Effective parent /teacher partnerships in New Zealand essay

Effective parent/teacher partnerships in New Zealand

This essay will focus on discussing the importance of effective parent/ teacher partnerships with a diverse range of parents/family/whanau in New Zealand early childhood settings. Firstly, it will identify and analyze one challenge that a family may face, which is family in separation and divorce. I will describe some strategies that early childhood teachers can utilize to support children and their families. Then I will discuss how parent/teacher partnerships and related community networks and agencies assist children and their families in coping with this challenge.

As early childhood teachers, we need to understand the meaning of parent/teacher partnership, because it help the teachers effectively understand children’s culture, tradition and family values and then understand the child’s individual needs. Duncan defines that parent/teacher partnership is collaboration with parents'(Duncan., 2006). Te Whāriki states that “children’s learning and development are fostered if the well-being of their family and community is supported.”(Ministry of Education [MoE],1996,P42).  Quintilian states that parents and teacher can set examples for youngsters. It would help children develop their positive character and speech patterns (Krogh& Slentz,2001). In my opinion, effective parent/teacher partnership is the teachers and the parents can work as a team to improve the children’s holistic development, because teachers do not exactly know children’s behaviors at home and parents also have no idea about what their children did in the early childhood settings. So the reciprocal relationships between teachers and parents are necessary for fostering children’s learning and development.For instance, if the parents can share the teacher the information about what their children interested in at home, the teacher would plan some activi………..

It is important that parents and teachers support each other and work as partners in children’s early childhood education. For children, their learning and development will be fostered if the parent are willing to provide some information to help teachers understand their children’s past experiences and believes/values about their own culture. From this knowledge teachers can know better about their children and ensure the experiences that we provide are responsive to the individual children and families (Tabors,1998).For parents, Pogoloff and Lock believe that parents play a vital role in children’s life. They will be involved with their child long after the teacher has moved on (Pogoloff & Lock, 2004). Effective parent/teacher partnerships will help the parents understand the reasons underpin their children’s growth and behaviors. It will help them get better understandings about their children and know how to deal with their children’s problem behaviors. For teachers, building good relationships with parents could support teachers to interact with parents better. It will promote children’s holistic development and teachers’ professionalism effectively.

Therefore, as the role of teachers we should learn some strategies to make a parent/teacher partnership effective. Firstly, teachers could provide some suggestions to parents, like how to extend children’s learning through activities and resources. Because giving som