Parents and caregivers have an important impact on the work of teachers, but most importantly on the learning of their children. The year of school closures has put a greater emphasis on teacher-parent collaboration. Parents started better understanding and appreciating the work of teachers, and teachers have begun to recognize even more the benefits of developing relationships with their students’ parents or caregivers.

This course helps teachers identify successful strategies and methods for maintaining an active collaboration with parents. As a participant, you will start to better understand your own attitudes towards parents as partners and identify elements that can grow your collaboration. You will also dive into some literature showing the benefits of engaging with parents, and we will also bust some myths about “hard-to-reach” parents by offering you the methodology to engage with all of them. Finally, you will find some ideas about helping learning at home that can in turn support the learning of children at school.

During this course, you will participate in self-reflection activities for individual work and/or working with peers or parents. You will have acquired novel practical ideas and you will be able to refer to many background readings to improve your relationships with your students’ parents. You will begin to consider parents as helpful allies in promoting the wellbeing and effective learning of your students.