Dear Parents,
On behalf of the Vice Chancellor, the School Board, teachers and pupils of this great school, I am excited about the school performances and progress so far.
Preparing your child for a bright future is our top priority, and we will progress faster when we work in partnership. This guide outlines opportunities for you to get involved in your child’s education from the early years through secondary school.
High expectations and support are critical for our pupils’ success. To be prepared
for challenging secondary school courses, all of our pupils must develop strong writing, critical-thinking, problem-solving, and creative skills.
Our work with the Common Core Learning Standards will enable our pupils to reach this higher bar. We know that involved parents and families lead to more successful schools and better results for pupils. I encourage you to use this guide to become better
informed and more active in your child’s education. There are many ways to get involved: you can meet with your child’s teacher, volunteer at your child’s school, attend PTA meetings e.t.c.
You are your child’s greatest influence and most powerful advocate. Let’s work together to ensure all of our pupils develop the skills necessary to graduate from Primary school level ready to handle the demands of secondary schools and careers.
A. A. Babarinsa (Mrs)
Headteacher
Parent Power: Build the Bridge to Success
Parents are the bridge to a child’s success. You as the parent or guardian can help your child by connecting with his or her school to find out what’s needed to ensure success and how you can help reach that goal. Experience show that parent involvement is a major factor in a child’s success. Therefore you as parents should make it a point of duty to make education a priority and a legacy for your family.
How can you accomplish this? You can build the bridge of success by adopting the following principles.
Be responsible.
Accept your role as the parent and make education a priority in your home.
Be committed.
Once you have begun to work with your child, continue doing so throughout the year.
Be positive.
Praise goes a long way with children, especially with those who struggle in school. Provide positive feedback.
Be patient.
Show your child that you care through your commitment and encouragement.
Be attentive.
Stop your child immediately when bad behavior appears. Show him or her what to do and provide an opportunity to do it correctly. Discipline should be appropriate and consistent.
Be precise.
Provide clear and direct instructions
Be mindful of mistakes.
Record your child’s performance. Look over all the work your child brings home from school and keep it in a folder. Help him or her correct any errors.
Be results-oriented.
Gather information on how your child is performing in school. Keep notes of conferences with teachers, request progress reports and carefully read report cards and achievement test results. Ask questions about these results.
Be diligent.
Work from the beginning to the end of the year with your child and the teacher.
Be innovative.
Keep learning lively and dynamic.
BE THERE.
Just be there for your child–to answer questions, to listen, to give advice, to encourage and to speak positively about his or her life. Be there to support your child whenever needed.
Successful kids and successful schools usually share a secret ingredient: supportive parents! This means the time you spend helping at school also boosts your childs chances for success.
Pupils and their schools both rely on parents to help them be their best. Pupils need a supportive atmosphere for learning at home and someone to advocate for them at school. In these days of shrinking budgets and increasing demands on teachers, many schools cannot provide everything pupils need without help from parents.
In todays busy world, it is easy for parents to focus their time and energy on activities that directly benefit their own kids, and avoid getting involved with larger school activities and issues. Luckily you do not need to make a choice between helping the school and helping your child. Recent studies show that the children of parents who are involved in schools do better academically.
Here are some of the ways you can be involved in your childs education. Some support your child directly and others benefit the whole school, including your child. Remember, you dont have to do everything! Choose the activities that fit your interests and schedule.
1. Make sure your children go to school ready to learn. In the morning scramble to get out the door on time, your children may skip breakfast or leave homework behind. The day gets off to a much better start if they pack their backpacks the night before, get plenty of rest and have a good breakfast.
2. Make time for homework. Set up a study area with good lighting and a dictionary, and limit television on weeknights to be certain homework gets done. Make reading an everyday habit. Children who have no homework can always review the days lessons or read a book for fun.
You may also need to curtail extracurricular activities and, as your children grow older, limit part-time jobs. Children who take part in other nonacademic activities for 20 or more hours per week usually dont have enough energy to perform optimally in school.
3. Monitor your childrens academic progress. Dont wait until report cards come out to check up on how your children are doing. Attend scheduled parent-teacher conferences to get acquainted with their teachers, and dont hesitate to contact teachers at other times to find out whether your children are keeping up with assignments.
4. When theres a problem, work with the school on your childs behalf. If your child starts to slip academically, make an appointment with the teacher to put together a plan for correcting the problem. Teachers appreciate parents who reinforce the importance of schoolwork, and your child will have a better chance of succeeding if you and the teacher agree on a strategy.
If your child has difficulties with a teacher, try to keep an open mind and find out all the facts before jumping to conclusions. Its always best to try to work out differences with teachers before going over their heads and complaining to the Headteacher
5. Attend school functions. Inter-house sports activities, Christmas carol, School concers, Speech and Prize Giving, Club Activities shows your children that you value their schools.
In a 10-year study of 20,000 teenagers, Laurence Steinberg found that only one-fifth of parents regularly attended school functions, and that those who did were much more likely to have high-achieving students.
In addition to communicating to children that school is important, Steinberg writes in “Beyond the Classroom, Attending school functions may be even more important for the message it communicates to teachers and other school personnel. Teachers cannot help but pay closer attention to students whose parents they encounter at school programs, for both positive and negative reasons. On the positive side, the added attention stems from a sort of halo effect — Susies parents are interested in her education, so Susie must be, too. But the attention also stems from the teachers knowledge that Susies parents are the sort of parents who are more likely to take action if something in Susies education is not going right.