Old Buckenham Hall Headmaster David Griffiths discusses how parents and schools ensure productive partnerships to the benefit of children
The relationship between teachers and parents is vital in making a child’s time a success at school. This applies to senior and prep, but I believe is more critical in the prep sector due to the higher interaction between parents and teachers.
As a Head, my interactions with parents can cause great highs, and sometimes not insignificant lows. On the surface I am calm, considered, and consistent, but below I can be stressed and even worried by some interactions. These tend to come from minor complaints, parents pushing boundaries too far, or the very aspirational parent not quite being of the same mind when it comes to senior school destinations. I am a robust individual who does not easily get stressed, but these interactions may take a lot of time to resolve positively. If I feel like that, no wonder many classroom teachers and members of the school management team feel it to a far greater degree.
Often there is a deficit mindset from parents and teachers towards each other. Teachers may not understand the anxiety that parents feel. As parents (and we have three of prep school age) we all want the very best for our children and we only get one shot at it. Therefore, we are nervous, worried, and anxious about future schools. This is especially true if we have little information about what goes on in school or our children come home and give us a version of events that is less than glowing. If teachers can appreciate these anxieties – this fear – they can empathise, and provide support and information that has a calming effect. The fraught emails can be reduced.
Parents often underestimate how much teachers give to their students and how much they really do care about what the children are learning and how they are progressing. I have never met a teacher who didn’t want to do the very best job that they could. I have occasionally met teachers who lacked in some significant skillset, but never a teacher who didn’t care. If parents can appreciate the time, dedication and effort that goes in to providing the very best for their children, communication becomes less fraught and conversations more productive.
The reality is that we are all on the same team, working towards the same goals. It is the responsibility of a Head to train their teachers on this issue and to help them to understand the reasons for parental anxiety. The Head should reassure parents that staff are delivering the very best that they can, and that they are always willing to listen to concerns and adjust where appropriate to do so. If there is a culture that is successfully cultivated around partnership, the conversations improve, the emails lessen, and all of us can really focus on what is important – the children.
Old Buckenham Hall obh.co.uk
Further reading: Kew Green Prep on celebrating ambition
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