Schools play a crucial role in children’s development and wellbeing, and their communication with parents is essential to this equation. There must be open communication between the two to ensure that the learning process is compelling and engaging for children as they explore their environments.
Parents-teacher conversations start initially at the introductory session at the onset of the school term. This relationship evolves with time as the child progresses through the grades. It is a process that begins when parents enroll their children in school that continues until the day they graduate, and sometimes even beyond.
Bringing Parents and Schools Together
The goal of parent-teacher communication is to ensure the best possible outcome for students, ensuring that the young minds are engaged at home and school in similar ways.
There does not need to be a formal meeting for such communications; these can occur at the drop-off or pick-up times. However, schools also contact parents via email or phone where necessary.
Parent and school communication often involves the student’s abilities, improvements, and achievements while highlighting the struggles and difficulties children face. These meetings cover academics and focus on the child’s behavior and discipline.
The prime purpose of these parent-school meetings is to increase communication for the children’s wellbeing and growth. The joint efforts of school and parents benefit the kids as their collaboration allows parents to keep their children on the right path.
Strategies To Improve Parent-Teacher Communication
According to a study, 94% of parents prefer to send their children to schools that stay in constant communication. School owners and authorities need to maintain regular and constructive communication to get good feedback and increase enrollments.
Moreover, the following strategies allow schools to improve their school-parent communication policies:
- Create Schedules And Contact
Schools or teachers should be the ones to make the first contact with parents. It builds a trusting relationship between schools and parents and plays a part in the school’s credibility and seriousness towards the child’s nourishment.
Teachers should be able to reach out to parents through email or text. This way, parents can also be stress-free and trust the school to focus on their children while providing frequent updates on their progress from the get-go. However, this might be too much work for educators, making it difficult for them to provide feedback and conduct in-person meetings for many students at a time.
That is why it is an excellent idea to automate the entire process.
Scheduling meetings is an effective way of giving timely feedback to the parents. School teachers can use online schedule maker tools like the one offered by PosterMyWall to effortlessly organize parent-teacher meeting schedules.
- Do Home Visits
As we said, having formal pre-planned meetings with parents is not always the best way to prioritize student wellbeing. Informal meetings like home visits often open new doors to communication and can give more insight into the children’s performance.
Teachers can arrange these meetings depending on the need and the child’s performance. Usually, two or three home visits a year should be sufficient, but in dire situations, they can conduct urgent home visits to improve the situation for children.
Moreover, educators can understand the home environment and student’s personal life. Sometimes it is the home that can be a problem in a child’s growth and learning process; through home visits, school officials can learn about the parents, their visions, and seriousness towards their children’s growth.
- Use Classroom Newsletter
School newsletters are excellent for spreading information and news among children and their parents. The newsletter does not require any complicated method; schools can print them and send them to students or directly email them to parents.
Digital tools allow teachers to schedule emails and send out newsletters in bulk with a single click. They can inform the parents about upcoming events, organize meetings, and provide regular updates about children’s education and progress in the classroom.
- Use Chat Tools & Applications
Schools can boost their communication efforts with parents by using instant chat applications. These applications allow parents and teachers to discuss the student’s progress and issue privately.
Chat applications enable parents or teachers to communicate any time of the day; they can send text or voice messages about school-related issues. In addition, teachers can send updates, share performance, and class announcements.
- Constant Communications
Communication is mandatory in every workplace and organization. It is more critical for school and parents as the student’s future and character development are at stake. For constant communication, schools should have a proper protocol and communication system for email and SMS.
There are many digital tools available that can help in creating a secure communication medium between schools and parents. While using all the available resources, the school administration will contribute massively to students’ success and development while educating the parents.
- School Activities And Events
It’s great for students to learn, grow, and have fun with school activities. Teachers also love to arrange school events, celebrations, and co-curricular activities to boost student morale and confidence. Moreover, these types of activities create a community system within the school.
Why not invite parents to be a part of the festivities?
- Use Communication Apps
Every organization can benefit from digital tools. Schools can also use tools that can shift the traditional methods of parent-school communication to digital strategies. These applications improve engagements because of the ease of access and availability.
These apps are quick and effective; the parent or teacher can send messages, texts, audio, or media directly. Teachers can share any media file like PPTs, assignments, mark sheets in excel files, and other multimedia.
The best part about school communications applications is that they are safe and secure. The school administration has complete authority over the applications, so they can monitor the chats.
Conclusion
School-parent communication is necessary for student wellbeing; these discussions can create a healthy learning culture for students and give peace of mind to parents. Most of all, active engagement enhances the student’s capability to learn and grow. Therefore, a school should prepare their communication plan or upgrade existing ones to new standards to increase efficiency and engagement.
