5 Questions Teachers Should Ask Parents at Beginning of Year

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, education systems worldwide have found ways to continue providing adequate learning despite face-to-face restrictions. Teachers and students have adopted online teaching and learning set up on an unprecedented scale. Both parents and teachers should maximize the efficiency of online learning despite challenges. Moreover, teachers should ask questions to parents for improving engagement.

Since not getting an education is an even worse option, online education has been a great resource to sustain skills and social development while schools are closed. However, the learning setup also raises questions about the extent to which online learning comes as a suitable substitute for face-to-face education. That is particularly vital when access to infrastructure is limited and teachers’ and students’ lack preparedness for the specific demands of online learning.

Why should teachers ask questions to parents?

To foster student success, parents and teachers need to collaborate and create a support system that helps students reach their peak learning ability. A solid and cooperative relationship is essential for this connection to succeed. Teachers and parents have the opportunity to build relationships with every interaction.

Progress reports and report cards are the traditional way that teachers communicate with parents. This typical evaluation approach gives parents an assessment of where their child is but does not consider the journey that brought their child to this point. As a result, parents can’t perceive the entire process or understand the benefits of a student’s educational experience.

To address this loophole and bring a holistic outcome, a personalized approach that involves the teacher communicating directly with each student’s family is strongly preferred. Communicating with the parents more casually via regular reports helps keep the parents more engaged in their child’s education. This specialized tactic makes everyone stay on the same page, especially as parents take more responsibility for their children’s education while at home.

Before you release the next report card, it would be essential to have an open dialogue with parents about possible issues and challenges they faced or will face in due time.

What questions should teachers ask parents?

It is essential to form good relationships with parents, but somehow it can be pretty challenging. Therefore, teachers should ask questions to parents about their child at the beginning of the school year. These questions will help teachers and parents to build relationships to support your child’s learning.

Question 1: How would you like to be involved in your child’s education?

Some parents want to do more than meet at yearly parent-teacher conferences with their children. If you already have strategies for online classes and activities where parents can participate, ask for their involvement. Offer them other options if you have already settled on an approach.

Teachers are in complete agreement that the benefits of teamwork cannot be overstated. Therefore make sure you include parents in your teamwork plans while creating learning activities. Getting parents to talk about their degree of involvement is a critical step when planning. That lets you evaluate how much assistance you can expect and gives parents a say in their children’s education.

Families are facing various obstacles when it comes to involvement in learning. Many parents cite two primary reasons for choosing not to get involved. These include rigorous job schedules that offer little time for school participation. The other one of the difficulties they face in connecting with school officials is cultural or linguistic problems.

Teachers, counselors, and school administrators should be reinforced to find more time and develop successful methods for family involvement despite constraints and challenges. Furthermore, a parent’s involvement can assist schools in utilizing their resources better as they know their students more.

Question 2: How would you like me to be in touch this year?

As a business owner, if you excel in making your business thrive, you should know that communicating with customers is essential. Likewise, the same concept applies in the online education landscape. Communication is crucial for any learning setup. Therefore, it is necessary to ask parents about the degree of communication effort you will share with them.

Having this information in advance enables every parent to allot time and request the amount of communication they feel comfortable with. It is easier than ever to get in touch with parents no matter their schedules, thanks to current technology. Schools offer many alternatives to keeping in touch with parents, including emails, scheduled video chats, and more.

It is also essential to share communication channels with parents since they will spend more time with their children than with teachers. It can be a great way to communicate information about any problems or just provide progress updates from time to time. A teacher who is open to input from parents can make a big difference.

Plan and be proactive rather than waiting for an issue to occur. To ensure that you are in an established relationship with parents before you face any rough patches, stay in touch and speak kindly to patches as much as possible.

Moreover, always remember not to take things personally when a parent lashes out at you.  Note that the parent’s anger is not directed at you. It could be rather a result of the parent’s frustration at being unable to help their children. Furthermore, invite parents to share ideas or thoughts if the student is demonstrating undesirable behavior. There is an excellent chance that the parent has not noticed this. Therefore, this provides the opportunity for them to be informed and do something about this attitude.

In the end, even if parents cannot assist you, always show your appreciation for their efforts in trying to get involved. That will strengthen your relationship and walk towards a common goal.

Question 3: What is your child passionate about?

It is hard work, but it is crucial to know each of your students’ daily problems and passions, even if you meet online these days. While you may nurture student passions and motivate them to feel enthusiastic about learning and exploration, you cannot create new ones. The idea is not to simply drill kids on memorizing facts and passing tests; it is to assist kids in discovering their passions and taking their ambitions farther.

It is often the case that parents can see things in their children that your student themselves cannot see. Find out about the students’ desires and obstacles to discover what teaching techniques will enable them to fulfill their education.

Question 4: What is a comfortable place for your child?

A warm and welcoming classroom is essential for creating a comfortable and engaging learning environment in a typical setting. Unfortunately, however, it was not applicable in the past year as COVID19 continued to grow rampant. Fortunately, things are getting better on the horizon as vaccines become available for everybody.

So, it is a must to get ready for a sudden shift in the learning setup. Homebased, online learning can shift to classroom settings shortly. To facilitate learning back inside the classroom, it is critical that pupils feel engaged. It will be hard to encourage students and parents to join back the classroom setup if they don’t feel welcome. Involve parents in creating a welcoming environment again, which can lead to maximized engagement.

Question 5: What are your fears or concerns for your child?

To provide information and guidance to parents on successful strategies for supporting their children’s learning, education systems should strive to promote engagement between schools and parents. As a teacher, utilize technology in your teaching techniques and methods.

However, you also need to support parents when they exhibit concern about their children going back inside the classroom. Learning about their fears and apprehensions can help you have learning strategies and classroom management to pacify any parent’s fear and concern.

On the other hand, children may experience behavioral changes in response to stress, including acting out, refusal, disagreement, defiance, or withdrawal. During this phase, parents must provide encouragement and support. Encourage parents to have positive interactions with their child to adapt to a new learning schedule or strategy. It is also vital to allow the times when the child or student needs to have a rest.

Furthermore, parents know their children better than anyone else, so listen to what they have to say. Finally, reassure them that you will be with them with whatever fear or concern they have, and you share common goals in mitigating any fears.

Final Thoughts

​The efforts of both parents and teachers are critical in a child’s education. Teachers can only use teaching techniques that provide support in proper child growth and development. However, parents will always be the most significant influence on any student. Therefore, teachers should utilize their innate abilities to spark thoughts and ideas and augment kids’ early school experiences with parental assistance.

Getting parents involved is vital to online learning collaboration, so make an effort to provide helpful information on a preferred online classroom technique. Minimalistic approaches, such as putting learning spaces or “class is now in session” signs nearby, can have a considerable impact. It allows students to establish their concentration while allowing working parents to concentrate on their jobs.

Despite the rapid change from book-based learning to online education, its various benefits outweigh the negative consequences. Nevertheless, it also presents multiple obstacles towards the common goal of or providing quality education.  For parents and teachers to work effectively together, they should share the same goals and objectives.

As a teacher, you should ask the above questions to parents for child improvement and the answers will surprise you! If you have other good questions that teachers should ask parents, please let us know in the comments!