School communication with parents has always been a significant challenge encountered by most schools. There is an art to it that can be hard to master. However, when done well, communication between schools and parents helps build trust, open a convenient line of communication, and keep everyone up-to-date on what’s going on at school.
When schools communicate effectively with their students’ parents, they can provide a more meaningful education for each student and create a higher level of involvement in the community, which fosters a lifelong love of learning. Communication also helps establish relationships between teachers and parents, which benefits both parties involved.
On top of a full-time job inside the classroom, teachers need to report student performance and behaviours. In the past, teachers usually communicated with parents through monthly or quarterly parent-teacher meetings. However, today’s parents need more.
The more hectic parents’ schedules get, the more actively they worry about their child’s well-being and academic performance. However, parents can make informed decisions about their child’s education by monitoring children’s interactions with teachers, students’ progress on extra-curricular activities, and attendance.
Schools can do this easily with modern school management software.
School administrators use tools like SAFSMS parent App to keep parents fully engaged with their kids’ school activities. In addition, parents can receive updates on their children’s school activities with their phones, tablets, or PCs. These updates include class schedules, assessment results, pending fees, just to mention a few.
Together, parents and teachers can improve parent-teacher communication by fostering transparent relationships, setting the foundation for trust, and efficiently handling urgent school matters
Let’s look at some tips in detail;
Be transparent
When student performance does not meet expectations, it is not always due to the lack of interest on teachers’ behalf, but often due to a lack of transparency. When students are not achieving at the expected level, parents might learn about this after it has already caught traction and formed a troubling pattern. To avoid this, schools should assume greater responsibility for student conduct and performance. Empowering teachers to communicate with parents transparently and collaboratively helps build a solid foundation for student success. Transparency Leads to Greater Accountability.
Be Frequent
Frequency is the Basis of Trust. In any relationship, trust is crucial, but it develops slowly and requires consistency. Teachers should think of themselves as parents’ best friends when challenging and inspiring their young ones.
Parents need to check up on their children with the same ease of consulting their GPS for directions. The more frequently parents have access to academic scores, performance metrics, and behavioural information for their child, the more at ease they will be leaving the fate of their young ones in the school administration’s hands. In addition, this will make it more likely to give their seal of approval to the school as their child’s second home.
Frequency and consistent communication will ensure strong compatibility between the school and the parent, reassuring parents that they made the right choice for their child’s education.
Utilise the power of social media
Social media is an excellent avenue to explore when considering improving communication with students and their parents. There is much advantage in using a platform that parents are familiar with and regularly use, rather than a new method. Social media is a great tool to use when trying to reach out to students. Platforms like Facebook, Facebook groups, Twitter, or Instagram can serve this purpose. The use of social media by teachers should be encouraged because it allows them to communicate with parents.
Engage in extracurricular communication
Parent-teacher meetings can’t address every issue a student may have. Urgent matters may arise requiring urgent solutions. Therefore, every school must implement a communication channel via Phone calls or SMS for concise and to-the-point updates or reports, rather than releasing a long letter outlining the general issues at the beginning of each month.
Today’s parents are hyper-connected, mobile-first individuals. They need to feel like they are in the classroom and close to everything happening with their children’s fast-paced lives. But, making information easily accessible and available is just the first step.
Parents should have easy access to student report cards, records compilation, accounts, admission forms, attendance records, and a session calendar.
Several schools have found ways to provide access to these pieces of information in an easy-to-use platform. As a result, these schools are setting themselves up as leaders in education.
To learn more about how you can make your students’ parents feel more involved and trusting, try out the SAFSMS parent app free demo.
If you found any of these tips helpful, kindly share and check out this post on How to keep kids, parents and teachers connected.
