10 Messages Every Teacher Should Send To Parents

Building a Successful Parent Teacher Partnership Through Consistent Communication

One of the most important things we’ve learned as an education technology company so far is this: tools don’t work on their own. It’s about informing and empowering teachers and families to make the most of them. In the past year, we’ve seen many teachers who connected with 100% of the parents, gained access to keen classroom volunteers and organized more events than ever. How did they achieve this level of success?

We’ve analyzed our 100 most engaged classrooms to find out. After much thought and number crunching, we discovered that our top early adopters mastered 5 key elements of parent teacher partnership. Two-way communication, developing parent teacher relationships, providing support and school and at home and community building all contribute to academic success of students.

But… where to begin? While we believe that all of the elements are important, one that teachers can easily act upon is establishing effective communications. We know that teachers and parents want to share experiences and stay connected, but many teachers are at loss about what kind of messages to share. Overtime, many become discouraged and stick to the minimum effort route: a couple of conferences per year and an occasional note. Our past survey indicated that 40% of  teachers rank “a supportive family” as “the number one factor in achieving student success” even ahead of their own teaching skill, this is simply not good enough.

Effective communication with families can be a game-changer for parent involvement, with a positive ripple effect on long-term relationships and community. These 10 key messages give you an inventory of ideas that you can implement straightaway.

1. Your child has successes that we can share.

In the past, teacher reaching out to parents would most likely mean that a child is misbehaving or having learning difficulties. The key to successful communication is sharing frequent positive messages to build trust and overtime, a happy school climate. Holding a weekly reading competition or choosing a “Student of the Week” and sharing their successes with parents creates an atmosphere which makes parents comfortable. In the future, they will be more willing to partner with you should the problems arise.

2. Your child has ‘lightbulb’ moments you should know about.

When homework assignments and grades are parents’ only insights into academic activities, they miss out on the learning process and have trouble understanding how to best support their child. Teachers can keep parents in the loop about key takeaways and “lightbulb moments” from a class as well as encourage families to create learning moments outside school. This can be done through telling stories, giving examples relating to what they’ve learned at school, critiquing rather than criticizing and giving children freedom to fail.

3. Your child went somewhere. Ask them about it.

Sharing a heart-warming story or fun photos from the trip helps parents feel connected to their child’s experiences and school activities. This is especially important for parents whose work or circumstances make it challenging for them to get involved in person.

4. You can help your child learn by…

Most parents would love to support their kids’ learning at home, but expectations and curriculum have gone through many changes since they’ve been students themselves. This is where a teacher can lead the way and share effective learning support strategies.

Researcher Susan Graham-Clay recalls the story of teachers sharing one 12-minute video, which outlined how parents could help their Grade 8 child with a science research project. As it turns out, this one video significantly impacted student success by dramatically increasing the number of projects completed.

5. Here are some questions to ask your child…

Most parents would love a deeper insight into their child’s school life, but they notoriously get stuck on questions to ask, other than “How was school today?”. Teacher can help parents overcome this challenge by recommending open-ended questions. Teaching parents the importance of  “wh” questions: why, what, who or where questions will help them motivate their child to go beyond dry facts and think more deeply. Instead of asking: “Did you like your class today?” try asking: “what was your favorite part of your class? What was the most interesting/ the hardest task today?”

6. Here are some alternatives to homework

Recommend activities outside of school that help families bond around the current learning topics: taking their children with them to vote, swapping roles (parent is the student while the child explains a topic), discussing a newspaper article together.

7. “Thank you!”

Want to share appreciation of parent support? Pinterest is a great source of ideas for tokens of appreciation that can be shared with parents, but acknowledging parents’ effort doesn’t have to involve gifts. Thanking a particularly involved parents in a class newsletter will boost their confidence and give a sense of achievement, while encouraging others to follow suit.

8. Your child is heard in my classroom.

One way to do so is to acknowledge individual student special moments. There is nothing that a parent will appreciate more than a teacher taking time to share a glimpse of child’s development: a witty comment they’ve made, a creative way they approached a particular problem.

9. I know home life can be busy.

Sharing special moments opens a channel to honest and direct one-to-one communication with a parent, which overtime allows to build trust to discuss other issues. Recognizing parents’ challenges can turn things around for a troubled family and transform child’s behavior and performance at school.

10. I’ll work with you. Here’s how.

Educators often have years or decades of experience, while parents dropping of their child to school for the first time really don’t know what to expect. Clarity about why and how of specific recommendations empowers parents to make informed decisions about how to engage and realize the value and impact of their support. Sometimes even a simple encouragement, saying that by attending school events you show your child you value education goes a long way.

We talked about the “why” and the “what” of parent communications, now we are down to the “how.”

Firstly, frequency and consistency are key. We’ve learned that in our most engaged classrooms teachers and parents make an effort to communicate often, with both sides feeling encouraged and comfortable with initiating the exchange. In this environment, teachers’ recommendations are valued and applied at home, while parents, in turn, are present and contributing at school.

Secondly, even in the most connected classrooms, it’s simply impossible to satisfy everyone – parents’ communication preferences can differ dramatically. Most engaged teachers love that technology can give parents options to customize the frequency and types of updates, empowering them to participate in the communication on their terms.

Lastly, the importance of in-person communication is something one cannot stress enough. Teachers who successfully engage families don’t miss opportunities for spontaneous in-person interactions at drop of or pick up, arrange home visits, or organizing valuable parent workshops.

What kind of messages made a particular difference in your classroom? Have you experienced a positive impact of frequent sharing?

If you think knowing these 10 messages would be useful to your fellow teachers, share the infographic:

This article by Vlada Lotkina, ClassTag CEO, was first published on teachthought.com