Educators value the involvement and support of parents, guardians, families, and communities in schools.

As an educator I find the importance of parent or adult communication key to the success of the students in my classroom. Maintaining a positive relationship with my student’s families if very important to me, and I found myself trying my best to involve parents during my final practicum placement. As an early year’s teacher, I have learned to value and understand the importance of parent involvement in my classroom. I hope that during my years of teaching, parents and guardians of my students feel comfortable and welcome to have open communication with me in-regards to their child’s success throughout the school year. I believe that including the student’s adults involved in their learning and creating an environment where adults understand their child’s growth and learning is crucial to the development of the student. Students success not only lies in the teacher, but those that support them and want them to succeed. 

During my practicum placement at Malaspina Elementary, my coaching teacher expressed how important it is to create relationships with your student’s adults. I had many opportunities to see the success of having parent involvement within the classroom.

During my final practicum, I was able to co-lead parent teacher conferences, attended an open house where I was able to meet many of the parents / guardians of my class, I also had three field trips during practicum that had a variety of parent volunteers. Having parent’s volunteers was an awesome opportunity to get to know parents and have parents observe my teaching style so they have an idea of what is taking place in the classroom. In addition, there were many other opportunities for parent involvement such as reading logs each month that parents and students kept track of their reading every day for the month and would have to be returned and signed in order to get a small treat for their accomplishments of reading every month. I also did a few activities where students had “homework”, this activity was a part of our Community Social Studies unit. I had student learn about their neighbourhoods and create a map of where they live, showing various important places that make their community (i.e; schools, parks, stores, hospital, etc.), this activity offered parents involvement and had student’s adults be a part of their learning journey.

I am looking forward to creating more opportunities to have parent involvement in my classroom and to put forward an effort to create meaningful connections with my student’s families and those who support my student’s learning and success. I also believe in the importance of practicing and encouraging building relationships with not only my students support systems, but fellow staff members, my students, my students’ adults, and the community that we live in, and the land. Â