Fostering the teacher-parent partnership

Frea Janssen-Vos

André Weijers

pp. 165-186

in: Bert van Oers (ed), Developmental education for young children, Berlin, Springer, 2012

Abstract

This chapter demonstrates how Developmental Education schools build developmentally productive educational partnerships with parents for the benefit of pupils. Developmental Education conceives of pupils' development as a process embedded in a niche that brings together school and home. A prerequisite of this partnership is the team's positive attitude toward parents by making them feel welcome, and by creating a sound communicative climate among teachers and parents. Coaching and models for team development are described in the chapter. It shows how the team is encouraged to apply different ways of informing parents about the school's educational point of view. Then, partnership can grow by arranging meetings about mutual questions like pedagogical values and agreements. A further school initiative is inviting parents to participate in school matters such as young children's language development, and to cooperate as experts in socio-cultural activities in and out of school.