Successful Partnerships
There are few contexts in which the success of a working partnership is more important than in education.
As I am sure you’ll agree, the fruit of a successful partnership between home and school is a happy, confident, engaged, resilient child. Conversely, an unsuccessful partnership in education can produce very negative experiences for the child.
With so much at stake, it’s our responsibility as adults to ensure that our approach works. And we’re proud that 99% of the time and in 99% of our partnerships, communication at Windlesham School is excellent.
However, for that 1% of the time when things aren’t running smoothly, I have suggested some of the key ingredients that, over 30 years in education, have proved to build a strong working relationship between school and home.
Here are my recommendations:
- Keep communication open – firstly, I would ensure that channels of communication are available and open. A defensive attitude from either or both parties can block progress at the first hurdle.
- Listen – secondly, once communication is established, it is important that both parties are genuinely listening. Open channels are pointless if only enabled to go through the motions of listening.
- Don’t take disagreements personally – in any healthy relationship, disagreements happen, and when these happen an emotive response is often instinctive. However, it’s important to try not to allow an issue between school and home to become personal, as restoring the relationship later can be far more challenging.
- Keep children out of any disagreements – children should be shielded from becoming part of the disagreement or taking sides against the school. Again, this will make a resolution and subsequent progress far more difficult to achieve.
- It can take time and compromise to resolve – reaching a satisfactory conclusion is part of a process which can take time and compromise from one or both parties.
- Respect everyone’s privacy – finally, respect the privacy of the all involved. If or when concerns arise, it is important to address them with the individual directly and maintain respectful discretion.
If you’d like to discuss any issue with the school, please get in touch and we’ll do our best to resolve it with you. I look forward to us achieving 100% soon.
