According to research, children are more likely to succeed when parents and teachers join together to support the child’s development. When families are engaged, teachers feel more supported and the overall atmosphere of the school becomes positive and welcoming. This is what every school leader aims for.
Today, school leaders realise that parent-school communication has become significant. With parents willing to make an effort to be involved in their child’s academics, the responsibility lies on the schools to ensure that the communication with parents is consistent, on-going and personalized.
Communication at large has been a foundation stone in the parent-teacher-school relationship and has been used extensively till date. Whether it is a report card update, a sports day invitation, or annual day celebration, schools have always used mass communication methods to reach out to parents. However, unless the parent is not conveyed of the role their child would be playing in the annual function, there is no emotional connect that is built. The need of the hour is to have that personalised effect on parents that builds trust and an open engagement platform between the two parties.
In today’s digital world, not having personalised communication is inexcusable for schools and comes at the high cost of losing parent loyalty, trust and a positive word of mouth.
But, how do schools ensure personalised communication with the parents?
It is essential that every school management uses technological solutions to keep the parents informed about their child’s general behaviour and learning progress. A Parent Engagement Platform (PEP) can drastically improve the consistency and the personalisation of communication with parents. Moreover, parents can receive notifications about what their child is doing in the classroom in the form of photos and videos – whether it is working on a project or scoring well on a test – creating a high emotional connect between the parent, teacher and the school. Parents can even receive timely updates about the events at school, class timings, fee payments, exam schedules, and school policies, among other things.
Finding ways to encourage parent engagement is important for any school. By providing parents with an easy-to-use platform that is available on their smartphones 24 hours a day, schools can connect with parents in new and innovative ways.
