Communication- How well are you doing?

Reading @Stephen Lethbridge  really touch me as a mum. His post on communication and connecting with parents especially new parents to the school just showed how much he realised parents matter but also it’s the small things.

As teachers we all know communication is important but I sometimes think we forget how vital it is. I am guilty of this and it wasn’t until my own son started to attend school, I realised how little communication we as teacher can sometimes give. Yes, I understand we need to get our own children to be more self-reliant and learn to share information but it doesn’t always work that way.

My son is your typical boy when it comes to communicating. Unless he had art or pe all I hear about is what he and his friends did on the playground. Yet my daughter would give you a rundown of the complete day, who said what, who got into trouble, what the teachers said and everything in-between!

I work fulltime and therefore can’t do the drop off or pick up like other mums can. It wasn’t until my son started school that I realised how much ‘informal’ conversation I missed out on. It’s those informal, spur of the moment chats that can tell a parent a lot more sometimes than a three way conference can because it is very personal.

I have been lucky that my child minders daughter has also been in the same class, so I have allowed her to talk on my behalf. Check-up, show interest and basically become his second mum. It made me feel connected.

Yes, the school does email and three way conferences but they are not the same. Emails can be read in a completely different way to how they were intended, three way conferences although I like them, squeeze in too much of the ‘formal’ information and not enough of the ‘informal’ . And even though I could email his teacher I felt I was the one emailing asking for updates more than the teacher was.

Obviously this got me thinking. As a parent if this is how I felt, what do my parents think of me as a teacher? When you teach year 5/6 you tend not to see the parents at all. Our school opts not to do teacher emails for various reason therefore I had to think of alternative ways to communicate informally.

Luckily the students had diaries which became more line of communication. I had working mums and dads who I rarely saw and I wanted to make sure that they kept up to date about their child. The success they were having. So every Friday, I would write a comment in everyone diary. No diary a piece of paper. I wanted them to know how much I valued them as parents but also how much I enjoyed their child in my class. Just one little thing they had done that week that as their teacher I was proud of and could share with their parents.

I also made sure that the first time I meet them or communicated to them was on a positive rather than a negative. I didn’t want parents to feel that every time they meet me, received a note or phone call it was a negative rather than a positive.

Having moved to year 3/4, I am learning even more how important it is to communicate. Mums just need it (I am sure dads do to). This year I have no diaries, so I need to think of other ways to communicate to every parent. Share with them how wonderful their child is and all the success they are having. As I said at the beginning it’s the little things that matter.

I am still thinking about how I can keep that ‘informal’ communication regular so that parents feel connected and have that connection. Ideas are floating about but at least I know tomorrow all my students will take home a little note just to let parents know something special I have noticed about their child.