Flexible activity
The activity of building teacher-parent relationships involves teachers consciously building trusting and warm relationships with the parents of their students. This relationship recognises the importance of parents being actively involved in their child’s education and the role teachers can play in nurturing this involvement.
This relationship can be implemented at any opportunity teachers have to interact with the parents of their students: telephone calls, notes sent home with students, newsletters, sending home weekly parent handouts, inviting parents to visit the classroom, connecting with parents either in small groups or larger meetings.
This flexible activity has two target groups: the parents of children in a teacher’s class; the teachers of parents’ children.
The Incredible Years Teacher and Child Training Program (IY): Teacher-parent involvement include phone calls from the teacher to parents, newsletters, and homework activities.
Second Step Early Learning (SSEL): Weekly handouts sent home to parents with activities that complement classroom exercises. In addition, parent-teacher meetings are held one or two times a year.
Consideration should be given to the sustainability of ongoing parent-teacher relationship maintenance, given the many other responsibilities and commitments teachers have. In addition, many parents are time-poor and might find it challenging to find the time to engage with their child’s teacher and school. For those parents, who might not have had a positive school experience, engaging with their child’s education process in general and teacher in particular might be challenging and fraught with negative memories and experiences.
24 Feb 2023
We acknowledge Aboriginal people as the First Nations Peoples of NSW and pay our respects to Elders past, present, and future.
Informed by lessons of the past, Department of Communities and Justice is improving how we work with Aboriginal people and communities. We listen and learn from the knowledge, strength and resilience of Stolen Generations Survivors, Aboriginal Elders and Aboriginal communities.
You can access our apology to the Stolen Generations.