An article in today’s Age features advice from school principal and author Ryan Martin, about how parents and teachers can work together to give children the best possible education.
Ryan Martin is an experienced educator (and current school principal), speaker and parent who ‘specialises in helping families navigate the wild terrain of raising challenging kids’.
We noticed how many of the Ryan’s key messages accord with those in our recently-published resource on Trust.
The article is titled, “What teachers wish the parents of ‘problem children’ knew”, and begins:
Whether you’re getting calls from the principal or your child is reporting less-than-ideal classroom antics, a few clever strategies for working with teachers – not against them – can make all the difference to a child’s success at school.
A few key points from the article:
The importance of working together and building trust
Ryan Martin says: “In a lot of cases the trust between the school and the parents has disappeared. But it’s important to remember that schools have kids for six hours, and parents have them for 18 hours, and there’s a lot you can be doing in those 18 hours to improve outcomes for your kids.”
Get involved before things go wrong
Children are known to fare better if parents get involved in the school community, which is why Derek McCormack, director of the Raising Children Network, urges parents to show their face at school in the early years in any way they can.
“Helping with school events can really set a positive scene for the future,” he says… Martin says that a quick g’day to the teacher on a once-a-week drop-off, or an email to check how your child is faring, can lay great groundwork before things go awry.
“You might say, ‘I want to support the work you are doing. Is there anything we can do at home?’” he says. “It’s important for kids to know that parents aren’t just sitting at home or going to work not knowing anything about what’s happening at school.”
Respect teachers’ expertise (and workload)
Just as someone wouldn’t swan into their accountant’s office and give them advice on how to prepare a tax return, Martin urges parents not to assume they understand classroom dynamics just because they once attended school themselves.
“Parents often roll in and go, ‘I know as much as the teacher, so I’m going to tell the teacher what to do’,” he says.
Not only are teachers often managing a big group of kids with increasingly complex needs, Martin says there is more to fit into the timetable than ever before.
“Teachers went to university and they are experts in what they do. They have a monstrous job, these days, and have to fit the curriculum in, along with a lot of other social and emotional [lessons] – it’s a much bigger gig than it used to be,” he says.
Be curious about your child
Many parents are surprised to discover that their children are really different at school compared with how they behave at home.
“We want to be in partnership with teachers saying, ‘I know your kid at school and you know your kid at home, so what do you know about home that will help me in the classroom?’ and vice versa,” says Martin.
“There’s often a lot that both people could share. A good teacher could tell you a lot about your kids and you might find yourself saying, ‘That’s interesting, we don’t see that’.”
Above all, Martin advises parents not to bad-mouth the school in front of their kids.
“If a kid sees mum and dad disagree with the school, or think the teachers are idiots, the kid will likely adopt that view,” he says.
Parents Victoria Trust resource
You will see a lot of these messages – and much more – in our resource Schooling: Built on trust and lots of other stuff…
The resource goes into detail about why trust is so important, and how parents and schools can build a trusting relationship.
You can download the resource free of charge.
More information
- Article in the Age with more details and advice from Ryan Martin (subscription only)
- Details of Ryan’s book Little F*ckers: A book for parents of cranky, crazy, lazy, fabulous, amazing little humans