ABOUT THIS COURSE

Parental support is considered to be one of the strongest factors in student academic success. This new course will highlight the impact of parental support on the academic performance of  students. It is aimed at all school staff who communicate with parents as part of their role. The course explores ways of positively and proactively building relationships with and engaging parents. The focus of the course is that, by cultivating positive school-parent relationships, students can flourish, avoid conflict and reach their academic potential.

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The course will cover:

• Why proactively building communication with parents is important.
• The negative consequences of keeping parents at arm’s length.
• Examples of effective school-parent communication strategies.
• The purposes of communication with parents.
• Phone communication.
• Written communication.
• Face-to-face communication.
• Communication through formal documents such as permission forms, reading records, planners; behaviour reports.
• Parents’ evenings: Do they work? In primary schools? In secondary schools?
• Communicating with parents on difficult topics related to their child.
• Managing conflict with parents.
• Parent Communication Policy: A working document.

School staff will understand:

• The benefits of building positive communication with parents, rather than defending themselves against potential conflict.
• How to create a parent communication policy that is a working document.
• The differences between different methods of communicating with parents.
• How to manage conflict with parents.

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BENEFITS OF ATTENDING

• Gain an understanding of the benefits of a proactive school approach to parental communication.
• Appreciate the different strategies needed to communicate effectively with parents according to the medium.
• Explore the impact of how the school communicates with parents on their children.
• Understand the reasons for potential conflict with parents and how to manage them if they occur.
• Take away a blueprint for developing a whole-school working parental communication policy.

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