11. I Establish and Maintain Partnerships among Colleagues, Parents, Parish and Community

KSA 10 - Teachers establish and maintain partnerships among school, home and community, and within their own schools.

I regularly engage in activities that contribute to the quality of the school as a learning environment.
I work with others to develop, coordinate and implement programs and activities that characterize effective schools. I work cooperatively with school councils.

  • Parents are the most important influence in a child's education so teaming up, building trust and creating a relationship with them is integral to my classroom environment.  I do this in a number of ways.
This newsletter goes home the first week of school:
Dear Teacher: 7 Things to Tell Your Teacher About Your Child

















These questions go home before Parent Teacher Interviews:











  • I make connections between school and home daily in order to enhance the relevance and meaning of learning.  One example is through daily agenda communication.  Agenda is brought home at night, signed by the parent and any notes or reminders from home are written down.  Agenda is viewed every morning by the teacher and initialed.  Individual notes and reminders are also written down by the teacher and students. 


At the beginning of the year, this note was sent home requesting the best way to communicate with parents.  Fortunately, save one family, they all preferred texting which allows me to notify every parent of each student in my class within minutes of something important.  I have a group set up specifically on my smartphone and although it is not our primary means of communication (newsletters, agendas and phone calls when necessary are the main forms) it has proven to be a very effective means of communication, especially for quick reminders (ie. the 7am "Remember It's Picture Day" text!)

Our student written Grade 3/4 Gazette is not only a great literacy assignment for our 2 class reporters (that rotate through every week) but parents have told me they look forward to reading it every Friday to keep abreast of our learning.  Here are a few examples!
  • I seek out and incorporate community resources into my instruction and encourage students to use home and community resources in their learning. Not only are these links great examples of community members bringing expert knowledge into our class, but we've also had parents bring in display items ranging from Alpaca wool sweaters to Sun God statues.  Keeping the parents informed of our themes has generated their interest and tapped into many resources not always available in the school.   
    One of our parents in for "All About India" day helping us play cricket
 Our visit to a local Seniors home was an excellent community outreach activity and both students and residents alike enjoyed playing games together, socializing and learning from each other.


  • In May our class will be attending Mass at St. Michael's parish together with other grades in our school. This will be a great chance for students to visit the church, worship together and reflect on their faith in a new environment.

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