximum positive impact on learning.
Follow these guidelines and you'll be on the right track:
Do's
Don'ts
Communicating with Aboriginal students’ parents:
- Initiate contact with parents: Teachers should initiate contact as soon as they know which students will be in their classroom for the school year. Contact can occur by means of an introductory phone call or a letter to the home introducing yourself to the parents and establishing expectations.
- Smile When You See Parents: Greet them. Most parents only occasionally interact with teachers so make sure that at least 90 percent of your encounters with them are positive, warm, and friendly. The impressions left from fleeting encounters in the hallway last a long time.
- Learn Their Names: (If you have a self-contained class.) Learn how they like to be addressed (Mr. ____? Señora? By their first name?) and how to pronounce them correctly.
- Declare Your Intention: Tell them that you want to partner with them, that you appreciate their support, and look forward to working together.
- Communicate Often and in Various Forms: Provide information about what's going on in your class (weekly would be ideal): what students are learning, what they've accomplished, what you're excited about, what they're excited about, and the learning and growth you're seeing. Suggest things that they might ask their child about: "Ask them to tell you about what they learned last week about meal worms," or "Ask them to read you the haiku they wrote."
- Make a Positive Phone Call Home: If you have a self-contained class, call all homes within the first couple of weeks and then at regular intervals throughout the year. If you teach many students, identify those students who perhaps need a positive call home.
- Lead with the Good News: Give positive praise first when calling parents or meeting with them to discuss a concern. Every kid has something good about him/her. Find it. Share it. Then share your concern. Adhere strictly to this rule.
- Find a Translator: If you can't speak their language, seek a translator for at least one parent conference and/or phone call. (For obscure languages, you can sometimes find a refugee center or other public agency that can help). Reach out to those parents as well; do whatever you can to connect.
- Your Language is Powerful: It communicates an awareness that there are many different kinds of families. Be careful not to assume a mother is, or isn't married, or even that if she is married, she's married to a man. Learn to ask open-ended questions and understand that sometimes parents/guardians might not want to share some information.
- Ask Questions about the Child: "What kinds of things does he enjoy doing outside of school? Who are the special people in her life -- family or family friends? What do you think are her best characteristics? What was he like as a little boy?" Demonstrate an interest in knowing your student.
- Listen to Parents: Really listen. They know a whole lot about their kid. Smile at the Child When talking to a parent in front of a child, smile and make eye contact with the student to demonstrate that you care about him/her. Recognize what he/she has done well in your class in front of the parents. Then share a concern, if you have one.
- Invite Parents to Share: Distribute a survey at the beginning of the year (if parents don't read/write in English, students can interview them and relay their answers). Find out what parents know about and what skills they have. Invite them in especially if it connects the curriculum and content. Let them share with you their cultural traditions, interests, passions, skills, knowledge.
- Let Parents Know How They Can Help: Many want to help but especially as kids get older, parents aren't asked for help as often and don't know what to do. There's always some way they can help in the classroom.
- Be Very Specific: Provide ways parents can support their child at home: "You can help your child with her math homework by asking her to explain how she got an answer," or "As you're reading stories at night, ask your child to make predictions. This strengthens reading comprehension."
- Be a Broker of Resources: If they share a concern, be prepared to point them to a direction where they can find help. If you share a concern ("Your daughter spaces out and doesn't pay attention") be prepared to suggest what the parents can do.
- Explain Your Instructional Decisions: Take the time to do this and help them learn about the education system if they're not familiar with it. Help them understand what you're doing and why.
- Invite Parents to Participate in Making Some Decisions: Invite their input, give them information that will help them form an opinion, and listen to their conclusions.
- Thank Parents: Both individually and publicly for their support, perhaps in your weekly newsletter. Recognize what they do to help your class and how it's impacting students.
- Share Every Success: Let parents know what their child is doing well, what academic skills, social skills or knowledge he's mastered.
- Invite Parents to Celebrate and Break Bread Together: Communities are strengthened when people come together in celebration. Start the year with a potluck. Share food and stories about food. We all bond over food.
- Communicate High Expectations: Research has shown that parental expectations are one of the strongest predictors of student achievement. Your parent-teacher communication plan should be designed to set clear, consistent and high expectations for student performance in class. This will put parents on your side and enable them to reinforce your expectations in the home.
- Keeping Parents Informed: To help open the lines of communication, keep parents involved in everything their child is doing in school. Keep them informed about school events, classroom procedures, educational strategies, assignment dates, behavior, academic progress, or anything school related.
