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The role of school heads in parental participation has been neglected over the years. To most school heads, parental participation is well accomplished when parents send their children to school. Parents are not encouraged to involve in the educational process of their children, as most school heads lack the motivational and managerial skills to engage parents. Other school heads who acknowledge the benefits of parental participation, consider parents involvement as interference to their school affairs. Funny enough, these school heads conclude that parents are not knowledgeable or well-equipped in terms of skills to understand the processes in education, not to talk of making important decisions.
Providing sound education and improving the growth of your school is built on the team work of the stakeholders of your school (teachers, Parents, Educational care givers etc.) In the last article, we explored key ways in which school owners can help improve the productivity of their teaching staff. Focusing only on this, might not fully bring about the improvement you desire for your school. As a school owner building a cordial relationship with the parents of students in your school will be of great benefit to you, the school and to individual students. Communication with parents’ matters a lot, although the relationship between school owners and parents is more distant, compared to the relationship between teachers and parents.

Education is a three tier process where parents, teachers and students work together. Parents are strong stakeholders in the process of education. A very effective platform for school owners to manage these three stakeholders successfully in their schools is SchoolShell. SchoolShell is a school management software that bridges the educational gap between the school, teachers, students and parents. The software is equipped with tools to help the school head successfully manage the school daily. The role of school heads is that of a bridge and connector. Effective schools have school heads who keep close ties with parents, because they know the importance.

Here are the benefits in encouraging parental involvement in your school:

• The social, intellectual, and emotional development of children: School heads need to see the need in motivating parents to in the process of their child’s education. Parents need to know their involvement can positively affect the development of their child, morally, intellectually, emotionally, psychologically, and socially. When parents value education and show it through encouraging their children and support the school, children also realize the importance of schooling and learning.

• Develop a strong sense of ownership in parents: encouraging parent participation in education will make know to parents how important their participation is essential for a successful educational process. Some parents actually think their involvement in education is to only give time for PTA meetings and other events. Parental participation is more than that, school heads can promote parental involvement in school in various ways such as allowing parents to volunteer, children like their parents to be in the school which increases their confidence and self-esteem.

• Sharing goals of education with parents: The range or parental participation is very wide. School heads are to encourage parents to participate in school conference and events, meetings, committees, and importantly tutoring of children and helping children at home with homework assignments. With this parents can share in the educational goal. School heads can provide clear instructions to parents about how to help the children at home with their school assignments or home work. Parents will become aware that they have a part to play in the teaching and learning process of their child, thus providing a supportive environment for their children at home. This will also develop a relationship of trust among parents, administrators and teachers.

• Improving the teacher-parent relationship: School heads may improve the process of parental participation in education by improving the teacher parent relationship. Teachers are considered the primary connections between home and school. Their relationship is vital for the success of students in the process of education. For this purpose principals may provide relevant training to their teachers so that they could communicate with parents effectively on issues of children in the process of education.

• Building a strong foundation for future relationship between parent and school: Some school heads see parents with only a monetarily value, hence parents are only welcomed when they want to make payment for their wards. Principals must remain in close communication and contact with these parents and coordinate their services in the school and their contributions must be acknowledged. Each school has different culture, work environment and goals which must be shared with parents so that parents are aware of the needs, ways and procedures of the activities to be performed in school.

Hey! Am not just going to educate you on the benefits and leave you there hanging, without informing you on how to go about encouraging parents into giving their full involvement in the educational process.

1. School heads should equip themselves with comprehensive training on the concept of parental participation in education.
2. School heads should ensure that teachers keep close relationship with parents. This will pave the way for development of feeling of togetherness between home and school.
3. The school head should form active parent-teacher association to deliberate on better ways to educate the children.
4. School heads may invite some of the active parents individually to volunteer their services for school.
5. School heads should not hesitate in passing relevant information about the school and students across to parents.
6. Parents should be invited to schools through conferences, meetings and other national and international events. This will strengthen the relationship between school and home and improve the quality of education as well.
7. Parents could be encouraged to participate in school activities at different levels, such as meetings, seminars, events, conferences, committees and so on. This will enhance their confidence and build up feelings of trust and care.

Benefits of Using SchoolShell as a Managerial Tool for Parents’ Engagement in the School

SchoolShell adequately provide means by which a school head can encourage the participation of parents in the education of their children, and to just to put the icing on the cake, signing up with SchoolShell is free for a term to all New Subscribers. Now you don’t have any reason you shouldn’t adopt the SchoolShell management software in your school. Here are some of the amazing features of the software that equips you with tools for engaging parents:

1. Assignment Module: Parents are encouraged to provide a supportive learning environment for their children at home, with the assignment module teachers are able to upload assignment for students and parents can thereby assist them at home by going online to get the assignment and helping them with it.

2. Parent Portal: Most parents of this 21^st century are in the working class, and have little or no time to go to their ward’s school regularly to know how they are faring. With the Parent portal provided for parents, parents can log in into their platform and check their wards’ performance and get other relevant information. This will improve the spirit of participation in them, and also student will be encouraged too knowing the importance of schooling.

3. Chat System: The SchoolShell management software caters for parent’s needs. In their workplace or at home, they can actively participate in the education of their children. Parents are able to work with the school and teachers directly on better ways to improve the academic performance of their wards through the chat system.

4. SMS/Email Service: with the speed at which technology is advancing, you can do just about anything you want from the comfort of your home. Information/Results students can be sent to Parents through the SMS/Email Service. The News Feed module is another platform for parents to get all information about the school.

5. Mobile App: Parents does not need to own a computer system to participate in the education of their wards. For parents can effectively nurture and follow up on their ward at real time on their mobile phone.

You can check out more amazing features on the site.

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