Principal Report

HOW TO HELP YOUR CHILDREN BE BETTER STUDENTS

Thousands of students are heading back to school and parents are a vital factor in their children's educational progress. Here are some ways you help your child do better at school this year.

Getting Organised

1. Let your child see you making mistakes.

Parents are their child's first teacher and their lifetime teacher. Part of being a teacher is teaching your child how to deal with making mistakes. Let them see that you can make mistakes and deal with it so they will understand it's not a big deal and they can cope when they trip up.

2. Use e-mail to keep in touch.

E-mail is a great way to reach your child's teacher without having to play phone tag. Teachers then have a record of a conversation or can print information out to put in a student's file as a reminder. If you hear what your children are struggling in, please feel comfortable talking to the teacher about it. We want to know that they need help.

Communication needn't be limited to when there's a problem.

3. Don't tell your child that you weren't good at maths.

Some parents might feel intimidated by the thought of helping children with their maths homework, especially in the upper grades but maths is here to serve you, not to trip you up.

Maths should make life easier, and mastery can start at home with parents showing that they're not frightened by numbers.

One way to make math more accessible is to relate it to daily activities. Capitalise on examples where maths is useful, especially the kinds of calculations adults do daily like measuring ingredients, managing sums of money, working out distances.

This way, children see how what they're learning matters in life.

4. Get organised with a colour-coded system and a checklist.

Older students are expected to be more independent and manage their assignments themselves, but as they transition from primary school to middle school, they might find it hard to keep track of everything. Try using colour-coordinated folders and notebooks to help children keep their material for different subjects organised. Keep a written checklist by their school bags so they can make sure they have packed everything they need.

5. Check their homework, and then have them explain it to you.

It's not enough to just get the answers right. To make sure your children aren't guessing, sometimes ask them to explain what they did and why. This lets you know that the child has completed the task and for the child to actually explain their work helps their learning.

6. Don't compare your child with others.

Don't put pressure on children to be just like others. There's no such thing as the child that's like every other child. They are all different. They all have strengths and weaknesses, they all have talents and challenges."

7. Help your child make connections to literature.

To help your child get the most out of books, focus on problem-solving, social skills and life experience. Take your child to the zoo (life experience). Teach them to ask an adult for help if they lose something (problem-solving) or to hold the door for others (social skills). With skills like these, children will be able to relate their own life experiences to those of book characters, improving their comprehension. If they don't have these life experiences, when they are asked to make deeper connections to reading material, it's hard for them.

8. Middle school and high school are not the time to take a more hands-off approach.

Just because your children are getting older doesn't mean it's time to put them on auto¬pilot. This is the point in their lives when they're trying to sort out who they are. Peer pressure is intense and their connectedness to school can wane. High school students have this air about them that they don't need their parents anymore, but they really do.

9. Don't do everything for your child.

Sometimes it's faster to do things yourself than wait for your children to complete a task. But having everything done for them means they don't learn take care of themselves. Empower your children to think for themselves and be more responsible for themselves.

10. Ask about your child's day.

Stay involved in your child's education, beyond helping with homework. Even small things, like asking a child what happened at school, can be the difference between a child who unplugs at the end of the day and one who continues thinking about what they learned. Give them the kind of feedback that acknowledges and respects their feelings so they know you are really hearing them.