Establishing a Positive Home-School Relationship

In August or September when school starts back teachers scurry around to get their classrooms ready and lessons planned for those first few days.  One area often overlooked is planning for a positive home-school relationship.  Cultivating a relationship with families that is based on trust will make your year and the students’ year much more rewarding and successful.

Effective two-way communication between families and schools is a huge factor in establishing that trust.  The more information teachers and families share with each other the better each will be able to help their students grow academically, emotionally, and physically.

Parent Surveys-One way to open communication with families is to send home a short survey about their children.  This establishes a sense of caring on your part.  It shows you want to know what they think about their children as learners and unique individuals.  It, also, gives  you information about how the families see their children.  This is useful in getting to know both your students and their families.  A sample of questions are:

• What is your child like as a learner?
• What have your child’s experiences in school been like so far?
• What are some of your child’s hobbies?
• What are your child’s strengths?  Areas of concern?

Phone Calls-While it is not uncommon to alert families when their children are having problems, it is rare when teachers call families to tell them good news or just to touch base.  Calling can seem awkward until you get used to it, but it goes a long way toward building a foundation of support and trust.  Some tips to consider when calling families are:

• Make sure they understand who you are
• Quickly establish why you are calling, so they are not bracing for bad news
• Relate something special about their children (sense of humor, helpful, hard worker)
• Tell what you are studying and what’s coming up
• Ask if they have any questions  (You may or may not want to discuss specific academic progress on the phone.  Decide ahead of time.  You can always set up a face to face conference to go over this.)

Regular Communication-It is essential to have regular communication with families throughout the school year.  Because society has changed and families are more diverse, one method of communication does not work for all.  Consider the following ways to increase parental input and create a way for you to let families know what is going on in the classroom and with their children.

• Class blog or website
• Quarterly conferences
• Emails
• Texts
• Invitations to visit your classroom as a helper, reader, or observer
• Newsletters
• Phone calls
• Curriculum nights

The more contact you have with families (and the earlier in the year you begin it) the more you will learn about them and their children.  This in turn will help you better meet the needs of your students.