Question

construct a parent letter welcoming their child to your class and explaining to them your goals for the school year. Make sure that you describe how you value literacy and identify some of the things their child will learn in your class. There are several examples on the internet which could help you to write your letter. Make sure that your letter is professional and is free of spelling and/or grammatical errors.

Answer 1

Positive parent-school communications benefit parents. The manner in which schools communicate and interact with parents affects the extent and quality of parents' home involvement with their children's learning Sometimes your child may have a particular problem at school. You may have talked to your child’s teacher about this concern. The two of you may have written notes back and forth or talked on the phone. If it seems like nothing is happening to resolve your concern, then you may want to write a formal letter. Perhaps the informal communication hasn’t been as clear as you think. Maybe you feel that the seriousness of your concern isn’t fully understood. By writing a letter, the school will learn that you consider the matter to be an important one that needs to be addressed.

You can write about any concern— a general education issue, school-yard bullying, or the need to help your child’s social skills or improve behavior. There are no rules as to the type of problem you can write about. Any school problem is worth writing about if it is having a negative impact on your child and you need the school’s assistance to resolve it.

A parent-teacher conference is a great opportunity to:

• share academic progress and growth based on classroom observations, testing data, assessments, portfolios, and assignments
• learn from parents or guardians so you can be better informed about students' strengths, needs, behaviors, and learning styles
• discuss enrichment or intervention strategies to support students' learning
• discuss issues that may be interfering with students' learning and growth

Preparing materials well before the conference will make you feel more at ease when families show up at your classroom door. As you're teaching during the school year, keep in mind which assessments will be shared and reported at conferences. Review student data, assignments and assessments that you'll be sharing with parents, and make notes about what you'd like to ask parents about their children to support learning.

Parental involvement in school is good for parents, teachers and children.Schools can encourage parental involvement by treating parents as partners and sharing information.
It’s good to offer parents lots of different ways to get involved.
Parental involvement in school: why it’s good Schools: getting to know parents and families Classroom teachers:establishing partnerships Keeping in regular touch with parents How to tell if a partnership is working Parental involvement in school: why it’s good Good parent-school partnerships are one of the best ways to support children’s learning, development and wellbeing. And these partnerships have benefits for you as an educator and for parents too.

Children whose parents are involved in school:

perform better at school settle better into school programs
feel valued and important because their parents are taking aninterest in their lives develop positive social skills by watching parents and school staff interact respectfully
experience better social, physical and emotional wellbeing.
When parents are involved in school, staff: have higher job satisfaction experience less stress can better tailor their approaches to learning and teaching because they have more insight into children’s needs
benefit indirectly from parent help in classrooms, sports days and libraries, or from parent participation in school committees and so on.
Parents who are involved at school:

can share their child’s strengths and interests with staff and suggest learning opportunities to build on these
feel empowered to raise concerns and negotiate solutions with staff
experience less stress, because they know they can work with staff on concerns about their child’s learning or development.
Parents are members of the community too. Through parental involvement, the school gets to know the community better. This means the school is more likely to offer services that are relevant to the community and that improve community wellbeing.

Building a partnership with parents is important not just in schools but in child care services too. If you’re a child care educator, you can use many of the suggestions in this article to build beneficial partnerships with the parents you work with.
Schools: getting to know parents and families
For teachers and other school professionals working with parents, getting to know families is key to promoting parental involvement and developing partnerships. The best way to get to know parents is by sharing information about the school, and asking for information about families.

When you’re sharing information about the school, it’s always good to tell parents about what your school does and why.

For example, you might have a school handbook or prospectus that outlines your school’s values and philosophy. The handbook might also include all the practical information parents need when they’re sending children to your school, like uniforms, bell times, policies, procedures and so on. You might want to make this information available on a school website too.

A good initial message to parents is that the teachers respect children as individuals and are interested in them. You can say this explicitly, but you can also send this message by asking for information about children and families.

For example, before children start at your school, you might ask parents questions like the following:

What are you and your child hoping to get from the school?
How do you like to be kept informed about the school?
What kind of information do you need to help us to support you?
In what ways do you think you might like to be involved in the school?
Does your child have any additional learning or other needs?
Does your family have any special circumstances or support needs?
When you get this kind of information, you can better understand the everyday lives of the families at your school. And getting to know families better can help you think of ways to involve parents, based on their availability and their interests. For example, learning that a parent works for the fire service might be a great opportunity to get firefighters to visit the school.

There are many ways parents can get involved in schools. Some parents might like to help with classroom reading, whereas others find it easier to do committee work outside of school hours. Many like to come to special days and events, help out with excursions or canteen duties, or working bees and fetes. It’s often about giving parents options, and making sure they have enough notice so they can organise time away from work if they need to.
Classroom teachers: establishing partnerships
For classroom teachers, a welcome or greeting is a great way to help new students and their parents feel included and get a partnership going. This greeting could be a note or email.

You could use your greeting to give a short summary of your philosophy and teaching practices. Remember that parents aren’t teaching experts, so avoid professional jargon and use plain English that everyone can understand.

The greeting can also be a chance for you to set out classroom policies, like what the school does to encourage good behaviour and handle disruptive behaviour.

And if you send a welcome greeting, you can also take the opportunity to learn more from parents, perhaps by including a short questionnaire about how they think their child is going.