Parent Relations/Communications
Background Information
Mrs. X has taught for a total of 23 years. She has a bachelor’s degree in elementary education. During her teaching career, Mrs. X has taught grades 5 and 6. It is important to note that the said grades cater for the education requirements of children around the ages of 10 and 11 years.
Summary of Insights Learned from the Interview
Mrs. X points out that the relevance of keeping parents up-to-date on the goings on in the classroom cannot be overstated. She identified three ways through which she accomplished this objective, i.e. via email, telephone calls, parent-teacher conferences, and weekly progress reports. Of the four, I found weekly progress reports most viable on this front as they provided an inbuilt follow-up mechanism. Mrs. X also restated the need to ensure that parents were involved in the learning process – and thus were not mere spectators. In her opinion, involving parents ensures that parents play an active role on their end, i.e. by ensuring that learners complete their homework. As a matter of fact, it is important to note that various studies conducted in the past have clearly indicated “parental involvement in children’s education matters… in their achievement,...
144).
According to Mrs. X, in seeking to update parents about the progress of their children, weekly reports and parent-teacher conferences came in handy. She pointed out that the weekly progress reports she sent out to students contained assessments of not only the academic progress of students, but also their performance on the behavioral as well as social fronts. Parent-teacher conferences, on the other hand, permitted her to have one-on-one engagements with parents so as to brainstorm on both the academic and behavioral interventions that were needed to promote the success and wellbeing of individual learners. In her opinion, therefore, parent conferences were important in seeking to not only assess personal student challenges, but also dig deeper into underlying concerns. For this reason, they came in handy in solving student problems.
According to Loughran (2008), “the importance of good parent-teacher relationships has been well documented” (35). Mrs. X pointed out that she had all along utilized a variety of strategies in seeking to become acquainted with parents and students. Towards this end, she always sought to set a friendly tone from the onset – ensuring that both parents…
