The school and its students benefit from a close working relationship between staff and parents. Parents are encouraged to discuss their children’s individual progress with teachers and other staff. We also have parent’s meetings to present topics of interest to parents. To ensure that parents have a formal voice within the international school community, we have established a Parents Group, which is made up of parents drawn from across Early Years to Primary Level. Every year we launch a Parent Survey during the orientation program to help us understand the views of our parent body. With parents’ involvement in school, we observed our students’ behavior, attendance, and achievement have improved. The benefits of parent involvement are clear: Our school based observation shows that successful parent involvement improves not only student behavior and attendance but also positively affects student achievement. We are successful in engaging parents by going beyond narrow definitions of involvement. We start with a belief that student success is a shared interest of both school and family, envision parents as partners in the learning process, and then identify concrete ways that partnership can be activated. We have proven that effective communication requires a two-way flow of information. Apart from developing efficient structures for getting information out-such as newsletters, Web sites, and press releases, we communicate with them using strategies that convey what is important in a way that can be heard by parents and families and invites them to respond.

Parent-Teacher Communication

We believe that children do better in school when parents talk often with teachers and become involved in the school. There are number of ways that parents and teachers communicate with each other, rather than relying on the scheduled parent-teacher conferences. Our close communications between parents and teachers help the student to achieve academic excellence. Parents who participate in school activities and events have added opportunities to communicate with teachers. Becoming involved with parent-teacher communication gives the teacher and parent the possibility to interact outside the classroom. In addition, the parents also have input into decisions that may affect their child’s education. Teachers usually welcome meeting their students’ parents early in the school year. Making an effort to do this help the teacher better understand the parent, child, and how the parent will support the education of his/her child. Teachers appreciate knowing that parents are concerned and interested in their child’s progress. And, this helps open the lines of communication. Phone calls and visits to the classroom are also good ways we use to cooperate with parents and keep informed about his/her child’s progress. We discuss appropriate times and means of contact with the parents. Parent-teacher conferences are often scheduled at the time of the first report card for the school year. For parents and teachers, this is a chance to talk one-on-one about the student. The parent-teacher conference is a good opportunity to launch a partnership between parent and teacher that will function during the school year.