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Positive Parent Teacher Alliance
My son started Pre Primary School this week and suddenly we have a whole bunch of rules and regulations we never had to follow before. It’s quite an adjustment. I am considering becoming part of our School’s Parent-Teacher’s Association (PTA). We also had our first Parent/Teacher’s meeting last night so for all these reasons, I found the contributed post below perfectly timed. Perhaps you’re in a similar situation?
Part Of A Parent/Teacher Alliance? Stay A Positive Influence
If your school is forward thinking, they will likely offer some form of parent/teacher alliance.
These groups allow for a discerning raising of issues and queries relating to all manner of school activities, and if they’re run well should be open floors for suggestions or criticisms.
Teachers run these in order to gain the feedback from their student’s parents, and to also put forth ideas that could change the classroom environment to a degree.
Most schools that do this offer it as a form of customary gesture, but some real progress can be made here. Of course, the only way this is effective is if both sides listen to each other, and we mean that truly and wholly.
If you’re part of a parent/teacher alliance, there are some ground rules you should stick to, and some ideas you might find effective to apply. We have some nested in this article, and we hope you find a use for them.
Stay Balanced
Many parents are either too active in the parent-teacher alliance, or too quiet.
You know the former as the loud mouth, self-important and always vocal member of the alliance who everyone wishes would take a bite of humble pie and listen for a change.
Then you have those who simply go with the flow, never putting forth their opinions, willing to let the ideas of every other parent dictate the fate of their child (within reason and small capability.)
If you hope to be an active participant in this group, you must attend the meetings regularly, but also make use of your time there. This could be by raising the issues which truly matter and trying to find solutions as opposed to complaining or criticizing.
It could be you suggest the school uses an NST school trip organizer to increase the rapidity and success of school trips, or that the worrying trend of school dinner price hikes are curbed for a period of time.
Remember that your child is but one child in a large group, but that they also intrinsically matter of course.
Stay Positive
Too many parents use this time to publicly air their grievances with the teachers. While it’s always helpful to craft a present relationship with the person teaching your child, criticizing them in a public forum like this can build animosity and worry on the part of the teacher.
Unless they are doing a horrific job, targeting your child or otherwise acting in an incompetent way, they likely have your child’s best interests at heart. A detention here and an odd method of scoring homework there is hardly ammunition to use against them when they are open and welcome of debate.
Remember to try and bring something positive to this forum, something which can help matters. Everyone wants the best for their child, but that best must also be achieved alongside the benefit of all the other kids in the class. Stay positive, and keep in mind the fine discerning line between public and private issues to raise.
With these tips, you’re sure to keep an instructive and positive development regarding the nurturing of your child.
Have you ever been part on the school parent-teachers board? Are you one now? What kind of an influence were you or are you?
