Using Newsletters to Improve Parent Communication

Introduction

Parent communication is a critical part of the school year. It allows parents to stay informed about their child's progress and learn how they can be involved in their education. In addition, parent communication can help teachers build stronger relationships with families and increase overall effectiveness in their teaching. But how do you make sure that parent communication is effective? Read on to find out more!

The purpose of a newsletter

The purpose of a newsletter is to keep parents informed about what's happening in the classroom. It helps build rapport with parents and can even help create a sense of community among them. A newsletter can also help you keep parents in the loop on events, activities, and important dates to remember. A newsletter, especially in high school, allows parents a look inside the classroom, so that students are receiving the same information both in and out of the classroom. You build holistic support for students and allow parents to feel more involved at a time when they tend to get less information on academic events. Finally, it helps build relationships with your students' families—something that's especially important when they need to confide in someone outside of school.

Why newsletters improve parent communication

Parent communication is key to improving parent-teacher relationships and fostering trust between you, your students, and their families.

Newsletters are an easy way to keep parents informed about what happens in your classroom throughout the year and remind students of what assignments or large projects might be due. They're also a great way to build rapport with parents by showing them how much you care about their children, as well as building positive relationships through consistency and clear communication.

Questions to ask yourself when designing your newsletter

When you are designing your newsletter, think about:

• What kind of information do you want to share? Think about the five W's (who, what, when, where and why). If you have an upcoming event or project that you're promoting, include that. If there is something interesting happening in class or school-wide, you can include that too.

• How much information do you want to share? A lot of times parents don't need all the details—they just want enough so that they know what's going on and can make informed decisions. So keep those long emails at home! A short, well-designed email should be sufficient for most communications with parents. Check out my ready-to-send Newsletter Template that will allow you to fill in your information and send away!

• How often will I send newsletters? I send them out at the beginning of the year, and toward the beginning/end of each grading period. This way I can send important information about what we have done, what is due before the end of the grading period (when parents are often asking about assignments), and where we are going in the next grading period. This makes it manageable for teachers that have a lot on their plate, but still understand the importance of keeping parent communication open.

What to include in a newsletter

If you want to create a newsletter, the first thing to consider is what information you’re going to include. Here are some ideas:

• A welcome letter. This is a good idea if it’s your first time sending out a newsletter or if you have new students in your class this year. It gives parents an introduction of who their child is learning under and what they can expect from the year ahead.

• Important dates and events coming up during the school year (for example, picture day or upcoming tests).

• Upcoming assignments or projects, including any deadlines so parents know when their children should be working on them at home.

• A photo from class, include pictures of excellent work done by students in your class as well as any other news that would be interesting to celebrate success (like upcoming events, awards received by students etc.).

• A message directly from you where you talk about what’s going on in class and how things are going generally with students overall.

• Classroom expectations or frequently asked questions that you may get at certain times of the year. Remind parents of what they need to know, so you receive fewer emails asking the same questions. At the very least, you can direct them back to the resources listed in the newsletter or send the newsletter again.

• Resources available at home such as apps, books, LMS pages, articles, etc., to help students that may need a little more support and guidance. 🙂

When to send out your newsletter and how often

Once you've decided to send out a newsletter, you need to decide how often. Once a week is too much for most people; once a month isn't enough for some. Fortunately, there's an easy middle ground: quarterly newsletters! Every three months gives parents enough time to digest the information in each newsletter before receiving another one with more updated information and new topics.

Newsletters can help you keep parents informed about what's going on at school.

Newsletters are a great way to keep parents informed about what's going on at school, they can help you build rapport with parents, and they make sure that many of the questions parents may have are already included in the newsletter. They're also a good way to communicate with parents about classroom events and upcoming assignments.

Newsletters can be especially useful when it comes to communicating with parents about expectations for their students' behavior in the classroom.

Conclusion

We hope you found this post helpful. Use these tips to write your own Newsletter and keep parents informed. You can also check out my Teachers Pay Teachers Store where I have an Editable Newsletter Template ready to send out for different times throughout the year.