Why is partnership with parents important in a nursery

So it is important to demonstrate these qualities and values from the very start. Possible barriers you may face Now, developing strong relationships with your nursery parents and carers is not always easy!

Working parents may have little time to stop and chat, and may find it difficult to take time off work to attend events or workshops. Parents with limited English may find it difficult to communicate with staff. And parents who are are feeling stressed or struggling with issues at home may feel unable to take part in family sessions or to share their worries. It is important to recognise these and other barriers so that you can find creative ways to overcome them. Listen, answer questions and help parents to feel comfortable.

The Key Person has an essential role to play here. Two-way communication: From day one, consult and involve parents. Ask parents for their views on the setting and find out what would make communication with you easier for them.

Accessible information: Provide clear and up-to-date policies and procedures in accessible formats. Not only does this help build trust in the child, it also creates trust for the parents, too.

But, for this to be fully effective, parents need to be willing to get involved. Parent partnerships, then, clarify the expectations for everyone. Good relationships with day nurseries helps you manage your expectations and raise any concerns that you have about their learning.

It also allows a school to set their expectation of how involved parents should be outside of the classroom. Children learn at different rates. Monthly newsletters are a great way to ensure everyone is kept up-to-date on not only what the children are learning, but also on any changes that are made at school.

There are multiple ways you can begin to put your partnership into practice. For example, if both parent and key worker have noticed that the child often gathers objects in bags and transports them around the home and nursery, they could agree to provide a collection of bags and everyday objects at home and similar resources in nursery. They could also arrange for the nursery to provide buckets, stones and shells in the outdoor area and for the child's father to take a bucket on walks to the park so that the child can collect and transport conkers, twigs and leaves.

Alternatively, the key worker and parent may decide to make a change in family circumstances the focus for planning. Perhaps relatives are coming to stay for some time and the mother is planning to involve the child in preparing a room and food for their guests. In response, the practitioner could provide additional resources in the nursery home corner and make time to discuss and 'play out' the experience with the child. Summative reports offer parents a written summary of the child's learning and are usually organised under the six areas of learning.

These should be discussed with the parents and their contributions incorporated in a section provided on the format. In a high-quality setting, practitioners will share with parents information about the Foundation Stage curriculum and about young children as learners, as opportunities arise.

However, group parents meetings are an excellent way to:. Practitioners should be on hand to answer questions, although it would generally be inappropriate to discuss a specific child's learning in such meetings. It is also worth pointing out that practitioners should only lead such meetings if they have confidence in their presentation skills and their underpinning knowledge of child development and early learning.

Less experienced members of staff could, however, support a more experienced one in delivering a presentation and managing discussions. Be responsive to the needs of individuals and the community when arranging the timing of such meetings. For working parents, a late afternoon or evening time slot will probably be the most convenient, but other parents may prefer to attend during the day. Video observations and photographs shown on a large screen are a good way to illustrate talks and to make the link between principles and practice, but ask parents' permission to use these images with a wider audience.

Study group meetings Settings could follow up these group meetings with smaller study group meetings, in which practitioners use video observations as a means to analyse a child's learning in depth. Again, the issue of confidentiality should be addressed and anxieties handled sensitively. Once a group of parents are familiar and comfortable with each other, they are likely to feel more relaxed about contributing to discussions.

Workshops with parents and children working together in the setting can be an effective, informal and hands-on way to reinforce messages given at group and individual meetings and focus on an area of learning or provision. For example, post up a card in the construction area saying, 'Can you work together to make a garage big enough for this car? Practitioners should aim to provide parents with daily digital photographs offering evidence of their child's learning, as such a system is easy to organise once the equipment is available and software installed.

Replaying the images on a 'loop' or slide show on the computer screen at the end of each day or session will also be popular with both children and adults. The photographs will enable the children to revisit their experiences during the day and to share these with parents. Practitioners could provide photographs that focus on an area of learning or provision, a key group of children or a particular learning story. Or, they could provide a random selection illustrating the breadth of learning experiences observed that day in both indoor and outdoor provision.

Again, this can be an effective way of celebrating learning that has no tangible outcome. A brief written explanation or statement accompanying the images may be helpful - for example, 'Look at all the different writing experiences your children have had around nursery today' or 'Look what we have been finding out in the water area today'. Display, such as a permanent board designated for parents' information, can be an effective way of sharing up-to-date news about events in the nursery and the community.

Copies of nursery newsletters and guidance leaflets could be made available there. Other displays celebrating children's work around the nursery should be annotated to make clear to parents the significance of their children's play and learning.