Parents wants to know how their child is progressing academically. Many parents appreciate flexible options to monitor and track their child’s growth. We’ve consolidated a list of tips to help schools offer multiple ways to communicate academic progress to them. Use these tips to effectively hit the core competancies of building trusting relationships and working alongside parents.
Jump to...
- 7 Tips to Communicate Academic Progress
- 1. Virtual Parent Teacher Conferences
- 2. Support Parent Access to Online Gradebooks or Parent Portals
- 3. Offer Flexible Times for Scheduling Parent-Teacher Meetings/Calls
- 4. Send Work Products Home Weekly
- 5. Send Progress Reports Bi-weekly or Monthly
- 6. Help Parents Be Homework Heroes
- 7. Provide Optional At-home Resources
- Note
7 Tips to Communicate Academic Progress
1. Virtual Parent Teacher Conferences
Offering virtual Parent Teacher conferences gives families with transportation or scheduling conflicts an easy way to connect with the teacher. While some parents (and teachers!) may prefer an in-person conversation, giving families a choice makes it easier for parents to attend.
Planning for virtual conferences can be a lot different than when parents and teachers meet in person. Check out Possip’s Tips for Successful Virtual Parent-Teacher Conferences. The article includes free resources for agendas and additional tips on how to plan logistics and execute strong virtual parent-teacher conferences.
2. Support Parent Access to Online Gradebooks or Parent Portals
In this new world of high-tech schooling, not all parents are equally caught up to speed. Learning new skills online isn’t always an easy task, and some parents may not even know how to log-in to a virtual gradebook or parent portal. We recommend first making sure all parents know how to log-in to the gradebook website your campus uses, have their login name and password, and understand where to find their child’s grades.
A few ways to do this include:
- Send out a parent mailer with information on how to successfully check student’s grades. In that mailer, there could be a phone number to call if parents need their log-in information.
- Publish a monthly parent newsletter all about the topic of understanding your child’s academic progress and giving tips on what parents could be doing to stay in touch with their child’s academic growth.
- If mailers aren’t a great option for your school due to time and resources, you could also send out a text message, like a Possip Bonus Question, to ask parents if they know how to log-in to the gradebook or if they want a staff member to reach out to assist.
Online gradebooks are such an important resource for parents to understand how their child is doing, but it’s only good if they know how to access it.
3. Offer Flexible Times for Scheduling Parent-Teacher Meetings/Calls
Some of our Possip partners schools hold school-wide virtual parent teacher conferences. Feedback we have seen includes notes that some parents just couldn’t make any of the times that were given by the school. In fact, some parents felt disappointed to not get a teacher conference because of scheduling constraints.
This is a pretty simple tip, but just allowing flexibility in the times that parents are able to connect with teachers is important. We know that they have packed schedules and are taking on extra caretaking duties, and many other responsibilities. We also know that teachers have to do the same. The flexibility may also help teachers, especially those who are also parents. Maybe post-bedtime for the kids works best for a parent-teacher conference. Maybe early mornings work best. Or maybe another creative solution can be made between parents and teachers.
4. Send Work Products Home Weekly
There are many artifacts of a student’s academic experience that can be shared. These can include notes from class, a student’s written work, a math problem set, a book they are reading in class, or tests. This type of information gives parents some insight about how their kids are doing – and gives parents a point of conversation to ask their child about what they are doing or learning in school. The more frequently you can do this the better (as much as daily is helpful).
5. Send Progress Reports Bi-weekly or Monthly
This is a formal progress report with a grade – what we’re all accustomed to. It is also the most complex and time intensive of the options. For it to truly be accurate, it requires there has been some grading of homework, tests, and classwork. Therefore, a true downside of regular progress reports is it is time intensive for a teacher and school. The upside is parents don’t have to wait until the halfway point in the semester to know their kid is doing well or isn’t doing well and when done properly it gives the most holistic picture of a child’s performance.
6. Help Parents Be Homework Heroes
If your school’s students have homework regularly, and homework is aligned with what students are learning, parents can really use homework as a way to assess their child’s academic progress. If the homework is, for example, math problem sets and kids should be able to easily and correctly do 4 of them, they can know that there is a problem if their child can only do 1 of them. (Additionally, here are 8 Tips to Help Parents Be Homework Heroes!)
7. Provide Optional At-home Resources
If parents have diagnostic or sample tests at home, they can actually assess students themselves. Give them a fast facts worksheet they can send home, and let them know how many multiplication facts their 4th grader should be able to do in 3 minutes. Send home a grade level text and suggest parents have their kids read it out loud.Now a special note – these resources don’t just have to be at grade level! Parents may want to see if their 3rd grader can tackle 5th grade math. Or they want to see if their 3rd grader who was once on a 1st grade level can now read at a 2nd grade level.
Teachers have 25-200 students. Parents typically have 1-8 kids. The burden of a teacher or school having – and communicating – real time information about student progress isn’t always easy. Enlisting parents helps.
Note
Some parents, particularly those for whom English isn’t their first language, sometimes say they struggle to know how their kids are doing. Some tips they have shared of how they navigate this is:
- Send their child to an after-school program and asking them to help facilitate some of the assessments
- Ask a translator to reach out to teachers to ask for updates on academic progress
- Use Google translate (with caution!) in both directions to try to maximize their understanding.
Clear and flexible communication between schools and parents proves essential for student success. Schools enhance parental involvement by actively updating them through various methods and equipping them with resources to assist at home. These proactive measures ensure that parents engage as informed partners in their children’s education.
Speed Read (tldr) of 7 Tips to Communicate Academic Progress to Parents
Three simplified takeaways on strategies to communicate academic progress to parents:
Flexible Communication: Schools should offer varied communication methods, like virtual conferences and online gradebooks, to accommodate different parental needs and schedules.
Consistent Updates: Implement regular academic updates through methods like sending home student work and progress reports, ensuring parents are well-informed of their child’s progress.
Parental Involvement Tools: Provide resources that help parents support their children’s learning at home, such as educational materials and homework guides, to enhance involvement and support.
Read below for resources, tips, and the why!
This article consolidates the tips originally posted September 2019 and March 2022. We’ve updated the content and provided a few additional ideas!