- Utilize Technology - Technology is a great way to keep parents informed because it allows you to get information out quickly. With a class website you can post assignments, project due dates, events, extended learning opportunities, and explain what educational strategies you are using in the classroom. Providing your email is another quick way to communicate any information about your students’ progress or behavior issues.
- Getting Parents Involved: A great way for parents to get involved in their child's education is to give them the opportunity to volunteer and become involved in school organizations.
Do's and Don'ts for Successful Parent-Teacher Conferences:
Parent-Teacher Conferences, handled correctly, are an opportunity to form a cooperative team for the coming school year. You will need each student's parents on your side in order to have the maximum positive impact on learning.
Follow these guidelines and you'll be on the right track:
Do's
- Give parents plenty of notice. Remember that parents have busy lives and challenging work schedules. The more notice you give them, the more likely they will be able to attend the Parent-Teacher Conference.
- Start and end the Parent-Teacher Conference on a positive note. Remember that parents are often nervous, too. Set them at ease by starting off with your positive observations of their child. After you've explained some areas of improvement, finish the conference off with more things the parents can feel good about. This goes a long way toward creating a positive working relationship with them.
- Be organized. Fill out a pre-conference form for each student, complete with space for your notes and follow-up issues. The conference may be your first impression on the parents, and your organization will inspire confidence in your abilities to help their child this year.
- Listen actively. When the parents speak, concentrate and really hear what they are trying to communicate to you. You may even want to take notes. When parents feel heard, you are setting up a cooperative relationship for the coming school year.
- Have samples of student work to back up your points. When discussing specific learning goals for the student, show the parents what you observed in the classwork that shows a need for improvement. On the flip side, you can also show samples of work well done, so they can see how much the students are learning with you.
- Give the parents homework. Think of 2-3 customized tasks that the parents can do at home to help their child learn this school year. It may not always happen as you hope, but it's worth a shot. Offer worksheets, web sites, and tools to support their efforts.
- Call in the principal for touchy situations. Sometimes teachers need to call for backup. If a specific set of parents have already showed some hostility towards you, a trusted administrator can act as a facilitator who has everyone's best interests at heart. Moreover, the principal can act as a witness for you, if the tone of the conference starts to sour.
Don'ts
- Don't stray from the topic at hand. It's easy for conversations to wander off into fun topics, such as shared interests. But remember why you are having this conference in the first place and keep the meeting on track.
- Don't Get Emotional. Stay professional and objective as you describe the behavior you've observed from a particular child. If you stay rational and calm, the parents likely will, as well.
- Don't run late. Once the Parent-Teacher Conference schedule is set, do everything possible to keep things running in a timely manner. Parents have busy lives and have dropped everything to meet with you at the appointed time. Respectiung their time will make a great impression.
- Don't have a messy classroom. We all know that classrooms can get messy during the busy course of a school day. But spend some time straightening up your room, especially your desk, in order to make the best possible impression.
- Don't overwhelm the parents with too many at-home tasks. Choose 2-3 doable ways that the parents can support learning at home. Be specific and offer them the tools they will need to help their child.
Communicating with Aboriginal students’ parents:
- Use humour to break the ice with Aboriginal parents
- Like any relationship, getting on with Aboriginal parents takes time
- Setup a room in the school that can be accessed directly from the outside so that parents do not have to pass the office to visit you
- Alternatively, meet parents outside the school
- Negotiate with parents for them to work in-class tutors, so that they have a specific role in the school
- Many Aboriginal parents like to be involved in their children’s education, and not just when something is wrong.
- Parents should have a strong decision-making role in the school in terms of control over budgets, ability to order resources for the school, and power to deal with attendance and behaviour
- A personal style of communication works best with Aboriginal parents. Engage in social talk before getting into school business.
- Talk with parents outside school and avoid talking about school. Leave that for another time. Go to the footy, speak at the pub. Talk about anything (like the weather) or make a joke, just to make a connection for later.
- Speak positively about the children to their parents, rather than complaining about them
- Avoid trying to convince parents of your ideas. Try to find out what they want for their children at school.
- Speak plainly and well. Avoid education, jargon such as ‘strands’, ‘domains’, ‘key learning areas’, ‘indicators’, and ‘outcomes’.
- Listen carefully to what parents have to stay, rather than thinking about what you are going to say next.