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Guidelines and teaching strategies for working with families

and communities

Family-School Partnerships Guidelines for

Beginner Teachers in Mathematics
The brief
The intention of these family-school partnership guidelines is to provide
beginner teachers with a set of principles to use as a guide to develop
approaches and strategies in the maths curriculum which may lead
towards building these partnerships with positive results. These guidelines
are designed to enhance student learning and build relationships which
will reduce the gap between families and school. This will happen through
providing opportunities to utilize the diversity of families, encourage
parental learning and create an environment which inspires and
celebrates parental input in relation to their childrens learning
(Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations
(DEEWR), 2008).

Principles and Strategies

Promote relationship building
Get to know the parents of your students, build a rapport with them to
generate a sense of assurance that you are there, you are approachable
and that you value them as people who are important and welcome to
work in conjunction with you concerning their childrens learning (The
Victorian Parent Council (VPC), 2007).
Strategies
Get yourself out there, be present in the playground at the beginning or
end of the day, open your classroom door and invite parents in (CEOM,
2008). You are opening up the possibility of getting to know your families,
your students and showing that you are approachable. Engage in small

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Guidelines and teaching strategies for working with families
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talk with the caregivers, talk about non- education based topics such as
sports, the weather or upcoming events such as the family maths night.
Give a friendly smile or say hello to the parents who may appear
apprehensive or anxious about talking to you.
Before the beginning of the new school year send out a note, email or
even a recorded message to your students families, the purpose of which
is to introduce yourself, welcome and invite families into your classroom
and talk about some of the upcoming events or activities. This will provide
families with a good idea about who you are and demonstrate that you are
willing to work with them and are open to them. A few weeks into the first
term, have your students create personal invitations to their parents,
inviting them to a morning tea or evening with the aim meeting all
parents and doubling as a way of introducing ideas surrounding
mathematics and the classes blog page (DEEWR, 2008). The students will
become the photographers and reporter of the event, after the event the
class will create a newspaper report which includes photos of their parents
in their classroom. This will then be posted on the class blog, emailed to
parents and perhaps even a hard copy of individual articles sent home to
the parents. The idea being that parents will feel as though they are
becoming an important part of the school community and their childs
learning and create the sense that school is a positive experience. This is
especially important for parents who are resistant about even wanting to
be the school because of ill-experiences they may have had (Callender &
Hansen, 2009).
Communication is essential
Communication is key! Every opportunity for parents to be reached and
informed must be provided. Communication should be clear,
understandable and personal where possible (DEEWR, 2008), there must
be multiple modes available, which may include multi-lingual versions to
increase the probability that messages and information are received by
parents on a regular basis (CEOM, 2013).

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Guidelines and teaching strategies for working with families
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Strategies
Communication can be executed in a variety of ways and parents should
be given the option to choose their preferred method/s such as email,
verbally, video, letter home, etc. (CEOM, 2013). This strategy calls for an
invitation to fill in a short questionnaire pertaining just this, which can be
created by your students for a better chance of receiving a reply. In terms
of communication of mathematical ideas and key concepts, the
information can be received by your students parents in their preferred
way.
Additional to sending communications via parents preferred means, all
information, homework grids, broken down language, video recordings,
examples of the mathematics and a discussion forum can be placed and
accessible by the class blog page, which could be created using Edmodo
an online child friendly social space (Edmodo, 2014). This will allow
parents to be involved in what is happening in maths and engage in
conversation or even problem solving. Extra incentives for parents to
logon and have a go, could be encouraged and celebrated through a
monthly competition where parents and students can win a prize. The
prizes could include mathematics games, tree planting, or a celebration
morning tea. Correspondingly posting up or having students post their
problem solving strategies onto the blog, will give parents a great
opportunity to see what their children are achieving and share in
celebrating the accomplishments creating sense of community with the
students and their families (CEOM, 2013).
Apply and nurture primary caregivers astuteness
The parents of your students have many capacities, most importantly they
know their children and can provide treasured knowledge and know-how
as they are most likely the initial teachers of these children and thus
should be harnessed to assist in their education (Henderson, Mapp &
Johnson & Davies, 2007). On the same tone, parents have existing areas

