December 2005

Strategies and Practices Tried by Schools to Encourage Good Communication, Relationships, and Parental Involvement

Principals and teachers knew the importance of good, clear, and genuine communication for the home-school relationship. Once a relationship had been established it was more likely that parents would become involved with the school. Principals and teachers felt it was the responsibility of the school to approach and encourage parents to become involved. Some parents in schools in which had made great efforts to get parents involved were aware of these efforts and accepted it was now their responsibility to respond.

The following strategies and practices were mentioned by principals, teachers, or parents as encouraging greater parental involvement in their children’s education.

Principals

• Principal making him/herself available to parents for an informal talk, e.g., road patrol, wandering outside when parents are around, sports meetings
• Professional development on strategies to encourage better communication, relationships, and parental involvement
• Communicating positive information to the parents
• Schools and teachers admitting when they are in the wrong
• A clear policy on community consultation
• A clear policy on resolving concerns
• Policies well implemented
• Strategies implemented at all tiers of possible parental involvement
• An open-door policy actively practiced by all teachers, or as many as possible in the school
• Constant communication between the principal and the teachers
• Mailing out reports and other important information
• Utilizing events—such as hangi and trips—to talk informally with parents
• An outreach programme which involved going out to parents’ homes to meet them
• Continual reflection on communication practices
• Teachers showing they care for the child and the family

Teachers

• Teachers taking on the responsibility to approach parents first
• Teachers showing they care for the child and the family
• Teachers feeling responsible to help the children even if it means saying something to the parents they may not necessarily be keen to hear
• Teachers valuing parents’ input
• Utilizing events—such as hangi and trips—to talk informally with parents

Parents

• Teachers showing they care for the child and the family
• Mailing out reports and other important information
• Teachers valuing parents’ input

There is considerable agreement among principals, teachers, and parents about the aspects that help encourage greater parental involvement in their children’s education.

The Importance of Approachability

Many of the Maori and Pakeha teachers and principals thought that making themselves approachable was the key to Maori parents’ raising concerns with them, including concerns about their child’s progress. Ways in which they made themselves approachable included:

• walking around in the playground so that their children’s parents could speak with them if they wanted, particularly before and after school
• coaching school sports teams
• holding and attending whanau hui so that parents and teachers became more comfortable with one another
• being good humoured, and light-hearted
• being friendly and up-front
• mixing in the same social circles as Maori parents
• esponding quickly to Maori parents’ calls or requests
• writing friendly notes home to parents
• visiting parents at their home
• ringing parents at home
• advertising in newsletters and enrolment packages that the school has an open-door policy
• encouraging parents to come into school to help with activities
• listening when parents do come in to school
• encouraging parents at parent-teacher interviews to contact the school
• giving out their home phone number.

The situations in which Maori parents were most likely to raise concerns about their child’s progress were at informal situations such as at sporting events, social outings, informal hui, whanau hui, and in other informal situations where they were one-on-one with their child’s teacher.

Schools which accept the responsibility to encourage parents to become involved using good, clear, and genuine communications are more likely to have parents become involved with school activities, and communicate more with the school themselves.

Excerpt from:

MAORI PARENTS AND EDUCATION - KO NGÄ MÄTUA MÄORI ME TE MÄTAURANGA -
Sheridan McKinley

New Zealand Council for Educational Research

Te Rünanga o Aotearoa mö te Rangahau I te Mätauranga

Wellington, 2000

http://www.nzcer.org.nz/pdfs/8391.pdf