Why is parental involvement important & How to keep them informed

Schools, teachers, and families all aim to drive student success. While learning methods, class attendance, exam skills, and other factors play a big role in student progress at school, research shows that parental involvement has a huge impact as well. Parents need to keep informed about their children’s performance, and schools need a solution to this!

Parental involvement is key to student success

What is parental involvement?

The word “parental involvement” refers to frequent, two-way, purposeful parents’ participation in their children’s academics and other extracurricular activities.

It means that parents know what’s going on with their children at school and keep track of their performances. Besides, they also communicate with teachers, schools and help their children with their learning and personal improvement.  

How do involved parents contribute to student success?

Parental involvement in education has been proved to have a strong positive influence on children’s development. According to the Global Family Research Project, parental involvement is associated with enhanced student accomplishment. The performance was greater in a wide range of areas such as grades, behavioral patterns, interpersonal skills, and further learning accomplishment.

• Higher grades: Children whose family engages in their education tend to achieve higher grades and test scores. When parents can keep track of their student’s performance at school, they will encourage them to study harder. They can also advise on their children’s learning if needed. Students pay more attention and effort to their work and get good grades as a result.
• Better behavioral patterns: Statistics have also indicated that with family invovlement, children are less likely to quit or cut classes. They also tend to be less late to school and are more likely to complete their assignments.
• Greater self-esteem: Children feel accepted, included, and supported at school and home, thus their confidence will be boosted. This means motivation for them during their learning path and the learning experience will also be better!
• Advanced interpersonal skills: As their parents are there to support them, students are more likely to take part in different extracurricular activities. They will acquire communication and other social skills thanks to this.

Benefits to parents, teachers, and schools

In addition to that, the engagement of families at schools will also benefit teachers and parents themselves.

• As they become familiar with school settings, parents acquire confidence in their parenting abilities and feel more capable of assisting their kids to learn.
• Engaged parents are more likely to think highly of their children’s educators, which boosts teacher morale. Communicating with families can also assist teachers in tailoring classes to the student’s requirements more effectively.
• At the end of the day, schools can also gain benefits from such involvement. They can leverage the resources to drive greater education results.

How to keep parental involvement in students’ progress?

There’s no doubt that parents need to keep track of their student’s progress. Now it comes to another issue: How can they stay well-informed? Parents in the modern age tend to be so busy with their work schedule, so they can not visit schools regularly.  As per a study of Blackboard in 2016, there was also a decrease in the number of parents who believe that close, face-to-face parent-teacher communication is crucial. Instead, parents nowadays seek to communicate through remote means.

Let us walk you through some possible ways to keep parents informed of their children’s performance.

Phone call/ SMS

This can bridge the geographical gap between families and schools. It enables two-way private conversations and recording for future reference. There are some significant benefits, yet this means of communication is costly. As a result, parents might feel less courage to start a deep discussion. They might also feel afraid when “bothering” their kids’ teachers.

Email

This is a formal means of communication. As emails can be easily delivered in mass, schools often use them to send official announcements to employees and customers. However, they might not be useful enough when schools need customization in email content, such as student’s personal information, attendance, and grades.

A parent mobile app

The Parent Mobile App features all necessary services under a fingertip. Parents would be happy to monitor their children’s progress regularly, thanks to the availability of grades and other results on mobile devices. This is an optimal way to keep parents well-informed and get them involved in students’ performance.

There might be several means to inform families, and a mobile application is the best way. Understanding the importance of parental involvement, Helen team has developed parent mobile apps in our Interactive School Solution. With Helen Parent Mobile App, parents can easily track the progress of their children at school, chat directly with teachers, and receive notifications from schools. The app enables swift communication and encourages profound interaction among schools – teachers – families.

Contact us for a well-rounded and customized interactive school solution or learn more about Helen at: https://helen.edu.vn/about/