How to keep Kids, Parents and Teachers connected
Schools are continually trying to improve communication between teachers, admin and parents. The main goal of this is to improve parental involvement in their child’s education as this has proven to have several long and short-term benefits. You’ve probably tried different avenues to achieve that already.
Well, here are some tips to help you make that happen without putting to much pressure on yourself.
Blog:
You can start a school blog or class blog. A school isn’t a static environment, and your current website isn’t sending the right message. Starting a blog, daily, weekly, or based on fun activities which I bet occurs at least twice a week is an excellent way of keeping your parents and students abreast of all activities. These activities can be put up on the school’s blog alongside videos and pictures of the events, with a little story of how everyone participated. Parents can always check to see what is happening in school, how their ward is performing and the kids themselves would be motivated to do a bit more, after all, who wouldn’t want to be on the news?
Specialized Applications:
Certain specialized applications/platforms exist JUST to help you improve communication with students and their parents. Some top solutions are:
- SAFSMS: This Simple school management solution comes equipped with a mobile app where parents can view their wards activities, uploaded assignments, grades and attendance reports among other things.
- Collaborize Classroom: This education-focused app is set up on a closed network where teachers can discuss topics and student’s progress with both students and teachers.
- Remind 101. This app lets teachers create an account that parents can “join” by sending a single text message. Because they can message their entire classes and parents quickly from their mobile phones, teachers can stay in contact on the fly and collaborate with parents without having to pick up the phone or send out an email.
There are tons of other apps out there. But I’m sure one of these would suit you just fine
Organise Regular Activities/Shows:
Plan more extracurricular activities has a fun, relaxed way of bringing parents into the picture. Why not set up a competition within the debate club? Or if there’s a drama club, you can set up a show where parents can be part of, or even plan a fundraiser for a cause that parents in your current community can relate with.
During the activities, necessary announcements can be made/passed around. Just remember to fix the competitions/shows on the weekends so that parents can participate.
Publications:
You can start up a school newspaper/bulletin publication, monitored by a teacher of course. This helps improve the sense of responsibility of your students. Moreover, you can collaborate with a Radio/TV station where your students can have a yearly/termly program they present. Who wouldn’t want to see their ward anchoring a program on TV or having an intelligent conversation on the radio?
I’m quite sure they would personally tell their friends to tune in!
Social media:
Social media is an excellent avenue to explore when considering how to improve communication with students and their parents. There is much advantage in using a platform which parents are already familiar with and are already using regularly, rather than trying to come up with a new method. Platforms like Facebook and Facebook groups, Twitter, or Instagram can be a great way to bridge the gap between home and school. Many teachers use social media and getting them to communicate with parents shouldn’t be a herculean task. Of course, you’ll need to be mindful of the sort of content being pushed out in order not to send messages which do not represent the ideals of the school. To combat that, you can have someone in charge, and when students what to share their writings, drawings, and much more, they know whom to meet.
There are now so many ways that you can improve communication with students and their parents. Of course, you may find that having a few different methods works well. You might use one medium for more personalized communication: like to share information about individual student progress and behavior and another approach could be set up for more general class and school news, all depends on you.
Most importantly, make sure whatever information you send out there reflects the ideals of your school and are communicated in clear, explicit and straightforward terms!
