Can Teachers and Parents Work Together to Facilitate the best learning Experience for Kids.

Can Teachers and Parents Work Together to Facilitate the best learning Experience for Kids?

A child’s success depends on many factors, one of which is an active parent and teacher involvement in their education, activities and emotional growth. Though the parents provide nurturance at home, and the teachers give mentoring in school, the best outcomes for children can come with synergy between the parents and teachers when both work in tandem for facilitating the optimum development of the child. There are many ways that teachers and parents can adopt for working and cooperating with each other, some of which are being followed by top international schools in Pune, such as MIT Gurukul. We enumerate them here:

Communication:

A two-way communication between teachers and parents sets the tone for the continued exchange of information about the child. Sharing of either concerns or accomplishments of the child leads to both parents and teachers being aligned to a similar understanding about the child’s growth and development. Especially for young children in kindergarten or up to the formative years till age ten, this is very crucial. Primary schools in Pune, especially the best ones like MIT Gurukul, are mindful of the fact that responsibility for open and honest communication is both on the parents and teachers. Thus they regularly observe parent interaction days as a policy.

Approaching dialogue and discussions with an open mind:

The information that either the teacher or the parent share with each other, needs to be understood and processed in ways that facilitate the child’s growth. Whether it is positive feedback or constructive criticism from either party, looking at different perspectives for the same and having a transparent talk about it is necessary. The attempt and focus of such discussions should be to chalk out ways in which both concerned parties, the parents and the teachers can coordinate and work as a team. MIT Gurukul, a top international school in Pune, has made available schedules of planned and regular zoom calls, telecalls and email exchanges between teachers and parents for continued interactions.

Dealing with tough situations together:

Children react to schooling in different ways. While some young children adjust quickly, others may show symptoms of school refusal behaviour such as crying, being non-attentive, distracted or hyperactive, refusing to eat etc. This is a natural coping mechanism for many children and needs empathetic and sensitive handling. Hence, both parents and teachers need to come together to handle the tough situation with positive reinforcement, extra care and constant affirmation of the child’s ability to cope. MIT Gurukul, one of the top schools in Mumbai, Pune and the rest of India, has made this partnership between parents and teachers possible through training of its staff members on leadership, communication, a child-centric approach and documenting every child’s progress in detail.

Consider alternate ways of combined dealing with children:

For this to happen, the teachers need to be heard and understood, and parents need to feel involved in their child’s time at school. Things like a child’s food allergies, childhood asthma, or whether a child is an introvert or an extrovert when shared by parents to teachers help the teachers deal with each child appropriately. In the same way, if a child needs extra help with basic Math or English, or if their motor skills need working on more, when told by the teacher should be taken on board by the parents. Parents can then do the activities with the child at home that fill such gaps in a child’s academic advancement. At MIT Gurukul, activity sheets, simple book references and advice about specific activities are always shared by the teachers. We also respect the feedback and inputs from parents and work upon them diligently.         Conclusively it can be deduced that a friendly partnership between the teachers and parents is a sure way to bring intellectual, social, emotional and cognitive development. We invite all parents to keep a tab of the open days, parent-teacher meeting schedules, zoom call sessions and planned events where you can witness the children’s artwork or cultural programs. You may also look at this information on our website at https://www.mitgurukul.com

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