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https://www.schooleducationgateway.eu/en/pub/resources/toolkitsforschools/detail.cfm?n=297

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A powerful tool to achieve most of the things we have covered on this course, such as building trust, developing effective communication, involving parents in classrooms, and now family learning, is the “home visit”. While it is one of the most powerful tools we have as teachers to engage parents, it is also the most resource intensive and accordingly rarely used. Nevertheless, it is important to consider it for our own practice and to participate in or create scheme that can help us teachers conduct regular home visits. For an overview of the benefit of home visits for students and some good practices of doing home visits, take a look at the video of the US “Parent Teacher Home Visit” project. Please note that the 2nd half of the video addresses Academic Parent Teacher Teams which is another great strategy but not directly relevant to our section.

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n our final module we explore issues related to bringing the learning into families and thereby supporting student learning. As part of this we address the issue of “home visits”, something very few of us have the time to do for all our students, but a really important and powerful way to learn about families, the community, and how to support your students’ learning outside of the classroom.

This module also features the final – required – activity. If you want to qualify for a course certificate and would like to benefit of the activities of the course alumni group, then it is essential you follow through with all steps of this activity. Therefore, make sure to plan enough time this week to work on the module.

Make sure to define your own learning objectives again this week. Choose from the following:

1. Understand the importance of supporting learning in families

2. Identify activities, strategies to bring the joy of learning to parents who have had negative experiences of school

3. Understand some key principles to follow for organising home visits to families

4. Reflect on how you could organise more or more effective home visits

5. Identify similar types of schemes to the Irish Home School Community Liaison Scheme in  your country, which can support your work with parents and in particular with home visits.

6. Prepare an action plan or lesson plan incorporating key aspects covered on the course

7. Review the work of 3 fellow course participants

8. Learn about the INCLUDE-ED project and how an approach called dialogic gatherings can bring learning into families.

9. Learn about the work of your peers by joining our course Teachmeet

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Involving Parents in Educational Activities

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Involving Parents in Educational Activities

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Having parents in the classroom is not always easy for us teachers and it needs to be well organised and thought through to be a success. Openness and clear communication of expectations is essential to avoid some of the pitfalls of involving parents. Take a look at the video below where Eszter outlines some common challenges and issues when parents join the classroom work.

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0th October marks the European Day of Parents and Schools, a special day held on 2nd Tuesday of October since 2002. On this day we are going to have a look at the roles, tasks and responsibilities of different members of the school community with special focus on teachers (and school heads) and parents, keeping in mind child participation as a guiding principle. In the new pedagogical paradigm students and teachers, but also the parents are learners and educators. The webinar will look into methods to build the trust necessary for this, give examples of non-traditional organisation of learning, and will explore the way from involvement and engagement for the benefit of the individual child to engagement as a form of active citizenship that is for the benefit of the larger community.

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https://youtu.be/fGZHE7-H3oQ

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Involving Parents in Educational Activities

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Involving Parents in Educational Activities

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Of course some of the key areas explored in Module 2 are essential if you want to involve parents in educational activities: you need a positive relationship, you need to know who the parents are, their strengths, interests, etc., and you need effective communication channels. Only then will you be able to create opportunities for parents to play a role in teaching & learning in your classroom.

So what opportunities are there and how do we create these? Parents can play a range of roles in educational activities, as an audience, as student support, as sources of knowledge, as organisers, even as evaluators. We will look at some of these in more detail later but whatever role they take, it is important to create a framework – ideally from the start of the year – for their involvement. It could be a family – school contract, similar to the student – school contract in the example shown in the video below. It could be regular student – parent fairs where students present their work to parents. Or it could be a register of parents who have the time and skill of providing hands-on support of working with you in the classroom. Take a look at the video below which provides some general examples of school and classroom structures that allow for active involvement of parents for pedagogical purposes.

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Involving Parents in Educational Activities

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Involving Parents in Educational Activities

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robably the most well-known way how parents have been involved in educational activities at classroom level is to come into the classroom and tell students about their job. But in a day and age where fewer and fewer “traditional” jobs exist, is this really the best way to involve parents in educational activities? There are many ways how parents can provide a pedagogical benefit to what you do in the classroom as well as at school in general. This module is all about identifying such opportunities but also about discussing the challenges such involvement brings.

