There’s so much in flux for the childcare and education industry right now. From changes in teacher-child ratios to adapting check-in and pickup procedures, your childcare center must have a plan for parent-teacher communication.
We’ll guide you through what you should be communicating in these early weeks of the new school year so you set your childcare up for success.
Parent-teacher communication requirements
Communicating with parents has to be incredibly simple or teachers won’t devote time to doing it. It’s so important that teachers stay in touch with parents, but without parent-teacher events, it’s going to be tough. And without daily face-to-face communication at drop off, parents might feel out of the loop or disengaged in their child’s education and development.
You want engaged parents who see the value your childcare center is offering. To succeed and thrive during this time of adjustments to prevent the spread of the virus, you need communication strategies for your childcare center. Here’s a look at three crucial areas of communication you should be evaluating for your business now.
- Frequent messages and photos throughout the day
- Updates to cleaning protocols and changes to the check-in and pickup process
- A daily summary of a child’s day available at pickup
Communication strategies in childcare for frequent messages and photos
To engage parents in their child’s education, show them their child’s learning experiences. Take photos throughout the day and send them to parents. iCare Software’s photo-sharing is simple. Open the web-based application on any tablet or phone, click the button to take a photo, and send it to the parent by attaching it to a journal entry for the activity.
Help parents better understand the classmates their child talks about at the end of the day. Share photos of their child playing with their classmates so parents can connect these experiences with what they’re hearing from their little ones at the end of the day.
How teachers communicate with parents about cleaning protocols
Start talking about the adjustments you’re making to keep your classrooms safe. Right now, many parents are weighing the pros and cons of their child returning to school this year. They need peace of mind knowing that their child is safe when in your care.
Join in on those conversations by sharing updates to your cleaning protocols, social distancing measures and emergency action plans for keeping classmates safe if a child or staff member starts showing symptoms of the virus.
Communicate regularly and remind parents about these measures. Take full advantage of email marketing, social media and text messaging tools available to you. Nothing is more important than keeping your staff and students safe during the pandemic and parents should be aware of that emphasis on safety. Plus, they’ll play a role in explaining social distancing to their child, adjusting their check-in and drop off process and getting used to having less face-to-face contact with your team members.
Offering a daily summary at pickup
Educate parents about how to read their child’s journal entries through the iCare Software web-based application. Logging into the parent portal provides parents the opportunity to see the child’s activity and get a daily summary of all that the child did for the day.
Now the child’s education carries over into the home because parents can pick up where the teachers left off thanks to outstanding parent-teacher communication.
The cost of poor parent-teacher communication can be enormous because it could mean parents seek care and education elsewhere. Make sure you’re communicating the value your center brings to their family regularly.
Start the new school year off right with parent-teacher communication tools that will delight parents and make it simple for everyone to stay in contact, even with social distancing. Schedule a demo to see how simple communication is with iCare Software.