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Guidelines and teaching strategies for working with families
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of knowledge and experience which may be under-developed which can

be remedied through their participation and parent workshops, which will
cultivate confidence in parents to be able to engage with their childrens
learning (DEEWR, 2008).
Strategies
What better way of celebrating and encouraging parental input and
engagement than acknowledging what they have to bring to the table and
allowing them to grow and learn alongside their children (DEEWE, 2008). A
terrific way of finding out what your parents can do is to hold a family
maths games night. Transform your classroom into a round robin style
maths event, include key mathematical concepts which will be or have
been taught in the classroom. This will create a fun way of not only further
developing relationships, but give you the opportunity to see what the
parents can do, and teach them a thing or two that they didnt know. At
the end of the night, each family will be allowed to take home a maths
game, which they can play with their child. These games can be
exchanged every two weeks for a new one.
Muster your parent volunteers together to assist in creating a maths
cheats booklet, the booklet contains mathematic concepts, strategies,
example solutions and names of the teacher talk and their meanings. If
there is a significant amount of EAL families, employ the assistance of
parents with strong English skills to create multi-lingual versions to ensure
that as many parents a possible can access the information, building
bridges across cultural groups (DEEWR, 2008).
Be on the lookout for learning opportunities
Learning opportunities are everywhere! Look for them! These
opportunities are present in the school, at home and within the
community. The possibilities are great, especially when combined with the
wisdom of the parents; learning can be rich and relatable to your students
(DEEWR, 2008).

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Strategies
Look at what your students are learning in maths, and think about how
this can be related to everyday activities that are found in the home, task
that can be completed with their parents in their everyday errands. Some
examples of this might be learning about money, can your students go
shopping with their parents and handle the money? Could they find out
the price of items on the shopping list and find the total money it will cost
and how much change they will receive from a $50 note? Another
example maybe measurement, students could assist their parents to cook,
measuring out the ingredients. They could also use informal unit of
measure to find out the heights all their family members. The possibilities
are numerous and this can be a tasks which is incorporated on a
homework grid, again making a link between what is learnt in the
classroom and what can be learnt at home, providing good opportunities
for parents to get involved and engaged with their childrens learning
(DEEWR, 2008). By providing opportunities for parents to be engaged in
their childrens learning, the children are far more likely to improve upon
their performance and achieve higher academically (Callender & Hansen,
2009).

Recruit, delegate and inspire volunteers

As a teacher, assistance in the classroom and in your students learning is
more than welcome. Parent volunteers in the classroom provide
opportunities for students to learn from them and enhance their potential
to achieve (VPC, 2007). Your volunteers are also a wonderful resource to
entrust tasks to and get them involved and engaged with the students
learning, which also provides opportunities for them to see what is
happening in the classroom (Callender & Hansen, 2009).
Strategies

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Guidelines and teaching strategies for working with families
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This principle will be heavily dependent on the relationships you build with your
students parents, although there will be those parents that are already more
than willing to help out. The idea behind this is creating opportunities for the
parents to come in and help out during maths sessions. Ideally you would be able
to set up a timetable, which of course is posted to the class blog page, where
parents can sign up to come into to help. The blog would have an outline of what
mathematical concepts will be covered during each week, with the hope that
parents who feel that they might have some good knowledge or even some ideas
about the topic, and equally parents who want to learn more about the concept
and are willing to learn alongside their child are encouraged to sign up too. There
is however some restriction because many parents have to work and cannot be
there, to increase the chances of different parents attending, maths sessions
would be held at different times each day. These sessions will have photos or
video records of the happenings and posted online for all parents to see.
Your parent helpers can also assist in creating the maths games, which families
can take home to play. This will be a good way that parents can learn about the
maths as they create the games and put the packages together.

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Guidelines and teaching strategies for working with families
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References

Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace

Relations. (2008). Family School Partnerships Framework: A guide for
schools and families. Retrieved from
http://www.familyschool.org.au/files/9413/7955/4757/framework.pdf
Callender, S., & Hansen, A. (2009). Family school partnerships: information and
approaches for educators. Minnesota, USA; The National Association of
School Psychologists. Retrieved from
www.nasponline.org/educators/HCHSIIFamily-SchoolPartnerships.pdf
Catholic Education Office Archdiocese of Melbourne. (2013). Parent engagement
in action; a practical guide and toolkit for schools (the guide). Retrieved
from http://www.ceomelb.catholic.edu.au/publicationspolicies/policy/policy-2.25-parents-as-partners/
Edmodo. (2014). Edmodo, where learning happens. Accessible at
http://www.edmodo.com
Henderson, A., Mapp, K., & Johnson, V.R., & Davies, D. (2007). Beyond the bake
sale: the essential guide to family-school partnerships. New York, USA; The
New Press. Retrieved from
http://site.ebrary.com.ezproxy1.acu.edu.au/lib/australiancathu/docDetail.a
ction?docID=10392472
Victorian Parents Council, The. (2007). Family/school partnerships. Retrieved
from www.vicparentscoucnil.vic.edu.au