As always, it is important you identify your own objectives for each module. Here are some to choose from for Module 3:

1. Reflect on how we can create spaces/opportunities for active parental involvement in our pedagogical work with students

2. Understanding the benefits of having parents work with us in classrooms

3. Understanding the challenges of having parents work with us in classrooms, and how to overcome these

4. Identify a range of ways how parents can be involved in classroom work

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ICT tools to support communication & sharing with parents

Technologies have fundamentally changed how we communicate nowadays, so it should not be a surprise that technology is playing an increasing role in the communication with and engagement of parents in school. In this section we provide some examples and reflections about how technology has the potential to impact our communication with parents. But it should also be a place where you can voice your concerns about how such technology has brought new challenges for your work with parents. In the first video below, you will see an example of a school using a comprehensive parent – teacher online communication and data-sharing system

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Communicating and Sharing with Parents2.3 Communicating with parents of different socio-economic/cultural/language backgrounds

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Communicating and Sharing with Parents2.3 Communicating with parents of different socio-economic/cultural/language backgrounds

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A common challenge for teachers is to positively work with parents of different socio-economic backgrounds. This can apply both to parents of lower socio-economic background than the teacher but also when parents are of a higher socio-economic background.
apply to working with parents who might come from a similar socio-economic background but have significant other cultural or language backgrounds. Nevertheless, there are some other challenges and opportunities to consider in these situations.

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Do:1.let them to know my values

2.let me to know their values

3.trust!!

4.respect

5.assure parents they will inform them about all is important to know

6.comunication between me and them

DO'nt:

1.disrespect

2.racism all other forms for inequitation

3.talk in particular about all problems that parents of his kid have

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Five Keys to Successful Parent-Teacher Communication

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Five Keys to Successful Parent-Teacher Communication

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Here are five ground rules of effective communication with parents:

1. Begin the year by explaining how and when you'll keep in touch with them. Let parents know that you value their questions and concerns and would never minimize them by responding "off the cuff" or "on the fly." Explain that in order to give them your undivided attention, you've set aside specific times to talk. It's important to decide when you want to take and return phone calls and emails and when you're available for school conferences, and to actually be available during those times. Post these times and procedures and send them home with your welcome letter or first newsletter. Earmarking office hours and sticking to them eliminates the need parents may feel to grab your ear in the parking lot or to monopolize your attention outside your classroom door before or after school.

2. Never feel pressured to make an important decision, evaluation, or assessment during a parent conference or conversation.Instead, be prepared to take some time to think and get back to the parent. For example, "You've made a great point, Mrs. Smith, and this is an important issue. I'd really like to give it some serious thought and get back to you on it." Then make it a point to tell the parent exactly when he or she can expect a response: "Let's schedule another meeting/phone conference for Friday. Does that work for you?" This allows you time to consider the issue, develop possible solutions, and consult with colleagues, administrators, or other professionals, if necessary.

3. Let parents know they can trust you. Be discrete: Avoid discussing students with other parents or engaging in any negative faculty-room talk. I also make this a rule for parent volunteers who spend time in the classroom. I tell parents that all of us have good days and bad days. If a volunteer witnesses a "bad day" — any negative or challenging behavior on the part of a student in the class — that particular situation remains in the classroom and confidential.

4. Assure parents that you will inform them immediately about any concerns you might have with regard to their child. Parents become extremely upset when the first sign of trouble comes in the form of a progress report halfway into the marking period or worse yet, on the report card itself. I always try to share even small concerns early on, rather than waiting and then dropping a bombshell.

5. When presenting a concern to parents, ALWAYS be ready to explain what strategies you've already used to address the issue and what new strategies you are considering. Parents don't want concerns dropped in their laps without at least a tentative action plan, which you'll adjust based on their input.

If you keep these communication ground rules in mind, parents will thank you, and your life as a classroom teacher will be much easier!