Positive communications that relate to learning, that consults parents on decisions and responds to parent’s preferences have the added outcome of building trust. Carefully designed school communications can also have a positive impact on parent’s beliefs and behaviors in relation to their important role in supporting their child’s learning. Here you can find some tips on communication style with parents. But in general, communication has the greatest impact when:
Two-way communication channels shall be always open to engage parents and make them feel welcomed to participate. A welcoming environment can be created to pass this message smoothly to their hearts and invite them to be more involved. This can include posting pictures on school hallways and social media platforms that document their participation in supporting learning.
Parents can be engaged in different ways and through different modes. For example, you can conduct school events where parents are invited to understand how they can get involved (here you can find a ready presentation to use for this purpose), or you can send them an invitation letter to volunteer, or you can send them pictures and videos of their child or his class/school activities so that they are able to build on what their child has learnt in school. Ideally, this would be accompanied with some light-touch and fun activities that they can do with their child to enable this (see Recommendation 3).
For more tips on how to best communicate with parents, download the full guide here.
Here you can also read about the experience of Al Seileh Elementary Mixed School which made use of the different communication modes and styles to cater for the varied parental needs.